(Ever notice that when talk turns to progressive politics, such as campaign-contribution limits or merit selection of judges, Pennsylvania is always among only a handful of states without it?)
Since our finances are annually screwed up, some independent, nonpartisan input and oversight along the lines of the respected Congressional Budget Office sure sounds like a good idea.
Alice Rivlin, the first CBO director back in '75, concurs.
"The most important thing is to have a set of budget numbers everybody can agree on, and then set policy," says Rivlin, now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
She adds that such an office also should "defend nonpartisanship aggressively" and make all data public.
Why don't we have such an office? Guess.
It's because those with power and control over spending would give up some measure of both.
The governor, his budget secretary, appropriations-committee bosses and staffs would no longer have sole say on revenue numbers that shape a budget.
A fiscal office could offer analysis of spending proposals that would not as easily be dismissed by political slams from whichever party's out of power.
And there'd be expert, nonpartisan views of spending without consideration of which constituencies to reward, punish or hold hostage.
In other words, some sanity could creep into a process currently mired in madness.
The bill's sponsor, state Sen. Pat Browne, R-Lehigh County, is a lawyer and CPA who chairs the Senate Finance Committee. The bill passed the Senate last year without a single Democratic vote. That means that every Philadelphia senator voted "no."
The Democratic-controlled House didn't take it up. The excuse? Democrats don't want more bureaucracy. Really? Since when?
