State lawmakers should resoundingly reject the evolving attempts to force participation of all 501 public school districts in the flawed Act 72 property-tax-reduction program.

Forced participation would be a reasonable action if:

Guarantees existed as to how much slots-machine-gambling revenue would be available, and when.

Initial property tax reductions were permanent.

There were significantly fewer exceptions - the current law lists 10 - allowing school districts to raise taxes above the rate of inflation without a voter referendum. That is a major loophole that could be accessed with slick maneuvering by school administrators and directors - even by state mandates.

Workers weren't saddled with a 0.1 percent earned-income tax increase to help pay for the tax cut - an amount that could soon be merely an added tax burden for residents of school districts that wipe out the initial savings by subsequent real-estate-tax actions.

Act 72 didn't purport to be a hear-all, see-all regarding school districts' specific circumstances. While the law might be good for some school systems, it could be a disaster for districts in need of major renovations or other legitimate, major spending increases but unable to win voters' concurrence.

So many "fingers" weren't in the slots-machine revenue pot, reducing the amount of money that otherwise would have been available to school districts. Act 72 doesn't guarantee a specific-percentage initial property tax reduction, either; what taxpayers in each school district receive would be a decision made by the state, and some districts and taxpayers would fare better than others.

Slots machine gambling ensured that school districts would be receiving significantly more money from the state than they currently receive - about a 33 percent state subsidy rate, 17 percentage points less than what the state's coffers should be paying.

Act 72, in general, were a straightforward law without so many unknowns and uncertainties.

Good, workable provisions in the law made the tax-reduction program an easy sell for Gov. Ed Rendell and state lawmakers. Act 72 isn't an easy sell because it isn't a good law; it could better be described as an abomination. It is nearly as bad as the Homestead Exemption law passed in the latter years of the last decade but rejected by all but a couple of the state's school districts.

Some people might regard the current push by Rendell and lawmakers on behalf of Act 72 as a face-saving gesture in the aftermath of the protracted debate and political maneuverings that preceded the law's passage - an attempt to convince taxpayers that the efforts weren't more about expanded gambling than about trying to provide tax relief for them.

Considering the outcome of that legislative work, state residents would be naïve to believe that their best interests were first and foremost the objective of Rendell and the General Assembly.

The bottom line is that lawmakers should reject all attempts to make Act 72 mandatory. Better yet, they should repeal the law and formulate real tax relief that everyone can embrace, rather than fear.