Rongone wrote:

Hey just because there is a budget crisis, that doesn't mean you can't go on break for a couple of weeks.

From Pennlive:


State senators will bug out for two weeks starting Wednesday - should they stay and get a #PABudget deal?

If you weren't paying attention to the Pennsylvania Cable Network this Tuesday afternoon as the state Senate went through its paces, then you probably missed this one:

As is so often is the case, the 50-member chamber adopted a resolution authorizing it to go into a recess from voting sessions -- this time from Oct. 28 until Nov. 16.

In general, these votes tend to be pretty pro forma exercises and are passed with nary the bat of an eyelash.

But with the state budget nearly four months late, minority Democrats offered an amendment that would have kept the chamber continuously in session during that two-week window.

It didn't happen. The motion was tabled. And the recess resolution, as it's known, was approved along party lines Tuesday afternoon.

"It's extremely disappointing that something is more important in our home districts instead of trying to reach an agreement on the budget," said Sen. Art Haywood, D-Philadelphia, who led the unsuccessful push.

This would be where we pause to point that rank-and-file lawmakers have exactly zero role in budget negotiations. Those will continue regardless of whether the Senate is in session or not.

It's an untidy truth, but a truth nonetheless.

That's because such agreements are negotiated between, maybe, six or eight senior legislative leaders and the administration. When there's a deal, rank-and-file lawmakers review the legislation and put up votes. 

Until or unless that happens, there's precious little for backbenchers to do except hoover up per-diem payments and wait for something to happen.

And, right now, legislative leaders aren't even in engaged in face-to-face talks with Gov. Tom Wolf.

With the four caucuses borrowing money to stay afloat, sending those not essential to the process home until they're needed seems like pretty sound fiscal stewardship, some have argued.

A per-diem, by the way, runs around $150 a day. Multiply that by 49 senators (there's one vacancy), and then by 14 days, and you get $102,000 or thereabouts (depending on who takes them). 

We'll add that the Senate just borrowed $9 million from PNC Bank to stay afloat until the impasse ends.

The origination fee on the loan will run $25,000, or a little less than a quarter of what's needed to pay lawmakers' food and hotel bills during that same time period.

But that's not the way Haywood sees it.

Keeping backbenchers in town would "pressure" majority Republican legislative leaders into cutting a deal with the Democratic Wolf administration, he argued.

"Some Republican senators said to me, if I have to stay here that long, my wife is going to kill me," he said. "That's pressure to get it done. A number of senators have businesses in home districts have to operate. Some have small children. That's pressure to get it done."

Haywood said he's willing to skip per diems if it means getting a budget done.

But, let's face it, not all his colleagues may be so magnanimous

Jennifer Kocher, a spokeswoman for Senate Republicans, said rank-and-filers are free to hang around Harrisburg if they want to - a voting session (where there would likely be nothing to vote on in any case) isn't required for that.

"Many of our members have indicated that they have faith in our leadership to perform negotiations," she said. "They are in district working with schools and social service agencies that are struggling with gubernatorial vetoes because of their funding plans."

What do you think?

 
This is what I don't get.  Our legislature's job consists of being on vacation, with intermittent periods of a few days of work here and there, and we pay them 6 figure salaries, full benefits and pensions.  I'm no fan of Tom Wolf, but the legislature needs to take their job seriously.  And obviously one big spending cut should be reducing the legislature to part time pay, they should be paid about half of what their average constituent makes, with no pension or benefits, and also reducing the number of legislators by at least half.

Last edited by The Man (10/27/2015 5:16 pm)

Have any of these legislators figured out who is going to pay the interest and fees for all the loans the school districts and some service agencies are being forced to take out to keep operating?  Is this yet another burden to be dumped onto taxpayers?
 

Last edited by flowergirl (11/01/2015 11:13 am)

Remember a few years ago, after our unglorious legislators granted themselves a pay raise in the middle of the night?  And how taxpayers, many also knowm as voters, created such an uproar that many of the legislators were booted from office?  We need another such vote-the-bastards-out campaign and take Wolf with them.

flowergirl wrote:

Remember a few years ago, after our unglorious legislators granted themselves a pay raise in the middle of the night?  And how taxpayers, many also knowm as voters, created such an uproar that many of the legislators were booted from office?  We need another such vote-the-bastards-out campaign and take Wolf with them.

 
The problem is that, if we do not start paying more attention to the real issues of our day, and change our own criteria, voting the bastards out will simply result in new bastards.

Property tax 'relief' wasn't/isn't going to happen anyway.  It is an Ed Rendell scam all over again.  But in the make believe world where we actually get property tax relief, the formula is simple, everyone gets the same percentage off of their school property tax bill.  I don't know why there's even an argument over that?