DN Editorial: Corbett's reform agenda: Where's the wrecking ball?

WE WERE HOPING Gov. Corbett would arrive in Harrisburg driving a crane with a wrecking ball, not only because the place needs serious reforms, but because of his background as the corruption-busting attorney general who brought down 10 state officeholders and employees in the Bonusgate scandal.

His release yesterday of his reform plan falls short of a crane. In fact, it's more like he arrived in Harrisburg riding a bicycle: politically correct, nonthreatening, and lacking the horsepower to go faster than 15 mph.

The platform includes changing the state budget to a biennial rather than annual process; creating a task force to make information more transparent, including beefing up the state's website to include more budget detail; instituting performance-based budgeting; investigating ways to consolidate services; cutting the cost of how the government does business by 10 percent; reducing legislative surpluses, and encouraging the Legislature to contribute the same to their health care as do state employees.

Nothing wrong with any of these measures, of course. (Though the biennial budget is not a silver bullet and has problems of its own.) Every little bit helps.

But that's the problem with the governor's new plan: it's a little bit. The Legislature is big, bloated, beset with a history and culture of corruption (count the number of indictments in the last two years alone). The General Assembly in particular abuses the public trust by building up big reserves - $189 million to date - getting too much discretionary money, having few limits on campaign contributions or lobbying influences.

The strongest statement in Corbett's plan is that he will eliminate "walking-around money," the discretionary funds lawmakers use to fund pet projects. On other problematic areas, though, his language is rather tepid. For example, he is "encouraging" legislators to pony up more in their health-care contributions, and "encouraging" them to eliminate per diems and better manage taxpayers' money. He "believes that the General Assembly should limit the amount of taxpayer money which is held in reserve," promising to negotiate this during the budget process.

What we wish he had said is "I'm adding the $189 million the Legislature has in reserve to help fill our considerable budget gap."

Corbett also hasn't addressed some of the big areas requiring reform: redistricting, merit selection of judges, term limits, campaign finance and lobbying reform.

We can't help comparing the governor's lukewarm reform language with another document: Last May, a grand jury report on the Bonusgate scandal that called out the Legislature for living in a time-warp, and included a set of recommendations for change. Here's one example of their language: "One of our largest concerns related to this report is that the General Assembly will . . . meddle with, obfuscate, ignore or kill every recommendation noted in this report. Moreover [we] have determined that the General Assembly, if left to its own devices, is utterly incapable of reforming itself."

Corbett should re-read the grand jury report, and take a few hints from the outrage exhibited by the 23 citizens who wrote it. *