Checking the Balance

Not holding back

According to PA2010.com, Sen. Arlen Specter is starting to show signs of life.

Despite campaigning across the state as a “true Democrat” ready to run against Senator Arlen Specter, Congressman Joe Sestak (D-7) did not register as a Democrat until shortly before running for Congress three years ago, according to voter registration records.

Specter’s campaign pointed out Sestak’s registration history, first in a message to supporters Monday, later in follow-up messages to a reporter and again in a fierce statement against Sestak Thursday. After more than two months of remaining largely silent while Sestak attacked him at every turn, the remarks amounted to Specter’s first retaliation, and turned up the heat in a Senate primary that is likely to get far more contentious in the coming months.

“Congressman Sestak is a flagrant hypocrite in challenging my being a real Democrat when he did not register as a Democrat until 2006 just in time to run for Congress,” Specter said in the statement. “His lame excuse for avoiding party affiliation, because he was in the [military] service, is undercut by his documented disinterest in the political process.”

In a statement Thursday evening, Sestak struck back at Specter for making what he called “swift-boat attacks.”

“We’ve learned today that Arlen Specter can abandon his party, but he just can’t quit making Republican swift-boat attacks on the integrity of Democrats who served in our military,” Sestak said.

He pointed out times that he had voted by absentee ballot while serving overseas, and defended his registration as an independent as fitting with his status in the military.

If you think this little attack is petty, just wait until we get closer to the actual primary. 

This is going to be an extremely intriguing match-up, so Checking the Balance will be keeping a close eye on it.

Have a good weekend!

I wonder how this vote will go...

The Patriot News reports House Democrats will push SB850 to the floor for a vote on Monday.

With partial paydays for state employees potentially a week away, little progress was made on the state budget impasse Thursday.

But new battle lines were set that might at least lead by next week to some movement between starkly different positions on government spending and taxes.

House Democrats announced Thursday that they will vote a $27.3 billion spending plan, backed by Senate Republicans, out of the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, sending it to the floor for potential final consideration.

That Senate plan is the same one Gov. Ed Rendell's public relations machine has spent the last two months kicking the tar out of, arguing that it sets the stage for higher property taxes through lowered state spending for public schools and human services, canceled highway projects and closed state parks.

In what might prove to be a move of tactical genius or a blunder of epic proportions, Democrats, who have not been able to muster support for Rendell's $28.8 billion plan and the tax increases to balance it, switched to a position of calling for a vote on the Senate plan, once it is balanced by $1.7 billion in further cuts.

There is a method to this seeming political madness.

Lobbyists, staffers and lawmakers have said for weeks that without the threat of state worker furloughs or a shutdown of government services, there was no pressure to force either side to move from the initial bargaining positions.

One thing is sure, SB850 will not get voted through on Monday. 

The only bright spot I can see coming from this move is the two parties might finally sit down and start negotiating a budget that is right for Pennsylvania.  What a novel idea...

Feeling the heat

The Patriot News has a report on how state workers are dealing with not getting paid.

To state workers on the brink of personal financial disaster, working without pay is a little like serving jail time for a crime for which someone else was convicted.

Kiana Williams, a first-year audio/video specialist in the court system's administrative office, wasn't hired to bring legislative leaders together to debate program cuts or higher taxes.

Lisa Burton, a clerical assistant for the court system and a single mother of a child in college and another in high school, has no say over bridging a $1 billion gap between the administration's spending plan and what Republicans are willing to spend.

Such state workers suggest that they've done their jobs just fine, yet they're the ones facing unpaid paydays and up to 800 layoffs. They're the ones facing overdue bills and contemplating whether they can feed their families through food banks.

"We're working hard every day, yet we're the ones caught in the middle," Williams said.

Dave Fillman, executive director of Council 13 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said workers feel like pawns in an unnecessary game.

"The commonwealth employees should not be facing something like this," he said. "The elected officials have fallen down on the job. The one thing we expect them to do each year is pass a budget, and they can't even do that."

So while the legislators continue to battle it out, the ground-level workers fume on their lunch breaks.

"They know every year this budget is coming, but they wait until the last minute to do something," said Mary Smith, a programmer for the court system. "In the private sector, they'd be fired."

Why do Pennsylvanians continue to put up with this type of shoddy treatment?  I'm sure that if our politicians' jobs were the ones on the line, they'd be working non-stop to get a budget passed which wouldn't impact their job status. 

I'm telling you, the best way to fix this annual problem is by using smoke-and-mirrors.  Seriously, we move the so-called-budget-deadline from June 30th to April 30th and keep the fiscal year's starting date at July 1st.  This way, when the inevitable happens (the politicians missing their budget deadline), they'd actually have two months to work out a final budget. 

Something to think about...

I like my budget over easy

John Micek has a report on Day 9 of the Pennsylvania hostage crisis.

