Pennsylvania's Marcellus Shale gas reserves are a state asset that -- if taxed adequately -- will produce revenues big enough to deal with a number of the state's financial problems.

The problems are familiar to all of us. Education systems need money. So do roads, bridges, locks, dams and much of the rest of Pennsylvania's aging infrastructure. There is a battle every year as the governor tries to pull the state's budget blanket up to its chin without freezing off its toes. The deficit at the moment stands at $282 million.

Marcellus Shale gas is a public asset whoever owns the land above it or the mineral rights. All you have to ask yourself is who will be on the hook to deal with the problems if -- when -- Pennsylvanians find their water to be toxic or disgusting because it has been "fracked" to extract the gas.

The Pennsylvania Legislature agreed in June to tax gas extracted from the shale reserves. Legislators even agreed to a deadline of Oct. 1 to approve the tax. Now we learn that they are being lobbied heavily -- "lobbied" usually means being paid -- not to tax the gas or to tax it low. The Marcellus Shale Coalition trade group is leading the way. Former Gov. Tom Ridge is the most visible advocate.

Marcellus Shale gas is the casinos of 2010. Extracting it, like the casinos, involves serious problems, starting with where it takes place, under us like the coal mines, and because it requires large amounts of water, which the process fouls. We agree to its extraction because it is probably better than oil in terms of safety and cost of extraction and because we want the jobs and tax revenues.

If legislators permit the gas to be extracted tax-free, or lightly taxed, because they have been paid off by the companies through "campaign contributions," it will be shameful and full cause to vote against every single one of the incumbents Nov. 2, even if a particular legislator is otherwise an adorable angel.

The coming show in Harrisburg on this subject will be worth watching closely. Despite the Oct. 1 deadline, the Harrisburg gang will try not to vote on it before Nov. 2, professing disagreement, to avoid accountability at the ballot box Election Day. They don't like to bite the hands that bring them special treats, although they have no trouble chewing off to the bone the hands of the voters whom they ostensibly represent.

This has absolutely nothing to do with party, even though Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato has come out in support of taxing gas extraction and Republican candidate Tom Corbett opposes taxing it. (Drilling companies have donated to both candidates.) This is a public matter -- taxing a public asset for the public good or allowing the people of Pennsylvania to be ripped off by a few rich companies.

Proceeding in the department of how governments are supposed to find the money to provide public services to the American people without borrowing gargantuan amounts that our children and grandchildren will have to pay back to China, Japan, the oil Arabs and the Europeans, we thus arrive at the discouraging spectacle of the so-called Bush tax cuts. The pending question is what the Congress is going to do about them before it waddles home at the end of the year.

George W. Bush cut inheritance, income and capital gains taxes, especially for the rich, giving up some $1.6 trillion in federal government revenues in the process. He then financed much of federal spending during his eight years, including two wars, by borrowing, running up the national debt to some $10 trillion by the time he went back to Texas.

The deal when the cuts were approved by Congress in 2001 and 2003 was that the various taxes would go back to their previous levels at the end of 2010. We will pass over in silence what the idea of that was. Would the country no longer need the tax revenues at that point because the government had been dissolved in despair? Or did Mr. Bush foresee that a Democrat would be in office by that time to reap the fiscal whirlwind?

Now, here we are. It is an election year. No one wants to restore the taxes, particularly in a recession. But the budget is in deficit by $1.3 trillion, the national debt stands at $13 trillion and rising and the administration of President Barack Obama, the deer in the fiscal headlights, needs money, including to try to revive the ailing economy.

This may be the time for the Democrats in Congress to just let the Republicans block them from doing anything so the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of the year as planned. When the economy rights itself, there will be plenty of time to cut taxes again.

In the meantime, for anyone sobbing uncontrollably at this point over the fate of rich people who might have to pay more taxes, there was the startling report last week from the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington that the CEOs of the 50 companies that have laid off the most employees during the recession awarded themselves 42 percent more in compensation last year than the average large-company CEO. Pittsburgh's Alcoa, U.S. Steel and PNC Financial Services Group were on the magic 42-percent list.

Later last week we learned from the Department of Labor that the economy had lost another 54,000 jobs in August. It needs to create 100,000 to 150,000 jobs per month just to absorb new entries into the job market. The big, somewhat sick question then becomes, will CEO compensation rise even more in 2010 as the CEOs chop more souls off their payrolls?

Now, to put at least part of this gruesome picture in clearer perspective, would it not be fair to let the CEOs of large companies, who on the average earn 263 times as much as the average American, go back to paying pre-2001-level taxes, particularly given the rising 9.6 percent unemployment level and the need to somehow turn it around? If they are going to raise their own compensation by laying people off, shouldn't they at least be taxed higher on the money they get for putting people on the streets?

I continue to marvel at the passivity of the American people in the face of some of this. Is it time to think of installing guillotines on Wall Street or K Street in Washington? Or on Market Square?

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