A commentary on our do-nothing legislature... what I dont understand is how this is acceptable to anyone! EDITORIALS Pa. lawmakers deserved their spanking from the governor POSTED: 07/12/14, 3:31 PM EDT | 0 COMMENTS The Republican family feud in Harrisburg sure is getting interesting. It’s so tense, this week the unofficial father of that GOP family — Gov. Tom Corbett — cut off part of the kids’ allowance in the General Assembly. And rightly so, because they’ve been acting like greedy brats. For years, government watchdogs have been howling about the General Assembly’s slush fund. Currently, that reserve account has about $150 million -- surplus money that’s not need to fund the Legislature’s ludicrously expensive operations. Why are lawmakers holding a surplus at a time when the state faces a huge deficit? It’s there, lawmakers say, in case they get into a feud with the governor over the budget and he cuts off their funding. How would the poor dears survive? They argue that they can’t be in a position where the governor has paycheck leverage over them. So they squirrel money away just in case (and spend it on some other politically squirrelly things). Well, lawmakers are in a feud with the governor over the budget. The governor wanted pension reform. Lawmakers passed a budget without that and headed off for a long summer vacation. Would Mr. Corbett sign the budget? Yes, but he vetoed $65 million from the Legislature’s budget. He explained that he’d asked lawmakers during the budget process to draw down the slush fund by about $75 million and use that money to plug some of the budget holes. No deal -- and, in fact, lawmakers increased their own budget by 2 percent. So, when he signed the budget, the governor redlined $65 million (not even the full $75 million), and said lawmakers could replace that money from their slush fund. (Or, here’s a crazy idea: Our very expensive Legislature could actually cut some of its spending, reducing perks, staff, etc.) What Gov. Corbett is basically saying is, if you’re not going to melt some of your slush fund, I’m going to do it for you. It’s basically a spanking for lawmakers. And it’s basically the right thing to do, too — even if it was for political reasons. Why should $150 million be sitting around doing nothing when our roads are crumbling, our property taxes are spiraling, our pension debts are rising? Yes, any prudent business manager will tell you to hold a surplus for a rainy day. But it’s been pouring in Pennsylvania for years now. We just can’t afford to have lawmakers sitting on a pile of cash so they can maintain the lifestyles to which they become accustomed. Of course, lawmakers could have the last laugh here. They could override the governor’s veto. But if they do, we can only hope there will be a political price to pay for looking after their own interests rather than citizens’.
Posted on: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 14:00:36 +0000
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