8-17 BONUSGATE - Changes Needed
Perzel's piggy pension permits bipartisan bile
Monday, August 15, 2011
By Ruth Ann Dailey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The anniversary of our Legislature's stealth pay-raise came and went last month with nary a whimper.
It was just the sixth anniversary -- not exactly a compelling watershed, numerically speaking -- and we the beleaguered people have enough worries to keep us distracted from the need to drain Harrisburg's ever-festering swamp of corruption.
So thank goodness for the news this weekend that indicted former state House Speaker John Perzel has been sticking it to us taxpayers while awaiting trial!
And thank goodness he's a Republican!
A mastermind and staunch defender of the July 7, 2005, pay raise, Mr. Perzel was memorably photographed three months after that fiasco in a Beechview classroom, standing in front of a wall of pink pigs.
These construction-paper piggy banks were part of a lesson on money and savings, but since a giant, inflatable pink pig had already become the mascot of activist Gene Stilp's crusade against legislators' greed, it was a picture worth a thousand indignant words.
And lo these six years later, Mr. Perzel is still living high on the hog. According to documents obtained by activist Eric Epstein of "Rock the Capital," Mr. Perzel has taken a lump-sum pension payment of about $204,000 and still receives almost $86,000 per year.
Compare that with Pennsylvania's 2009 per capita income of $26,678 and median household income of $49,501.
His pension is piggish -- and entirely legal. That's why it's important that this particular embarrassment to the commonwealth is a Republican.
For these lavish, treasury-draining perks of "public service" to end, the law must be changed -- and possibly the state Constitution. Achieving this crucial goal will require a bipartisan effort, which means that voters in both major political parties must become, and remain, outraged enough to force change.
Partisanship being what it is, we really get noisy about bad government when the no-goodniks are "the other guys." Up till now the bad guys getting the most media coverage have been Democrats -- Mike Veon & Co. -- disproportionately inciting rank-and-file Republican wrath.
That's because the first whiff of post-pay-raise scandal was the possibility that Democratic legislative leaders such as Mr. Veon, worried about their re-election chances, had directed staffers to do campaign work on state time and had rewarded those staffers with big bonuses on the taxpayers' dime.
Newspaper reporting on these bonuses prompted then-state Attorney General Tom Corbett to investigate. His "Bonusgate" investigations led to "Computergate," the scandal in which Mr. Perzel and nine others with the Republican caucus are accused of spending $20 million in state funds to purchase voter-tracking software that was then used in political campaigns.
So now the Gucci loafer is on the other foot. I hope to hear an outpouring of Democratic outrage, starting this morning on local talk radio and continuing when the Perzel trial kicks off in September.
We need bipartisan indignation to propel a good-government crusade. There's plenty of work for us citizens to do.
State funds dispensed at legislators' discretion -- "walking-around money" or WAMs -- were eliminated in this year's budget, but this corruption-inviting practice could be revived in a rosier economy -- unless we the people forbid it.
Over the year new, idealistic legislators have introduced pension-reform bills, but those have died quiet deaths. And long-ago reforms were abandoned, loopholes found.
The greatest obstacle to real and lasting reform is the existence of an entrenched, permanent political class -- politicians from both parties who cooperate best when they're colluding to rob the taxpayers.
Consider our unrepentant "payjackers": Mr. Veon went straight from college to a legislator's staff and won his House seat at the age of 27 (by attacking the incumbent for voting for a pay raise!), while Mr. Perzel worked in the private sector (as a waiter and maitre d') for only a couple of years before winning a House seat.
Each man spent more than 30 years in public office. XXX. That's XXXpensive.
Of course, Mr. Veon's conviction eventually stripped him of his pension; that may also happen to Mr. Perzel. But their trials will have cost us many millions more.
So perhaps our greatest need is for term limits -- and therefore for a constitutional convention to cement all these reforms. Perhaps our legislators are tempted to lawbreaking because there are such posh lifestyles and retirements at stake.
The founders envisioned a citizen legislature. The ideal is a few years in service, then back home -- not a few decades in service, then off to jail.
If we want public service to be exactly what the term implies, then we're going to have to stay angry at its abuse. This week and for months to come, we'll have Mr. Perzel to thank for that extra bit of inspiration.
