|
LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
|
State
Rep. Matt Smith |
|
Legislature’s cost must be reduced
The cost of the Pennsylvania General Assembly is simply too expensive. As a new legislator, I firmly believe that we must do more for less. According to the Speaker’s Commission on Legislative Reform, it costs each Pennsylvania taxpayer $23.01 to operate the legislature. This places Pennsylvania behind only Rhode Island and Alaska for cost-per-taxpayer of legislative operations. I believe that it is vital to reduce this cost and that this significant reform must be a priority in the 2008-09 state budget negotiations
To that end, I recently co-authored (with Rep. Randy Vulakovich) a letter to Majority Appropriations Chairman Dwight Evans demanding a 20 percent reduction in the 2008-09 budget line item for the operations of the General Assembly. The total cost in the 2007-08 state budget was approximately $315 million so a 20 percent cut would save Pennsylvania taxpayers about $62 million.
Over the upcoming months I intend to build support, beginning with my freshmen colleagues, for this important initiative. I will work in a bipartisan manner to accomplish this common sense way to save significant money. Indeed, saving taxpayers $62 million is not a Republican or Democratic idea or a partisan notion – it is simply a good government idea and the time for action is now.
I was elected on the promise that I would work to reduce the cost of the legislature. I continue to support efforts to reduce the number of legislators. We can move, however, to reduce the cost of the legislature immediately without waiting for that lengthy process to conclude.
We must begin to operate in a manner that puts a premium on acting as responsible stewards of the public’s money. Much of what is frustrating to people about Harrisburg is the lack of internal cost cutting before we ask hard-working Pennsylvania families to sacrifice.
The legislature has enacted many internal reforms over the last 11 months that have made the General Assembly more open, transparent and accountable. Let us demonstrate that a new day is indeed upon us by slashing the General Assembly’s budget in next year’s spending plan.
###ram/2007/mjh
l:\print\columns&letters\LegislatureCosts.042
|
CONTACT: Ruth A. Myers |