With much fanfare, Pennsylvania House and Senate Republicans have introduced the "Playbook for Progress," offering their game plan for fixing everything that’s wrong in the commonwealth.
The goals set by the ruling party in both houses of the Pennsylvania legislature are lofty ones: 1) Fighting for Taxpayers; 2) Promoting Good Government; 3) Making College More Affordable; 4) Improving Public Safety; 5) Protecting the Environment; and 6) Creating More Good Jobs.
"This aggressive legislative agenda is designed to make Pennsylvania a better place in which to live and work," according to the public relations spin put out by GOP leaders.
It’s a shame that the propaganda does not match the reality. Conspicuously absent from the list is the No. priority for the state legislature: Repeal the illegal pay raise its members gave themselves on July 7.
The "Playbook" is another shameless ploy by career politicians who have done nothing but line their own pockets for decades. The reality is that Pennsylvania has the worst state legislature and the worst governor in the country (and that includes the clueless Kathleen "What Hurricane?" Blanco in Louisiana).
There’s a reason Pennsylvania has the most oppressive taxes in the country, has lost more manufacturing jobs than all but two other states and ranks near the bottom in education, health care and economic opportunities. There’s a reason Pennsylvania has the worst roads and is the No. 1 importer of out-of-state garbage.
That reason is the horde of inept and corrupt politicians who populate the governor’s mansion and the state Capitol. Pennsylvania didn’t drop to the bottom of the heap by accident or chance. The decline of a once-great state is a deliberate act of political terrorism by the worst officeholders in the country.
Start at the top with Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, Republican Speaker of the House John Perzel and Republican Senate Pro Tempore Robert Jubilirer and work your way down the list of the most bloated and unproductive state legislature in the country.
I’m sure you know by now that these "public servants" have not passed any significant legislation this year other than to raise their own salaries by 16 percent to 54 percent, making them the second highest paid lawmakers in the country.
The Harrisburg Hogs fatten their bank accounts on a daily basis on the backs of working Pennsylvanians and the state’s senior citizens. It’s only been three years since the GOP-controlled legislature passed Rendell’s billion-dollar increase in the state income. And the Republicans have the nerve to say they’re "fighting for taxpayers?" They have no shame. Voting them out of office is too good. We should bring back the public stockades and display these scoundrels for all to see.
Perzel, the personification of arrogance, is the man who lied to a group of elementary school children last week about arriving in a limousine for a reading program when the limo was parked in front of the school for all to see. Even though polls show two-thirds of Pennsylvanians want the legislative pay raise repealed, Perzel refuses to allow a vote on a bill to rescind the pay grab. Perzel knows nothing about good government.
During the past decade of GOP control in Harrisburg, state spending has skyrocketed. So much for the party of fiscal responsibility. The Harrisburg party bosses are offended by the campaign of the Young Conservatives of Pennsylvania to expose their betrayal of core Republican values. Perzel and his cronies say they stand for "fiscal accountability, personal responsibility and economic opportunity," but we know better. Perzel and his cronies should be drummed out of the Republican Party.
And let’s not forget about education. Pennsylvania’s young people are fleeing the state at an alarming rate. The agency that provides loans and grants for secondary education — PHEAA — is a bloated bureaucracy where employees siphon off money for themselves. Several newspapers have sued PHEAA to get information on about $900,000 in "expenses" that agency employees were reimbursed for trips and other perks for themselves. How many students couldn’t pay tuition because PHEAA employees spent the $900,000 on trips to Las Vegas?
The GOP party bosses invite you to "keep track of the ongoing progress" on their Playbook for Progress at www.pahousegop.com Let me save the trouble. You have a better chance of winning the lottery or getting struck by lightning than seeing any progress from this bunch of political hacks.
E-mail Tony Phyrillas at tphyrillas@pottsmerc.com
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