Category: Cartoons, Commentary/Editorial || By

We would like to apologize right now for depicting Gov. Ed Rendell and Sen. Dominic Pileggi as incompetent firefighters.

It's a terrible slur on Pennsylvania's firefighters to compare them to the hacks who run Harrisburg.

Just in case you're counting, the state's budget is now 92 days overdue, with no end in sight to the current squabble going on between Rendell and the General Assembly.

Although Pennsylvania isn't making its required payments to public schools, social services or municipal programs, meaning that many employees have been laid off and many jobs are going unfilled, there's no need to worry.

All of our elected state representatives and their staffs are still collecting their paychecks.

We may have the largest, most expensive state legislature in the entire United States, but wow, they're really worth every penny, aren't they? Let's give 'em a hand!

Actually, I'd like to just give 'em one finger from my hand. Or maybe the back of my hand.

Here's an idea: Next year, instead of remitting your state income tax form and payment before April 15, send them on Aug. 1.

Or get your car's inspection renewed three months late. After all, if they can do that in Harrisburg, why should you be different?

Come to think of it, where are the "teabaggers" who claim to be so unhappy with the federal government? They ought to be marching on the state capital instead of disrupting town meetings about health care.

A pox on both of Harrisburg's Houses --- and another on the Governor's Mansion.

It seems to us that Pennsylvanians need a get a referendum on the ballot to call a new Constitutional Convention and cut the size of the General Assembly in half.

We certainly could get this level of incompetence at half the price, couldn't we?

(Note: Opinions expressed at Tube City Almanac are those of the individual authors, and not those of Tube City Community Media Inc. or any affiliated organizations.)