But what can we do about it? That's been the common lament among readers who are furious about our state legislators' self-activated pay increase of 16 to 34 percent, passed in the middle of the night with no public debate.

The increase -- as has been reported in detail but still bears repeating -- gives Pennsylvania's lawmakers three dubious distinctions:

They are now the second-highest paid state legislature in the nation; they are by far the country's largest such body; and they represent significantly fewer constituents than their counterparts in other highly paid legislatures.

In other words, they're getting paid more to cover fewer people than their colleagues nationwide. And still they have not managed to pass property tax reform, address our public transit woes or raise the minimum wage.

Last week in this space I made the case for cutting the size of this overblown body in half. No surprise, every one of my 50 or so respondents agreed, regardless of their politics. A few went on to say that as maddening as the situation is, it'll never change so there's no use trying. But the vast majority were ready to rumble. They just didn't have any idea how to go about it.

So I called Rep. Thomas Caltagirone, D-Berks, who, like former state Sen. Allen Kukovich before him, sponsors a bill in just about every session that would cut in half the number of House and Senate seats. It's always been a futile gesture because voters haven't held their lawmakers' feet to the fire. But now that residents are inflamed by the pay raise, they might, at long last, be ready to flick their Bics -- or, in this state, their Zippos.

Caltagirone, who can be reached at tcaltagi@pahouse.net, has this advice: Voters should ask their legislators to sign on to his bill in the House and then a Senate version of same. Myself, I think the time for asking is over. Voters should demand it. No sponsorship, no vote. Period.

"People don't willingly cut their own throats," Caltagirone said yesterday of his fellow lawmakers. "My bill has 16 co-sponsors in the House so there's no reason for the leadership to pay attention. If I had 102 sponsors, they'd have to think about it long and hard."

Caltagirone, by the way, voted for the pay raise. The problem isn't the salary, he said. It's the unnecessarily large number of lawmakers receiving it and the cost of operating all their offices.

No kidding. In this new budget, the total appropriation for the House and Senate combined is about $432 million. Cutting the body in half would save $216 million in a single year. What could this state do with that money? Make your own list; it's bound to be more useful than keeping so many of these people on the public payroll.

Cutting half the legislative seats makes much more sense than voting out of office every incumbent, as Russ Diamond of Lebanon County is proposing with Operation Clean Sweep. Diamond gets points for tapping voter outrage, but replacing each expensive lawmaker with another won't solve the problem, even with a pay rollback.

Halving the number of seats, on the other hand, would be real reform -- and we should NOT do it by eliminating the bicameral system. If it weren't for the Senate blocking some of the House's more whacked-out proposals, the state police probably would be arresting schoolchildren who don't wish to read Bible verses aloud each morning. No, two houses with half the seats is the only way to go.

How important would such cost-savings be? Ask Edna Hays, 76, a lifelong homemaker who lives in Imperial with her husband, John, 79, a retired typewriter repairman and salesman.

"We live in a double-wide mobile home we bought second-hand," she said. "The rent on our lot went up $10 a month. Our school taxes went up $75. Security Blue was $48 each a few years ago; now it's $95.

"I got a $16 a month raise this year in Social Security, so what does Medicare do? It raises the premium $15. My husband and I take heart medicine that we couldn't afford if our doctors didn't help us out with samples.

"When these people say they can't get by on $66,000 of our tax money, it just boils your blood. I don't think they even know we're out here, and what's more, they don't give a damn."

Well, somebody ought to give a damn about an elderly couple who raised five children on one income without a dime of public assistance, and now can't afford their own pills because the money is feeding a bloated Legislature instead. And somebody ought to call their elected officials and tell 'em so.