There seems to be no end to the sleaziness surrounding Pennsylvania lawmakers' pay-raise atrocity.

Sunday's Butler Eagle gave readers new insight into the lawmakers' money grab via an Associated Press news analysis dealing with future cost-of-living salary increases that the lawmakers have put in place for themselves. And, the bottom line is, just as the legislators took great care of themselves via their 16 percent to 34 percent pay hike approved in a vote at 2 a.m. July 7, they've taken generous care of themselves for the indefinite future.

It's interesting that seven lawmakers who represent portions of Butler County and who voted "no" to the pay increase have been so silent about the way future lawmaker cost-of-living increases will be calculated.

The lawmakers in question are state Sens. Mary Jo White, Don White and Jane Orie and Reps. Brian Ellis, Daryl Metcalfe, Dick Stevenson and Scott Hutchinson.

Sen. Bob Robbins and Rep. Frank LaGrotta voted for the pay hike, so it's understandable why they're not proclaiming their additional personal good news, which is as follows:

Instead of future cost-of-living increases based solely on the federal consumer price index for the Philadelphia metropolitan area, the new language calls for legislative salaries to be increased by either the percentage change in the consumer price index or the percentage change in congressional salaries, whichever is larger.

There apparently is nothing built into the equation for lawmakers to forgo their increases if there is a state fiscal crisis. Somehow that seems out of "sync" with lawmakers' purported hellbent desire to look out for their constituents' best interests in the state capital.

And, in the days after the pay-raise vote, lawmakers proclaimed the positive side about their having tied future cost-of-living raises to the rate of congressional salary increases. It's puzzling why they wouldn't also have mentioned the consumer price index factor - unless they were trying to hide from state residents how well they covered all bases on their own behalf.

Strangely, none of Butler County's "no"-vote lawmakers called the public's attention to this "oversight."

The lack of in-depth discussion by this county's "opposed" lawmakers would seem to indicate that at least some of their "no" votes might not have represented the lawmakers' true feelings and how the lawmakers might have voted if their votes had been needed for approval.

"They (General Assembly members) certainly have picked the best of all possible worlds," said Barry Kauffman, director of Pennsylvania Common Cause. He's right.

Raises of 16 to 34 percent, "unvouchered expenses" to circumvent the state constitution's stipulation that raises not be received until after the election following a raise's approval, and now a choice of cost-of-living options to grab as much money as they can each year - thousands of people should be pondering a run for a General Assembly seat.

This latest disclosure is another reason why a major "housecleaning" is in order in Harrisburg in 2006.