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Karen Heller: Lawmakers think small, do little - again

Friends, welcome to the latest installment of the Pennsylvania parlor game, "Why Think Big?" This is where local and state legislators resist much movement toward progress. Instead, they do what comes naturally, thinking small and doing little until their backs are pushed against the wall.

Friends, welcome to the latest installment of the Pennsylvania parlor game, "Why Think Big?"

This is where local and state legislators resist much movement toward progress. Instead, they do what comes naturally, thinking small and doing little until their backs are pushed against the wall.

And by wall, I mean a paid three-month summer recess from legislating, due to begin any day now.

Philadelphia Traffic Court is all but dead, awaiting Gov. Corbett's signature to meet that big yellow boot in the sky. "This is a court with a multigenerational tradition of dysfunction," said Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), cosponsor of the bill to kill the hackatorium. "No one can rationally defend its continued existence."

You would think that. But you would be wrong.

Has Pileggi met State Rep. Curtis Thomas? The Philadelphia Democrat said recently - you can't make this up - "There is no need to destroy Traffic Court because of a history of corruption."

Thucydides couldn't do justice to this history of corruption. The latest scandal in an ongoing series resulted in the indictment of nine judges, enough to stock a really lousy Supreme Court.

Then again, Pileggi represents Chester, a mini-golf version of Philadelphia with many of the same problems. Yet Pileggi has often seemed indifferent to helping his neighbor. Instead, he has been busy trying to help the national Republican Party with a bill that would carve up Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes like so much breakfast hash.

The public schools are in crisis, not just in Philadelphia but in all Pennsylvania districts serving poor children. But Philadelphia is in an especially dismal state, $304 million in the hole with the announced layoffs of nearly 4,000 employees that would utterly devastate the schools.

And how, until the final hours in another Perils-of-Pauline moment, did city and state legislators react to this looming academic disaster? Most of them by proposing little and doing less.

In Council, a liquor-by-the-drink tax is pretty much dead. A bill to increase the Use and Occupancy tax stalled. A $2-a-pack cigarette tax was unanimously approved, projected to raise $40 million, but awaits approval in Harrisburg, where it could meet opposition.

Jannie Blackwell called for an elected school board to replace the School Reform Commission when it finally has strong leadership. The proposal comes precisely a month after less than 10 percent of city voters bothered casting ballots and handed the election to candidates tapped by party bosses. An elected school board would likely promise more of the same.

In Harrisburg, there were few good ideas generated by what the Daily News' John Baer called "the usually rudderless, powerless 26-member Philly delegation, best known for, well, nothing."

Then, on Tuesday, the heavens parted and solutions were proposed. People were thinking big! Why? Because Thursday is the last day Council is scheduled to meet before its paid three-month summer recess, a full day in advance of the public schools.

If the cigarette tax fails to gain state approval, City Council President Darrell L. Clarke would move to "Plan B?" What's that? Clarke's not saying, although he noted the city would provide $74 million for the schools, more than the "ask" of $60 million.

That total is predicated on the city doing a better job of collecting taxes, which - not to brag or anything - Philadelphia is really bad at doing. Mayor Nutter was six years into his tenure before he named a "collections czar," a highly bureaucratic term for "I'm finally doing something about this huge problem we did little about for too long."

The Corbett administration, along with city and state officials, was busy assembling as much as $100 million for Philadelphia schools, including federal funds contingent on the district getting concessions from the teachers' union.

Why did we have to endure months of this crisis, and cause distress among students, parents, teachers, and staff? Why didn't legislators and leaders work harder and sooner on better proposals?

Which brings us full circle to the original question: Why think big?