"Chainsaw" Matt Blunt Wields the, Well, Chainsaw

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch should have put an MP3 of sorrowful violins behind this story: Hundreds of state workers are losing their jobs

Job security has been one of the advantages of state government jobs.

Sure, the Legislature trimmed the staff in tight times. But the cutbacks usually hit what some called phantom employees - vacant positions.

Things are different now.

Under Gov. Matt Blunt, hundreds of pink slips have gone out - and more are coming.

That's unfortunate, but it's less a result of Matt Blunt being just plain mean than it's a result of fattening the state government beyond what its revenue could sustain. Think of it as an economic environmentally unfriendly lifestyle, and Matt Blunt is going all Kyoto on his predegovernor's ill-conceived public gluttony.

Blunt is trying to plug a $360 million hole in the budget without raising taxes. Missouri had been using one-time funds - such as federal grants and revenue bonds - to pay ongoing expenses. Blunt, a Republican who took office in January, opposes temporary patches. Trimming the bureaucracy is part of his solution.

That, friends, is fiscal responsibility, and that's why, in spite of his flaws, we here at DMB2008 want to, well, Draft Matt Blunt 2008. He's accepting the task and unafraid to be called heartless when he cuts the bureaucracy by 1.6%.