Why is The Journal so preoccupied with the money that state workers make?

Recent articles have explored who is the highest-paid state worker and how much overtime is being paid, as if the state workers were the ones at fault for Rhode Island’s financial trouble.

Here’s a suggestion: Why not look into how much the bond issues that voters approve every election are costing the taxpayers?

Last election, they approved about $200 million in bond issues without blinking an eye. Most voters didn’t even know what they were approving. They just looked at that title in big letters and said, “That sounds good; I’ll approve that!”

What they don’t realize is that all those bonds have to be paid for, over the next 20 years and with interest, even those bonds with matching funds.

That’s right, those matching-fund bonds have to be paid for; it’s not free money, as some special-interest groups would like you to believe.

Yes, some state workers do make a lot of money in overtime, in part because of understaffing.

But most of the state’s financial problem is caused by uninformed voters, who spend money without knowing where the money is going to come from. Eventually, it comes out of the voters’ pockets.

ROBERT DAVIS

Smithfield

The writer is a retired state employee.