John Baer: Pay, perks & politics in a state of disarray

THE EVEN-for-Harrisburg bizarre state budget stuff continues to defy reason and beg the question of whether leadership in either party has an ounce-and-a-half of sense combined.

It sure doesn't seem so.

Pennsylvania's the only state without a budget, now 78 days late, thanks to the nation's largest Legislature with the nation's largest staff working with the nation's formerly largest governor.

(His Edness lost a ton of weight and, yeah, OK, maybe New Mexico's Bill Richardson and Mississippi's Haley Barbour contended.)

While government continues, and employees and lawmakers are paid - since a "stopgap" budget enacted in July - others suffer.

Philly awaits action on its plan to raise the local sales tax 1 percent to avoid city service meltdowns and layoffs representing (forgive me) "a Nutter disaster."

Nonprofits that rely on state money to provide child day care for working parents, pre-school programs, homeless aid, programs for drug and alcohol treatment, mental health and mental retardation and more are left to borrow, beg or cut services.

All of this - somehow avoided in 49 other states - is due to ongoing ineptness, partisan elbowing and nasty disagreements.

All that's missing? Guest appearances by South Carolina Congressman Joe Wilson at Capitol news conferences to yell out, "You lie!"

Three of the four legislative caucuses - Senate Republicans and Senate and House Democrats - are pushing an "agreed-to plan" that House Republicans say spends too much and Gov. Ed says spends too little.

Education funding, economic development and revenue estimates are at issue.

It's a plan of cuts and targeted taxes, such as 25-cents more on a pack of cigarettes, that adds the inevitable table games to casinos but offers nothing that couldn't have been offered in May.

Rendell, stung and feeling betrayed by fellow Democrats, calls its revenue projections "wildly optimistic" and labels it "phony."

Last week, GOP Senate Leader Dominic Pileggi, Democratic Senate Minority Leader Bob Mellow and House Democratic Leader Todd Eachus said that this is a final agreement.

Ha.

Even if they put this together and pass it, Rendell says he'll veto it. That could lead to override battles, more infighting and a budget that Rendell won't live with. And that could lead to him exercising his constitutional authority to not spend money.

He could, for example, refuse to authorize a reported $100 million in WAMS (so-called walking-around-money that lawmakers use for pet projects) that the Legislature seems intent on funding, even as it cuts other services because, you know, charity begins at home.

Pileggi this week acknowledged the guv's "tremendous authority" over spending and suggested that certain use of that authority could mean for Ed "an unpleasant final year."

Some call Pileggi "Cool Hand Dom."

Ed's not so subtle. This week he tagged the tri-caucus plan a "get-out-of-town budget" and said that he told leaders, "Maybe this is a handicap in our business, but I believe in things," such as education and fiscal responsibility.

The clear implication is that the rest of you are heartless heathens interested only in pay, perks and politics.

And this signals improved relations. Last month Ed suggested that it might be a "good idea" to get legislative leaders in a room and gas them.

So, what's next?

With many of Rendell's proposals (increasing the personal-income tax, taxing cigars and smokeless tobacco, legalizing video poker, dissolving 400 school districts) apparently off the table, common sense suggests tweaking the tri-caucus budget into a thing Rendell can sign.

A little more for education. A little more in targeted taxes. Everybody stands together and declares a best-we-could-do-in-hard-times budget for the people of Pennsylvania.

And the people of Pennsylvania take it, forget it and next year re-elect the same people that made it such a long, costly embarrassment. *

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