Chosen few broker state budget
Is this any way to run a commonwealth? Of course not. But welcome to Pennsylvania, where the largest full-time legislature in the United States and second largest of any kind – 50 senators and 203 members of the House – can vote on a $28.2 billion budget, a few scant hours before public employees get layoff notices, without knowing what that spending package includes.
A few of them knew, of course: the chosen few – the elite, the legislative leaders who huddled behind closed doors with Gov. Ed Rendell and his representatives to reach a compromise before time ran out and state government would, for the second consecutive year, be shut down.
That would have meant political suicide, so, after posturing for weeks and scoring all the points they could, Pennsylvania’s de facto dictators finally got down to the business that benefited incumbents of both parties – they don’t need another election marked by voter outrage such as the first one after the infamous self-granted pay raise of 2005.
And all the back-benchers in the General Assembly – comprising all but the handful of leaders who were privy to the last-minute bargaining – were given their orders: Here’s the budget; approve it.
A sincere lawmaker, even one with little or no clout, might ask: Does it include enough money for pre-kindergarten programs, green energy development and transportation infrastructure repair? Does it allocate funds to school districts fairly?
Do projected revenues really match expenditures, or is voodoo economics being employed to create the appearance of balance? Don’t worry about it, the hypothetical public servant is told. Just vote for it. You can read the fine print – and the large print, if you care to – over your two-month summer vacation, which begins … right about now.
Of course, Harrisburg being what it is, there was no guarantee that the carefully crafted deal (if one can be careful with sledgehammers and chain saws) would not fall apart before the midnight Monday deadline. But everyone involved – Rendell and the only legislators who count – was “confident” and “pleased” and downright proud of himself.
And so, the legislators go home to their districts to tell their constituents how fortunate they are to be so well-represented. Rendell rides off into the sunset of a likely Cabinet post in Washington if the Democrats win the White House.
Meanwhile, in Harrisburg, the capital of the Keystone State, nothing has changed. Nothing at all.