In his column in this morning's Sunday Patriot-News, Brett Lieberman put an interesting twist on the current state budget saga. His idea is that, if a budget is not completed by June 30 as mandated by law, state workers should indeed be furloughed, despite all the recent legislative wranglings of State Sen. Piccola.
For Lieberman, though, state workers wouldn't be the only losers. Oh, no. Neither legislators nor the governor would be paid between June 30 and the adoption of a budget.
I like that. A lot.
I like even more when Lieberman advocates that, regardless of when the budget is finally passed, none of the wages due legislators or the governor would be recovered. Gone. Into the ether, like so much real property tax reform.
Lieberman for Congress! Where do I sign the petition to get him on the ballot? May I write a check today?
But Lieberman goes a tad too far.
No matter how long the furlough lasts, Lieberman writes, state workers would also lose whatever pay they would have received.
That's not right. It smacks of elitism: state workers aren't serfs who starve if their lord and master's crops fail.
There's nothing workable, or even realistic, about Lieberman's plan, considering state workers have no recourse to get legislators and the administration to the bargaining table and then keep them there. The workers wield no leverage, unless they shut off water and power to the Battling Bickersons who should be bargaining instead of bellowing little more than hot air in self-aggrandizing news conferences.
Maybe that's the way to truly get this thing resolved; impose conditions in which the only result can be resolution through compromise.
In high school, our gym coach told us stories about gorilla basketball games allegedly held during World War II for soldiers preparing to go overseas. Coach equated the way we played basketball during gym class - sans most rules except no blood, no foul - to the games played behind locked gym doors by keyed up infantrymen with no referees, no rules, and no hold barred. At the end of the "games", according to Coach, the privates were battered and bloodied enough to board their troop ships peacefully and go to work.
Maybe what we need today, as the state budget clock enters the final minutes of the fiscal fourth quarter, is a little legislative gorilla basketball. Lock the legislators and administration officials in meetings in Harrisburg, and don't let them out until they craft a feasible budget.
No Fourth of July holiday. No late night beverage on the deck at Scott's. No steaks and beers at the Glass Lounge. They get nothing until their work is done, including no pay and no per diems.
As for the workers who will have to serve the cantankerous negotiators, they'll have to stay on the job. We'll need somebody to serve the bread and water.
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