With just a week gone by in his 55 month sentence in federal prison, this is hardly the time to wax nostalgic about can-do Pennsylvania political leaders of the past. No one is suggesting that it's time to dust off the hardbound commemorative copies of "Vinnie, We Hardly Knew Ye" but instead of scrubbing toilets in a minimum security pokey in Kentucky, I think most of us would agree that former state senator Vincent Fumo's talents could be better served by cleaning up the budget mess in Harrisburg.
The toilet analogy is not all that much of a stretch since the current veto-threatened budget deal reportedly began with with a phone conversation between the opposing party leaders in the state senate when Democrat Robert J. Mellow told Republican Dominic Peleggi, "We look like crap. We're not doing anything."
Their subsequent compromise $27.9 billion budget deal, which would clean out the state's $1.2 billion Rainy Day Fund, was announced -- fittingly -- on Friday, while Philadelphia and the rest of the state was being drenched by a No'reaster that dumped up to four inches of rain on an already saturated region.
Gov. Rendell has promised to veto the current senate version of the budget as insufficient, which shouldn't help Philadelphia today when the state senate majority Republicans consider lifeboat legislation that would spare our city a doomsday budget scenario that would result in the layoff of thousands of city workers. Oh, Vincent, whereart thou?
Of course, politicians in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and the United States Congress didn't get us into this jam overnight. It has been decades in the making. Perhaps even centuries. It is the result of small minded men with short term vision who see as far as the next election but are frequently blind to the present.
I wonder if things would be different if they took a page from the daily planner of Benjamin Franklin, one of our earliest Pennsylvania poiticians, who started his days with a morning question: "What good shall I do this day." Franklin listed his morning ritual beginning at 5 a.m.: "Rise, wash and address Powerful Goodness (God); contrive day's business and take the resolution of the day; prosecute the present study; and breakfast." And before blowing out the bedside candle Franklin asked himself an evening question: "What good have I done today?"
You can sleep on that, Vince.
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