Daily Archives: May 9, 2011

Celebrity Salaries from TV Guide

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You thought YOU were overworked and underpaid.  Julie Kavner and Yeardley Smith, the voices of Bart and Lisa on “The Simpsons”, only make $400,000 …. per episode.   So stop your whining, things are tough all over.

Dramas per EPISODE!

  • $550,000 – Kiefer Sutherland “24”
  • $400,000 – Hugh Laurie “House”
  • $400,000 – Mariska Hargitay “Law and Order: SUV”
  • $400,000 – Christopher Meloni “Law and Order: SUV”
  • $390,000 – Marg Helgenberger “CSI”
  • $375,000 – David Caruso “CSI: Miami”
  • $350,000 – Laurence Fishburne “CSI”
  • $325,000 – Mark Harmon “NCIS”
  • $275,000 – Ellen Pompeo “Grey’s Anatomy”
  • $250,000 – Tim Roth “Lie to Me”
  • $250,000 – Kate Walsh “Private Practice”
  • $250,000 – Patrick Dempsey “Grey’s Anatomy”
  • $250,000 – Simon Baker “The Mentalist”
  • $250,000 – Calista Flockhart “Brothers and Sisters”
  • $225,000 – Patricia Arquette “Medium”
  • $175,000 – Tom Welling “Smallville”
  • $150,000 – Jennifer Love Hewitt “Ghost Wisperer”
  • $150,000 – Sally Field “Brothers and Sisters”
  • $150,000 – Chris O’Donnell “NCIS: Los Angeles”
  • $150,000 – LL Cool J “NCIS:
  • $125,000 – Peter Krause “Parenthood”
  • $50,000 – Chace Crawford “Gossip Girl”
  • $50,000 – Blake Lively “Gossip Girl”

Comedy – Per Episode

  • $875,000 – Charlie Sheen “Two and A Half Men” (figure includes ownership stake in the series)
  • $400,000 – Felicity Huffman “Desperate Housewives”
  • $400,000 – Marcis Cross “Desperate Housewives”
  • $400,000 – Teri Hatcher “Desperate Housewives”
  • $400,000 – Eva Longoria Parker “Desperate Housewives”
  • $400,000 – Dan Castellaneta “The Simpsons”
  • $400,000 – Yeardley Smith “The Simpsons”
  • $400,000 – Julie Kavner “The Simpsons”
  • $400,000 – Nancy Cartwright “The Simpsons”
  • $350,000 – Zach Braff “Scrubs”
  • $300,000 – Tina Fey “30 Rock”
  • $300,000 – Alec Baldwin “30 Rock”
  • $275,000 – Julia Louis-Drefus “Old Christine”
  • $200,000 – Patricia Heaton “The Middle”
  • $175,000 – Kelsey Grammer “Hawk”
  • $150,000 – Neil Patrick Harris “How I Met Your Mother”
  • $150,000 – Jay Mohr “Gary Unmarried”
  • $125,000 – Jenna Elfman “Accidentally on Purpose”
  • $100,000 – Courteney Cox “Cougar Town”
  • $50,000 – Joel McHale “Community”
  • $7,500 – Starting salary for player on “Saturday Night Live”

Cable – Per Episode

  • $275,000 – Kyra Sedgwick “The Closer”
  • $250,000 – Denis Leary “Rescue Me”
  • $200,000 – Glenn Close “Damages”
  • $175,000 – Julian McMahon “Nip/Tuck”
  • $150,000 – Holly Hunter “Saving Grace”
  • $135,000 – Jeffrey Donovan “Burn Notice”
  • $75,000 – Thomas Jane “Hung”
  • $75,000 – Jon Hamm “Mad Men”

Reality

  • $15 million per year – Ryan Seacrest
  • $150,000 per episode – Jeff Probst
  • $150,000 per episode – Jon and Kate

Late Night – Per Year

  • $32 million – David Letterman
  • $30 million – Jay Leno
  • $14 million – Conan O’Brien
  • $14 million – Jon Stewart
  • $6 million – Jimmy Kimmel

News – Per Year

  • $15 million – Katie Couric CBS
  • $13 million – Matt Lauer “NBC”
  • $12 million – Diane Sawyer “ABC”
  • $10 million – Meredith Vieira “NBC”
  • $10 million – Bill O’Reilly “Fox News Channel”
  • $7.5 million – Keith Olbermann “MSNBC”
  • $7 million – Larry King “CNN”
  • $5 million – Anderson Cooper “CNN”
  • $3 million – Wolf Blitzer “CNN”
  • $3 million – Chris Matthews “MSNBC”
  • $2 million – Glenn Beck “Fox News Channel”
Source: TV Guide

How “balanced state budgets” … aren’t balanced.

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I’m starting to review the Oregon state budget and realizing how spurious the claim is that balanced budget requirements are why we should not worry much about the state of many state budgets.    Many crises are looming and I’m tired of advocates simply working to protect *their* special interests.   Recipients of public funding should come to the table with more effective use of their tax share or they should be shown the door.

http://www.oregon.gov/DAS/BAM/docs/Budget_Policy/2011-13_GBB.pdf

First, most states effectively rename deficits as “shortfalls”, often scrambling to balance things late in a two year budget process.     Far more important however is the fact that about half of the “total revenues”  in Oregon (and I asssume in most other states), comes from the federal government in the form of grants and other federal to state payments.    Now, the federal government *can* run a deficit, and has been choosing to increase that deficit massively since Bill Clinton left office.   Therefore a LOT of the money we spend as a state is in fact “borrowed money”, borrowed at the federal level from … wait for it … our children!     Thanks kids and young folks for funding the reckless spending of the older generations.  Ironically you aren’t participating much in politics and many of you don’t even realize what’s going on right now as we spend and spend … your money.

Caveat:  Most economists agree that the economy is fragile right now and some major spending by government is needed to continue the bailout and stimulus strategies that appear to have worked well.   I’m not disputing that, but I am suggesting that there will be hell to pay if we don’t start managing government spending far more responsibly than we have in some time.    This means cutting both entitlements and defense and – unless very deep cuts are made soon – raising taxes too.    People who think we can balance things without either huge cuts or substantial tax increases are just foolish.  There’s no easy path after decades of reckless spending.