David Ramsey reports that Senate President Michael Lamoureux has killed the effort by Sen. Bruce Maloch to curb spending on the lieutenant governor’s office staff. We’ll apparently continue to employ $267,000 a year on people with nothing to do because they are political cronies of Lamoureux

Maloch made no effort to cut any of the four-member staff’s pay or benefit through July 1. But he proposed a cut in   the $267,000 payroll to enough for one person in the final six months of the calendar year. A successor will be elected to take office in January 2015.

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Lamoureux  has killed the bill, marooning it in committee. No other Republican is making a peep, probably because a trusted GOP hack, Bruce Campbell, who knocks down $75,000 a year, is father-in-law of Republican Joint Budget Co-Chair Duncan Baird and a long feeder at the Republican patronage trough. A member of a Saline County Republican family, Josh Curtis, also holds down a $51,000 job.

Lamoureux takes care of his own. He at least did support the private option for health insurance for working people. They make a good bit less than the $16 to $37.50 an hour the dead wood in the lieutenant governor’s office makes. And they have a well-subsidized state insurance policy, including a no co-pay option, another fringe Republicans find too luxurious for poor people.

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