I learned a valuable lesson about the risks of complaining last week. You'd think I'd have learned that years ago when I told my high school disciplinarian that "non-corporal punishment just isn't reaching me". In this case, I wrote to my caucus asking why we were buying into the PA Senate's Cost Cutting Commission. I pointed out that this seemed to be a Republican Commission, with a guaranteed Republican Majority designed to push Republican talking points and elect its Republican Chair to Congress. Plus, the large elephant logo didn't help.

I chastised my leadership for saying this was a good idea and suggested vocally (or as "vocal" as you can be in an E-mail) that we let the public know just how bad this was. In response, my leadership appointed me to the Commission. Hence the life-lesson.


Upon reflection, which for me consists mostly of ordering Thai food and taking a nap, I decided that despite my misgivings, I should accept the offer to join. It would give me a public platform to express my concerns publicly, allow me to fight for the importance of government services to the people who receive them, and to claim my really cool "I'm on the Friggin Budget Commission!!" T-shirt and throw rug.

Our first meeting validated the importance of having someone like me, specifically, someone very, very much like me, on the Commission. Our first witness was a kindly man of 85 who served in the Thornburg administration. He suggested that the best way to save money was to not replace people when they retire or otherwise leave government. It didn't seem to matter how important the job they were doing was.

His argument was that if you just randomly cut 10% or 20% of all government employees, "government will continue to work? That is true in a sense. If you reduce government employees from 85,000 to 75,000 there won't be a huge sink hole that swallows up all of Pennsylvania. Government will continue to "work" on some level. But that/s true if you reduce the number of government employees to 3. Government will still work, but on a much lower level. For example, traffic enforcement will deteriorate to one of the 3 government employees standing on the side of the road yelling "SLOW DOWN" to passing motorists. But if that is what is expected of government, it will still work.

We will be meeting every other Monday until mid-June, or until they stop telling me where the meetings are. I will use that time to ensure that both sides of the story are told, and of course I will also use that time to reflect on how I should always resist the urge to complain.