Tea Party Pope?

I report, you decide. This is an excerpt from a recent Fortune article about Pope Francis.

The pope’s strategy for addressing both spending and pension issues is to gradually shrink the Vatican workforce through attrition and raise more money to maintain the benefits. In February of 2014 he imposed a hiring freeze and also stopped formerly generous overtime payments. The plan is to move existing employees from overstaffed congregations to growth areas, such as financial management, without replacing those who depart.

You have to read through a lot of yadda-yadda to get to this which, to me, is the meat. Workforce reduction is the only way to meaningfully reform a budget. If you think in terms of centuries like the Catholic Church does, attrition is the best way to do it. Cutting overtime is a great idea to since it saves money right away AND can make people quit who need their cushy lifestyle. They should grub for it in the "non-Church" sector.

This is what I wish would happen in our government at all levels. Due to automation, we should need less employees than we used to in places like the IRS and the welfare/unemployment offices. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Takeaway quote from the Pope on money:

Pope Francis has a complex but pragmatic view of money. “Money is useful to carry out many things, for works to support humanity,” he has said. “But when your heart is attached to it, it destroys you.”

Classic virtue of detachment, put simply. Not sure what is "complex" about that.