That was an interesting editorial cartoon (“Chez Gregoire” and the state budget, Auburn Reporter, Dec. 3).

Front and center: Chris Gregoire’s “Joker”-style grin, while she holds a platter of bare bones. That’s her bare-bones budget. No blame for the unregulated subprime mortgage industry here. Behind Gregoire, the four sacrificial lambs:

• “Public Safety” – Fair enough. Most consider public safety a top priority, where bare bones is really expensive.

• “Higher Ed” – Who needs a bunch of ivory tower eggheads anyway? India and China have plenty to share with us.

• “Social Services” – Ah, the image of welfare moms on the dole. (A tiny portion of Social Services.) How about children’s health? (A much bigger component.) Do we really want children paying for their parents’ layoffs?

• “Enviros” – Whining tree huggers, who needs ’em? So what if environmental regulations keep us from (further) poisoning ourselves.

Our cartoonist suggests that it won’t hurt too much to cut these victims past the bone. Wait a minute, what about our biggest victim, K-12 schools?

They’re 42 percent of the general fund. It’s strange, our cartoonist didn’t rank K-12 as a sacrificial lamb. K-12’s share of our $6 billion deficit is $2.5 billion. Gregoire proposes holding K-12 cuts to “only” $1 billion. (That’s $12,000 per classroom, per year.)

Have you volunteered in any of our one-teacher/27-child kindergartens? I do. It’s not pretty. That’s before K-12’s $1B cut.

A billion-dollar public schools cut leaves us cutting police, colleges and children’s health care by 30 percent. Not quite the picture the cartoonist painted.

– Pat Montgomery