Poor people, children, the elderly, the environment -- all of these will get hit hard when the Legislature finally gets around to passing a budget. But one group of Californians won't suffer -- the legislators themselves. In all the wrangling over what to cut and what to keep in the budget, according to a Sacramento Bee story by Jim Sanders, one untouchable item is $15 million to increase staff for Assembly and Senate members.

"Even when state coffers are bare and legislators are fighting over funding for public services from transit to prisons, the Legislature's own budget rises, year after year -- automatically," Sanders writes.

"The number of lawmakers -- 120 -- never changes, but their spending has jumped by 41% since 2000, a rate higher than the general fund's 32% increase since then. The state's average annual rate of inflation was 2.9% during the same period."

And here I was thinking that "taking care of your own" applied to constituents.