Ruth Ann Dailey: ruthanndailey@hotmail.com. More articles by this author
First published on August 15, 2011 at 12:00
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11227/1167415-152-0.stm#ixzz1VGCfcTZ5
Monday, August 15, 2011
By Ruth Ann Dailey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
The anniversary of our Legislature's stealth pay-raise came and went last month with nary a whimper.
It was just the sixth anniversary -- not exactly a compelling watershed, numerically speaking -- and we the beleaguered people have enough worries to keep us distracted from the need to drain Harrisburg's ever-festering swamp of corruption.
So thank goodness for the news this weekend that indicted former state House Speaker John Perzel has been sticking it to us taxpayers while awaiting trial!
And thank goodness he's a Republican!
A mastermind and staunch defender of the July 7, 2005, pay raise, Mr. Perzel was memorably photographed three months after that fiasco in a Beechview classroom, standing in front of a wall of pink pigs.
These construction-paper piggy banks were part of a lesson on money and savings, but since a giant, inflatable pink pig had already become the mascot of activist Gene Stilp's crusade against legislators' greed, it was a picture worth a thousand indignant words.
And lo these six years later, Mr. Perzel is still living high on the hog. According to documents obtained by activist Eric Epstein of "Rock the Capital," Mr. Perzel has taken a lump-sum pension payment of about $204,000 and still receives almost $86,000 per year.
Compare that with Pennsylvania's 2009 per capita income of $26,678 and median household income of $49,501.
His pension is piggish -- and entirely legal. That's why it's important that this particular embarrassment to the commonwealth is a Republican.
For these lavish, treasury-draining perks of "public service" to end, the law must be changed -- and possibly the state Constitution. Achieving this crucial goal will require a bipartisan effort, which means that voters in both major political parties must become, and remain, outraged enough to force change.
Partisanship being what it is, we really get noisy about bad government when the no-goodniks are "the other guys." Up till now the bad guys getting the most media coverage have been Democrats -- Mike Veon & Co. -- disproportionately inciting rank-and-file Republican wrath.
That's because the first whiff of post-pay-raise scandal was the possibility that Democratic legislative leaders such as Mr. Veon, worried about their re-election chances, had directed staffers to do campaign work on state time and had rewarded those staffers with big bonuses on the taxpayers' dime.
Newspaper reporting on these bonuses prompted then-state Attorney General Tom Corbett to investigate. His "Bonusgate" investigations led to "Computergate," the scandal in which Mr. Perzel and nine others with the Republican caucus are accused of spending $20 million in state funds to purchase voter-tracking software that was then used in political campaigns.
So now the Gucci loafer is on the other foot. I hope to hear an outpouring of Democratic outrage, starting this morning on local talk radio and continuing when the Perzel trial kicks off in September.
We need bipartisan indignation to propel a good-government crusade. There's plenty of work for us citizens to do.
State funds dispensed at legislators' discretion -- "walking-around money" or WAMs -- were eliminated in this year's budget, but this corruption-inviting practice could be revived in a rosier economy -- unless we the people forbid it.
Over the year new, idealistic legislators have introduced pension-reform bills, but those have died quiet deaths. And long-ago reforms were abandoned, loopholes found.
The greatest obstacle to real and lasting reform is the existence of an entrenched, permanent political class -- politicians from both parties who cooperate best when they're colluding to rob the taxpayers.
Consider our unrepentant "payjackers": Mr. Veon went straight from college to a legislator's staff and won his House seat at the age of 27 (by attacking the incumbent for voting for a pay raise!), while Mr. Perzel worked in the private sector (as a waiter and maitre d') for only a couple of years before winning a House seat.
Each man spent more than 30 years in public office. XXX. That's XXXpensive.
Of course, Mr. Veon's conviction eventually stripped him of his pension; that may also happen to Mr. Perzel. But their trials will have cost us many millions more.
So perhaps our greatest need is for term limits -- and therefore for a constitutional convention to cement all these reforms. Perhaps our legislators are tempted to lawbreaking because there are such posh lifestyles and retirements at stake.
The founders envisioned a citizen legislature. The ideal is a few years in service, then back home -- not a few decades in service, then off to jail.
If we want public service to be exactly what the term implies, then we're going to have to stay angry at its abuse. This week and for months to come, we'll have Mr. Perzel to thank for that extra bit of inspiration.
Ruth Ann Dailey: ruthanndailey@hotmail.com. More articles by this author
First published on August 15, 2011 at 12:00
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11227/1167415-152-0.stm#ixzz1VGCfcTZ5