It's difficult to look a budget problem that doubles in five years to $4.5 billion and not be concerned about its cause, but thanks for telling us all is well in spite of the enormity of that balloon payment because, hey, the Tier 1 outliers are dying off at an impressive rate.

Here's the real problem: we're still making more Tier 1 outliers-in-waiting. Someone hired in the early '90s may be south of age 50 today and still working, for perhaps another decade or more.

Take, for example, the Oregon football coaching staff. Five assistants, all Tier 1 hires, make a cumulative $2 million in salary. All will likely retire in the next three to 10 years -- if the pitchfork-and-torch crowd doesn't get to them first -- and live another 10 to 20 years beyond that.

Now, start factoring in all the other Tier 1 employees who were similarly hired, albeit with salaries that didn't inflate quite so grandly in proportion to their worth, and maybe the taxpayer angst is easier to appreciate.