Can Gov. Wolf make us believe?

A COLUMN that starts by quoting Voltaire is likely to get serious.

So here goes.

The 18th-century French philosopher is credited with saying, "Faith consists in believing what reason cannot."

Well, Gov. Wolf is asking for serious amounts of faith. And doing so despite what reason (and experience) tells us about Pennsylvania, Land of Low Expectations.

This underpins his actions and agenda. It might be his greatest challenge.

Can he make us believe?

Last week, he announced a new Governor's Office of Transformation, Innovation, Management and Efficiency to save tax dollars and improve government.

The title alone screams lean and mean, no?

He said it's not about cutting jobs or services, but "everything's on the table." He offered no examples of savings but wants $150 million now, hundreds of millions "over time."

He agreed that "there's good reason for everybody to be skeptical," but claimed that he can do in government what he did in the private sector: consolidate operations, improve customer service.

Oh, how we want to believe - again. But it is a tad familiar.

In 1996, Gov. Tom Ridge's Improve Management Performance and Cost Control Task Force (another catchy title) found ways to save $7.3 billion over five years.

That's billion, with a b.

Three years later, the administration announced savings of $314 million, a number somewhat south of expectations.

Since then, Gov. Ed Rendell claimed $1 billion saved in efficiencies over eight years, and Gov. Tom Corbett $600 million over four.

Are you thinking, "Hey, where's my tax rebate?"

Well, in 1996 the state budget was $16 billion. Today it's $29 billion. So there's that.

I suppose the answer is that absent all those past efficiencies, spending would be much, much higher.

Ya gotta believe.

Or have faith that the new guv, a "different" kind of leader, can do better than some or as well as others as he tries for the same efficiencies/savings.

But then faith is required for much of what Wolf wants.

He wants to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans who control the Legislature. But he starts by firing a veteran Republican aide from a post to which outgoing Corbett named him - head of the independent Office of Open Records.

Faith can help us believe that Wolf's motive was pure - designed, as he says, to protect "the integrity" of open records.

Otherwise we might see the move as self-protecting, or seeking street cred to show that although he's a York Countian, he's no rural rube.

(By the way, if the office is independent, scrubbed of all possible partisanship, why do governors, all of whom come to office through a partisan political process, get to pick who runs it? Why not an independent commission?)

Wolf espouses fundamental change in the state's political culture - which, if you're new here, is stagnant, insular and corrupt.

So when he quickly reaches political accord on nominees for two Supreme Court vacancies, using the time-honored deal of one from each party, we need faith to believe that this is but a quick fix to attain the court's complement and not a nod to the status quo.

Yet when asked about his commitment to merit selection of statewide judges - here in one of few states still electing statewide judges so we can watch their campaigns collect from the very law firms and lawyers whose cases they'll decide - he demurs. Not on his priority list "right now."

Only faith can offer hope that one truly interested in bettering the basics of our system will at some point seek to erase the appearance that justice is for sale.

Wolf is more "different" than not. His no salary, gift bans, ethics training, transparency and overall vibe of smart, focused leadership are not the norm in Pennsylvania.

But neither is faith in government leaders. For that, he needs to make us believe "what reason cannot."

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