Late last night, House Speaker Keith McCall, D-Carbon and senior Rendell administration aide Steve Crawford said they're going to propose a staggering $1.7 billion in cuts needed to balance a Senate GOP budget plan.

According to a report posted this morning on Capitolwire, the budget scheme will be the bright line test of whether the $27.3 billion plan contained within SB850 will retain its support among lawmakers and the public.

According to McCall and Crawford, here's what balancing the Senate GOP budget plan will require:

1. Layoffs for 6,000 state workers.
2. State hospital shutdowns.
3. At least a $1 billion cut to basic education funding
4. A "soaring increase to local, school and county property taxes."

McCall spoke to reporters after a 90-minute meeting of Democratic legislative leaders at the governor's residence on Second Street in Harrisburg. House and Senate Republican staffers dismissed the dire warnings as a last-ditch tactic by Democrats losing a debate on spending and taxation, Capitolwire reported.

House Republicans said they would propose a less severe state budget as soon as they had the opportunity to do so.

The news about the Scorched-Earth Budget scheme came just hours after Gov. Ed appeared on the Pennsylvania Cable Network and announced that it would be "dangerous and illegal" to cut the Senate GOP budget plan enough to balance it.

Despite those public utterances, all three Democrats said the Scorched-Earth Budget plan was their next step.

It certainly seems likes these budget negotiations are going well...

Missing the point

Some people have been ripping House Majority Leader Todd Eachus for not dropping everything to fix Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta's mess; when will these people learn?

When Barletta "rolled the dice" in 2003, using pension money to pay for health care benefits for retirees, what did he think would happen?  Was the nearly $3 million going to automatically replenish itself and the city's debt would just be erased?   Get real.

No one told Barletta to misuse city funds, but someone did tell him not to.  The Auditor General's office ruled Barletta actions improper in 2006, yet Barletta continued to withdraw funds in 2007 and 2008.  Let's not forget, Barletta plans on withdrawing another $500,000 this year.  It was his call to gamble and he lost. 

But, instead of taking responsibility for his costly error, Barletta whines to the press that no one will help bail him out.  When will Barletta step-up and say, "I was responsible for bankrupting Hazleton.  I'm doing everything in my power to fix my mistake."?  My guess is never because he's content pawning off his error and crying like a child whose parents wouldn't buy him that toy he really wanted.

When will our politicians start taking responsibility for their own actions?

Lawyer talk

John Micek has a report on yesterday's Bonusgate fun.  Unbelievable...

Arguing for the GOP, lawyer John Krill said lawmakers are protected by constitutional privilege and can't be compelled to testify because it might pull them away from their very important work of passing the state budget and stuff.

When we told a House Republican that his high-powered legal beagle had made this argument, he actually giggled.

But back at the courthouse, Krill was deadly serious, saying there was a grave constitutional principle at stake. Lawmakers, he said, just couldn't willy-nilly go around missing session and forgetting to vote on bridge-renamings and land conveyances and other bills.

The constitutional privilege (also afforded to members of Congress), Krill argued, is also applicable when ... say ... someone like Rep. Bud George is driving to and from Clearfield County. He just can't be snatched off the highway by some agent of the court and made to drone endlessly about bonus payments when he should be about the people's business.

"How do you enforce subpoenas?" he asked, not entirely rhetorically. "With bench warrants."

When one of our number gently suggested to Krill that his argument was ... ahhh ... specious because rank-and-file lawmakers tend to have very little to do with negotiating the budget and that schedules can be rearranged, the learned counsel worked himself up into a state of high dudgeon.

"Constitutional privilege isn't tenuous. Once you take that out, what are you left with?" Krill asked, before he actually quoted a line from "A Man for All Seasons" at us.

This was more than we could take. We were so traumataized by our return to Sophomore English Class that we went off to the courthouse snack machine to drown our sorrows in a package of Oreos.

There's just so much to love about Bonusgate...

Power play

PA2010.com is reporting that Rep. Josh Shapiro is interested in running for Lt. Gov. in 2010.

State Representative Josh Shapiro (D-Montgomery) is being encouraged to dive into the relatively empty Democratic field for Lieutenant Governor, and when Harrisburg’s contentious budget negotiations are over, he may do just that, a Democrat close to Shapiro told pa2010.com.

“It’s something he will look at seriously,” the Democrat said on condition of anonymity because Shapiro hasn’t made any decision. Shapiro, the Democrat added, is not currently making moves toward the race, and will not consider doing so until a new budget is in place.

A little over two months ago, Shapiro was laying the groundwork for a Senate bid. But he quickly called that off when Senator Arlen Specter defected to the Democrats. The thee-term Montgomery County lawmaker would surely be a strong candidate if he ultimately enters the race. In his short time in Harrisburg, he has crafted a reformist reputation, even though that hasn’t always endeared him to legislative leaders. He has been praised by Gov. Ed Rendell and others as one of the party’s rising stars, and his public profile got another recent boost when he was named to President Obama’s health care reform panel of state legislators.

