Still got the budget blues

Šeit par dažiem citiem trekno gadu skaitļiem
http://www.lolitacigane.com/2010/12/viens-tumsa-meza.html

One of the reasons for many public sector employees could be “compassionate consolidation” Latvian-style – i.e. the number of public jobs stays the same, but their salaries are reduced. In addition to being compassionate, such policies are good for the self-esteem of certain high-ranked bureaucrats – as they still have large staff working for them.

In the sparsely populated countryside compassionate consolidation makes some sense – say, having one teacher per every 5 pupils, or fully staffed municipality in a village of 1500 people. If these guys do not get their micro-salaries, they might emigrate. But in Riga and some other larger cities it is much better to cut unnecessary public jobs; labor market (like any other market) should reflect the true state of affairs.

firing some government employees would both reduce budget deficit (one wage less to pay from the budget), and increase the budget revenues (one more productive taxpayer in private sector!)

is this so hard to realize?

we cannot say, that gov. sector is still so “fat” as was before, because lot of consolidation actions was performed in there. if there were some figures for gov efficiency (not just raw spending cut statistics), those can be much better criteria for Mr.Dombrovskis budget consolidation plan.