A Letter to My Honorable Pen Pal

I've been in my house in North Bittyburg for a little more than a year now. Going through some old bills the other night, I found a letter from my state senator, welcoming me to his district and offering his services. He sent it last November.

Well, I never wrote back, and I guess I feel a little bit bad about that. Here's this busy guy, who takes the time to send me a bunch of free stuff in the mail, including a nice letter, and I didn't respond.

But the funny thing is, he's been on my mind lately. So, I decided to sit down at my trusty IBM last night and write to him. (I've omitted his name and my home address, because it really doesn't matter anyway, and I don't particularly want to put my personal information on the Internet. Suffice it to say that he's one of a big group of our servants in the state Legislature who had a very fruitful summer.)

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Dear Senator -- :

Last year at this time, you wrote me a very nice letter, welcoming me to your district. Since you took the time to write, I thought it was about time I gave you an update.

(Frankly, I'm surprised you had time to write. Last week, when Tom Barnes from the Post-Gazette called to ask you about that protest at the state Capital, you were too busy to talk.)

You even wrote on that fancy state Senate letterhead. Sorry if this letter doesn't look as classy as yours was to me. My printer doesn't work any more, and I can't get a new one until payday, so I had to write this on my typewriter.

Anyway, enough about that. You wrote about my new house, so I'll tell you about that. Everything is pretty good, except for the water leak in my one basement wall. I had a man out to look at it, and he says it'll cost $1,800 to fix it. (I did some quick math, and it looks like you could pay that bill out of your annual expense account, and still have $8,200 left over. Hint, hint! You don't even have to show a receipt. Just kidding!)

Otherwise, the house is fine, except for the refrigerator, which is wearing out. The repairman says it's not worth fixing. For now, anything that needs to stay cold, I put in the freezer part, and it doesn't spoil. Most of the time.

I'm not complaining. I'm pretty lucky, mind you, especially compared with all of those people on fixed incomes. I just have to save my money until I can afford a new fridge. I was hoping that my annual raise would cover the cost of a new one, but I work for a non-profit, and we get part of our budget from the state. Well, our subsidy keeps getting squeezed, and as you can probably guess, our salary pool got capped, too. (And it's not like we can just vote ourselves raises. Ha, ha!)

Plus, with fuel prices getting so high, I have to save money any way I can. I just paid my gasoline credit card bills tonight. I used to spend about $77 per month for gas. This month, I'm spending $125. (That's ironic, because I see where you guys get $129 per day in travel expenses. I could pay my gas bill for a month, and still have $4 left over.) I suppose I could look for a more fuel efficient car, but I still have a year's payments left on this one. It's a '99, and I got it second-hand. Luckily, it's still worth about $7,000. (You get $7,200 per year for a car lease. Want to lease mine? Kidding, again!)

Come to think of it, I just did some more quick math. I added up the value of the car, and the house, and my yearly salary. And guess what? It comes out to less than you'll be taking in "unvouchered expenses" through the end of your term. (According to The Associated Press, that's $103,683. Does that sound right? It seems high.)

How was your summer? You get two months off, right? Great! In fact, I see where state legislators work an average of 77 days per year. Good for you. I just took a second job, working on Sundays, so I'll be lucky if I get 77 days off per year.

Personally, my summer was pretty good, right up until August. First my thermostat went bad. I no sooner replaced that, and the air-conditioner itself broke! To make a long story short, I'm trying to save money (blah, blah, blah), so I haven't gotten it fixed yet. Sometimes, the heat and humidity made it pretty hard for me to sleep at night.

How have you been sleeping at night, by the way?

Thanks again for writing. I really appreciated that, and I also appreciated the fact that you sent me a nice "reminder" card with your contact information on it. That way, I won't forget your name.

Well, don't worry, because you can bet I'm not going to forget your name! In fact, I see that you're up for re-election in 2008, and I'm going to make sure I talk with all of my new neighbors (I have some really nice neighbors here) about you.

In fact, I can hardly wait for election day!

Sincerely, etc.

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Was It Worth Wasting a Stamp? A poll by Quinnipiac University indicates that while a majority of Pennsylvanians want the legislature's pay raise repealed, they also aren't sure if their legislators voted for the raise, and they don't know if they would vote against them because of it.

I guess all of those emery boards, jar openers and Band-Aid holders are worth it, huh? The next time your state representative gives you some two-bit piece of swag, look at it and see if it's worth $81,000 per year.

And if you aren't sure if your legislator voted for the pay hike, here's a reminder: state Representatives Paul Costa, D-Wilkins; Joe Markosek, D-Monroeville; and Ken Ruffing, D-West Mifflin; along with state Senators Jay Costa Jr., D-Forest Hills and J. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville all voted to raise their own salaries to more than those of nuclear scientists and as much as some medical doctors.

Representatives Marc Gergely, Jim Casorio and Dave Levdansky voted against it, along with Senators Sean Logan, Wayne Fontana and Bob Regola. (Casorio was punished for it by the state House Democratic "leadership," and I use that word in the loosest sense of the term.)

Meanwhile, in City Paper, Chris Potter points out that there are better reasons to want to replace most (if not all) of our state legislators:

(To) cite another example we ought to be talking about, take Act 201 of 2004, the ãResponsible Utility Customer Protection Act.ä

Utilities sought the bill because, they said, too many people were able to get out of paying their bills, passing the cost to the rest of us while they hid behind fake names or hid from meetings with utility reps, who under the old law had to speak to customers in person before shutting them off.

But as much as the pay raise itself, Act 201 was a classic piece of Harrisburg chicanery. Passed by the Senate in 2003, it sat in a House committee for a year. Then, in a single week during a late-November ãlame-duckä session last year, the House rammed the bill through, sent it back to the Senate and then to the governorâs desk. Throughout the entire process, there was not a single public hearing on the measure.

The results were predictable. In June, the stateâs Public Utility Commission (PUC) reported that utilities were shutting off service to twice as many customers -- at Columbia Gas, the number of shut-offs jumped by 230 percent. Critics have already linked some deaths to utility shut-offs enabled by the new law.

The best government that money can buy!

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To Do This Weekend: Things will be going bump in the night at 503 Fifth Ave., weekends through the end of the month. It's the "After Dark Haunted House," operated by the city Rec Board. (I'm pretty sure that's the building between the former Goodman's Jewelers, now Coney Island Hot Dogs, and the former David Israel store.) Hours are 7 to 11 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 7 to 10 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $5. Call (412) 675-5068 or visit www.mckrecboard.freeservers.com.