It seems like Shapiro made the right move in backing out of the senate race for Arlen Specter.  It'll be quite interesting to see what Shapiro does next, but with the way the budget negotiations have been going, it might be some time before we have a definitive answer on his Lt. Gov. candidacy.

Not even a dent

The Patriot News reports on yesterday's BIG budget meeting.

Republican and Democratic legislative leaders met behind closed doors with Gov. Ed Rendell this evening to discuss possible cuts in a proposed 2009-10 state budget, but talks ended with little progress reported.

Republican legislators left the room within an hour after the meeting started, with paperwork in hand outlining the cuts they agreed to during last week's negotiations as well as additional cuts that Rendell put on the table.

"We're moving the process," Rendell said afterward. "That's the good news."

Altogether, one source said the cuts totaled no more than $150 million, well short of the near $2 billion gap separating Rendell's proposed budget and the Republicans' appetite for spending.

Well, if $150 million isn't much help, the "real" number is definitely not going to cut it.  John Micek says yesterday's proposed cuts were only $72 million.

A high-level negotiating session held at Gov. Ed's Capitol offices has broken up after legislative leaders were presented with $72 million in additional budget cuts by the administration.

Republican Senate leaders left Rendell's second-floor offices just 25 minutes after the 6 p.m. negotiating session began. Attendees said they were leaving it to staff to go over the numbers, and that their departure should not be construed as a breakdown.

"We're still working," House Speaker Keith McCall, D-Carbon, said as he crossed a second-floor hallway to enter Rendell's main suite of offices near the entrance to the House of Representatives.

A lot of tonight's heavy lifting "can be handled by staff," Senate President Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, said as he left, flanked by aides and his state police security detail.

"There is no walkout. We're going to meet again tomorrow," Scarnati said.

For the fun of it, if we use the current $2 billion gap between the Dems and GOP, and both sides agree to chip away a combined $72 million a day, it would take an additional 27 days to settle on a budget.  Using these numbers and, if lawmakers work 27 straight weekdays (no weekends), Pennsylvania will have a budget on August 12th.   

What a fantastic effort by our public servants...

Murky waters

You'd think by now that the Bonusgate investigation would be winding down, but you'd be way off.  The unfinishable investigation only gets more interesting...

The Patriot News reports the subpoenas issued to 45 PA lawmakers and staffers late last week have been suspended.

Attorneys for the House Democrat and Republican caucuses rushed today to protect House members and staffers from having to testify in pre-trial proceedings on the "Bonusgate" case on Tuesday, calling the effort an exercise in "stunt litigation."

Meanwhile, Dauphin County President Judge Richard Lewis has suspended the subpoenas served last week on some 45 lawmakers and staffers while he considers the new motions to block them, sources said.

Lawyers for former House Democratic Whip Mike Veon served the subpoenas to force testimony they hope could buttress their argument that Veon -- accused of misusing state resources for political and personal gain -- is a victim of "selective prosecution" by Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Veon has claimed that numerous members of the House in both parties engaged in conduct more egregious than that leading to theft charges against him, including the alleged secret plan to funnel taxpayer-funded bonuses to Democratic staffers who helped with House campaigns.

Yet he and 11 former associates are the only persons charged to date in the two-year grand jury probe.

Does AG Tom Corbett even have a handle on this investigation anymore?  Veon and the other indicted Democrats would'nt have been able to pull these "stunts" had Corbett charged all guilty parties in a timely fashion. 

But, here we are, a year after Corbett dropped the first (only) shoe, and what's changed?  If you guessed nothing, you're a winner. 

The bottom line; Corbett had a real chance to clean-up Harrisburg's corruption, but he failed to convert the opportunity.   What happens if Veon and the other indicted Dems get their way and have this case tossed out due to selective prosecuting?  Not only would Corbett fail to charge all guilty parties, the people that were (might be) guilty of public corruption will also go unpunished.  Great...

What else do we need to see before everyone realizes that Corbett dropped the ball on Bonusgate?

We might not have a budget, but...

At least we have successful teams in Pennsylvania. 

The Patriot News reports that three of the most famous trophies in professional sports will be displayed in Harrisburg tomorrow afternoon.

Three coveted top-prizes in the world of professional sports that were placed in Pennsylvania's trophy case over the past year will be on display Tuesday at the state Capitol.

From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesday, visitors can see Stanley Cup won by the National Hockey League (NHL) 2009 champions, the Pittsburgh Penguins; the Lombardi Trophy won by the National Football League (NFL) 2008 Super Bowl XLIII champions, the Pittsburgh Steelers; and the World Series Trophy won by the Major League Baseball (MLB) 2008 World Series champions, the Philadelphia Phillies.

For sports fans, this is awesome.  It's one thing to see one of the trophies up-close-and-personal, but to see the Lombardi Trophy, the Commissioner's Trophy and the Stanley Cup at the same time, is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.