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Pennsylvania is now 94-days late passing a budget. It is the only state in the nation without an approved budget.

I can't remember in any other scenario something being so difficult to come to conclusion.

As one state resident said, "I wonder how they'll feel when we pay our state taxes 94-days late?"

I have a feeling that they won't be as patient as they expect us to be.

Every morning in the news for the past few weeks there has been a story on someone who is suffering because of the lack of a budget. For the most part these are libraries, schools, and non-profits that provide valuable social products to communities across the state. There are people being laid off. There are places just closing down.

This system just isn't working. It all comes down to party politics. What we hear and read in the news isn't how Representative Joe Smith feels, or how Senator Bob Soandso feels, or God forbid how the citizens of Pennsylvania feels. All we hear is that the Republicans won't vote for this or the Democrats won't vote for that.

Within each party there are leaders. When you are voted to office for the first time your office is in a cold, dark corner of the basement. You have to "earn" your way up the party ladder by kissing the right butts and blindly supporting the interests of the top few people who run the party.

So the architecture of our government all comes down to a few men and women who represent only two interest groups, Republican and Democrat.

Our budget would be done if it just came down to a popular vote, whether that popular vote be among all state lawmakers, or the entire population.

And let's face it, a marriage is a group of two interests and for success there must be a give and take. You can't just argue about it for 94-plus days. That could lead to divorce. Maybe our lawmakers should just divorce themselves from their positions? Or their parties?

I don't know.

I tried to look up what benefits state employees receive. I've always heard people talk about how great it is to land a state job because the benefits are so excellent. I found a great site packed full of information, but it was so complex and involved so many different scenarios that you'd have to be an attorney with a week on your hands to be able to sit down and figure it out.

We're too complex.

I used to have a theory that Alyssa purposely kept her room incredibly messy so I couldn't find anything in there - ummm - incriminating.

Now I have a theory that our government leaders purposely keep everything really messy so we can't find all the crazy things they're doing.

Can't we just have a flat income tax...period...with no other taxes?

I was talking to a sales-representative for a local printer yesterday. We were just talking about this and that. I mentioned to him that in Saudi Arabia the government takes 10-percent of every commercial transaction. And the Saudi government owns every store, construction company, etc. He thought about what I said for a second and then said, "Well that's not bad. Better than what we pay."

How true.