Pennsylvania needs a year of change

It’s a new year for Pennsylvania, but don’t be surprised if 2008 winds up being the same old thing.

As we’ve seen far too often, getting change in Pennsylvania can be more difficult than sticking with those resolutions to eat better and exercise more.

It’s easy to fall back on the same old ways personally, and the same is true for the Keystone State.

So in the spirit of getting the New Year started on the right foot, we propose some things we’d like for our officials in Harrisburg to accomplish in 2008:

n Pass a real open records law in Pennsylvania. It’s time to replace the current statute that too often tells people they don’t have the right to know to one based on the premise that all of government is an open book with certain limited exceptions.

Government is created with our dollars to do the public’s business, and the government should have as few secrets from the taxpayers as possible and that includes the state Legislature.

Some in Harrisburg have suggested that senators and representatives should carve out an exception for themselves in any new open-records law. That’s inappropriate. The state Senate and the state House of Representatives should have to abide by the same rules as a local borough council. If our officials in Harrisburg cannot operate in that manner, we have the wrong people in the state Capitol.

n Get your jobs done on time. Pennsylvania has gotten into a rut in which a new fiscal year begins without a state budget. That needs to change. Last year, it was more than two weeks into the new fiscal year before a budget was passed and signed.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Pennsylvanians and its visitors were unnecessarily inconvenienced when Gov. Ed Rendell shut down nonessential state operations, including our state parks, and furloughed 24,000 employees for the day in a bullying attempt to get his way. Such antics should not be tolerated.

And if that weren’t bad enough, state officials then decided we taxpayers would shell out about $3.4 million to pay the furloughed employees for not going to work that day. So Pennsylvanians not only were inconvenienced, we had to pay for it and got nothing in return.

n Get rid of the plan to toll Interstate 80. Despite all of the rhetoric, this tolling scheme mainly was designed to free up money in the transportation budget to subsidize mass transit, largely in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. It’s been a bad deal from the start.

And the way the tolls will be collected will cause delays when trying to cross the state.

Motorists will have to pay a toll about every 30 miles (roughly the distance between the Clearfield and Milesburg exits.) Not only are you going to have to pay, you are going to have to slow down regularly to pay tolls. We thought the idea of interstates was to allow for faster transportation.

n Look at encouraging consolidation. Pennsylvania has a bloated government structure that is a burden on taxpayers. We need to slim down in terms of the number of municipalities, police departments, authorities, planning commissions and more on the local level. Consolidation is difficult, but is long overdue in an era of fast transportation and modern communications.

And while we’re putting government on a diet, let’s also slim down the state Legislature.

Pennsylvania has 50 senators and 203 representatives (each earning a base salary this year of $76,163 plus benefits and per diems). This is the largest full-time Legislature in the nation. If Ohio and California can get by with roughly half as many legislators, why are Pennsylvanians paying for so many?

Only by reducing government is there a chance to ease the tax burden and enact real tax reform.

n Eliminate the sense of entitlement among state officials. Over the years, taxpayers have been stunned again and again as they learn how public money is lavishly spent on public officials from expensive retreats, to upscale travel and accommodations, to questionable bonuses, to perks that far surpass what the average Pennsylvania will receive.

Working people across Pennsylvania, as well as retirees, are cutting back on the extras in order to heat their homes, buy their food and medicines and keep gasoline in their vehicles. They shouldn’t be expected to scrimp so officials can live it up on the public’s dime.

It’s time for drastic changes in Pennsylvania. The only question is whether our state officials will help make it happen. We hope to be pleasantly surprised, but given their record, we’re not holding our breath.