Newspaper: Constituent anger fails to bring about legislative change

What's wrong with Pennsylvania voters? Despite having the most expensive, least productive and arguably the most corrupt state legislatures in the country, only 1 in 4 incumbents will face a challenger in the May 16 primary election.

From an editorial in today's edition of The Pottstown Mercury:

Every school district in the commonwealth is crunching numbers to achieve cuts that would balance their budgets. Music programs are being eliminated in the face of passionate pleas to keep them; positions in the classroom are being reduced from full- to half-time; programs are being cut back, including some schools that instituted full-day kindergarten only to be forced now to take it away.

The school boards are painfully aware of the pain property owners will endure in higher tax bills unless they balance school budgets with cuts.

Legislators, however, who can reform the funding mechanism for public schools, fail to take action that would alleviate some of the pressure.

Even the looming teachers' pension crisis which will increase pension costs to local schools by as much as 700 percent over the next few years is not being addressed by legislators.

A state budget crisis in existence for much of the past two years goes on unaddressed. And, even the seemingly simple tasks of outlawing the use of cell phones for talking and texting while driving require heavy lifting in Harrisburg.

No wonder people are angry.

But, at the end of the day, the anger doesn't translate to action. The number of uncontested races in Pennsylvania assures that little if anything will change.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.