Pennsylvania Lawmakers Don't Want 'Real' Reform

In today's editorial the Harrisburg Patriot-News asks whether or not state lawmakers have the "courage" to push for real reform by cutting state spending. I had to chuckle after reading the editorial. I couldn't help but think to myself just how much legislative leaders in Harrisburg actually hate reform.

For years state lawmakers were allowed to pass expensive legislation and increase state spending without much oversight or accountability. They voted themselves lavish pension increases, illegal pay raises, and bloated budgets that has put us in our current fiscal mess. And the lack of accountability by the voters has resulted in Pennsylvania having one of the largest, most expensive, and most corrupt state legislature's in the country.

How large is our state government? The following is a passage from the article that pretty much sums up the situation.

With 253 seats, our Legislature is the second largest in the United States, but that doesn’t tell the real story. The largest is New Hampshire; its 424 citizen-legislators are paid $200 for a two-year term.

One can only dream.

By contrast, Keystone lawmakers are the second-highest paid in the nation, according to the Pennsylvania Economy League. And California, with the highest salaries, has 120 seats for nearly three times our population.

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Pennsylvania voters and good government advocacy groups continue to put tremendous pressure on state lawmakers to reform state government and stop the wasteful spending. A great example of this occurred in July 2005 when state lawmakers got too greedy and passed a middle of the night pay raise that would have raise some legislators salaries by 30%. The outrage by voters ended up forcing legislative leaders to repeal the pay raise four months later.

Although the pay raise repeal was a success, I think Pennsylvania voters need to ask themselves this election year what really has changed since the repeal of the pay raise in Harrisburg? Most efforts to reform state government have been basically ignored by legislative leaders.

The state budget has continued to increase more than the rate of inflation at a time when working Pennsylvanians are struggling to keep their jobs and pay household bills. The current "bonusgate" corruption trial has brought to the forefront how legislative leader's in both parties used the power of their offices for personal and political gain.

The real truth is that most state lawmakers don't want reform in Harrisburg. State lawmakers love things just the way they are. They like the per diems and perks paid for on public dime. They like the lavish pensions they will receive when they retire. They like that Pennsylvania taxpayers pay for their health care plans with no personal out of pocket cost to them.

It's funny that most state lawmakers even after the repeal of the pay raise still believed they deserved it. So I asked this question to the Patriot-News Editorial Board, do you really think our current state lawmakers want "real reform"? It's not a question of courage when the entire legislative process is controlled by greed.