The fiscal chief
The nation may have averted the fiscal cliff, but we already have fiscal federal courts – according to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.’s latest annual report on the judiciary.
Roberts noted that “for each citizen’s tax dollar, only two-tenths of one penny go toward funding the entire third branch of government!” Still, he wrote, the judiciary has done its part to pinch those pennies in these perilous financial times by implementing cost-cutting measures to reduce rent, personnel and information technology expenses.
But those measures have all but reached their limits. “Because the Judiciary has already pursued cost-containment so aggressively, it will become increasingly difficult to economize further without reducing the quality of judicial services,” Roberts wrote. “[I] therefore encourage the President and Congress to be especially attentive to the needs of the Judicial Branch and provide the resources necessary for its operations. Those vital resource needs include the appointment of an adequate number of judges to keep current on pending cases.”
