Benoit Turns Down Pay Raise.
Posted by: Dave Everett | 12/30/2007 12:09 AM
Assemblyman John Benoit is the only Inland lawmaker to decline a recent legislative raise of $259. He deserves credit for his principled anti-spending stance and the example he is trying to set.However, I'd have rather seen him take the raise and give it to charity or some GOP club. Only because any money left from a decline of the raise will go back to the general fund where the Democrats can spend it. Still a noble gesture that should be commended.
Pay raise? Thanks, but no thanks.
...Not every state lawmaker is embracing a $259-a-month raise taking effect this month.
Last week, Assemblyman John J. Benoit, R-Bermuda Dunes, sent a letter to the state controller's office declining the boost to legislators' $113,097 annual base salary. An independent commission had approved the increase.
As of Friday, no other Inland lawmaker had declined the raise.
In an interview, Benoit said he turned down the raise because the state faces a projected $10 billion budget shortfall. An upcoming Senate primary fight had nothing to do with his decision, he said.
Benoit is running against former Assemblyman Russ Bogh in the Republican primary for Riverside County's 37th Senate District. Both Bogh and Benoit accepted $990-a-month pay raises two years ago, when they served in the Assembly together. Benoit took a $185-a-month raise last December, after Bogh had left office.
It's not the first time a legislator has begged off a pay increase heading into a tough election season.
The Speaker is having $3000 bottles of wine in a cave in France and John Benoit is turning down a modest raise. I don't think the difference between the two parties and the way they view spending could be any clearer.
Conservative ideas are not dead, there a just dang few conservatives who can communicate....
Declining the raise or giving it to charity, the Rebublicans deserve some credit for fighting for fiscal restraint the last few budgets.
The fiscal day of ruining is here and it is time to cut welfare - not education or releasing prisoners.
John Benoit is a fraud, a sellout, and a Gray Davis Republican.
He and his minions want to rewrite history and say it isn't so, but the record speaks for itself. If the voters want to know how John Benoit really feels about sending, all they have to do is look at his legislative record that sold the taxpayers of California out in favor of Democratic spending priorities that have nearly destroyed the State of California.
In 2003, Benoit voted for Gray Davis' budget that tripled the Car Tax and contained a massive deficit that still haunts our state.
Benoit also voted for the trailer bill to steal the gas tax money that should have been spent on transportation projects and put it into the general fund that helped pay for cost of living increases to welfare recipients and an expansion of goverment funded healthcare.
And lets not forget about his vote for the Medi-Cal trailer bill to spend $100 million of taxpayer money on abortions.
Now Benoit's apologists want voters to believe he's such a great guy for turning down a legislative pay raise that he doesn't need because he's receiving a tax free retirement that is worth at least ten times as much as the raise.
Funny thing about that is that while Benoit's so disabled that he can't work, he somehow could still pass the even more rigorous physical fitness requirements to have a pilots license so he can fly his private plane all over the state at taxpayer expense.
Hopefully the voters will recognize John Benoit as the fraud, the sellout, and the Gray Davis Republican that he is and finally send him into a real retirement.
I couldn't confirm or deny any of those charges against Benoit, but in my opinion, that type of angry tone is going to hurt the party in the desert.
I think Bogh and Benoit are good guys, but in a year where Republicans are going to get our butt's kicked on the national level, holding Bonnie Garcia's seat is one of the few realistics wins we could have.
If this tone spills into the 80th race or even if it splits the desert Republican Party - that is not good.
Don't worry, Tone it Down, that's just a low level Bogh volunteer draining his venom after a play session with his Star Wars dolls. The voters won't be so easily amused with Bogus Bogh's antics.