Now that their one-day furlough is over, Gov. Ed Rendell hopes that the 24,000 "non-essential" state employees who were told not to report to work Monday because of the 2007-08 budget standoff can be paid for the time not worked.

Although it is unfortunate that the workers were victimized by the failure by Rendell and the General Assembly to achieve a budget agreement by the June 30 deadline, state taxpayers should not have to pay for time not worked.

But there's another aspect to the no-pay scenario that Rendell and lawmakers should address. That is that, because the two sides missed the budget deadline, lawmakers should not receive the more than $100 per-diem pay that they claim when in the state capital. Likewise, Rendell should not claim reimbursement for expenses he incurred related to the budget after June 30.

Neither the governor nor lawmakers should be rewarded for failing in this basic responsibility tied to their offices — regardless of the fact that the budget fight produced a spending plan that does not raise taxes.

The same outcome could have been achieved before midnight June 30 if the two sides had not allowed themselves to become locked in the last-minute frenzy and stubborn partisan politics that increasingly has become the rule in Harrisburg.

State voters should keep that in mind next year, when state legislative offices will be up for a vote — all of the House seats and half of the Senate seats. By law, Rendell is not permitted to seek re-election in 2010.

On Monday, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Northampton, summed up the budget hardball accurately.

"Today, 24,000 workers were furloughed and will not be paid, but every person collecting a welfare check will be paid," she said. "That's more than a shame. It's a disgrace. We should be the ones, along with the governor, to lose our jobs."

While Rendell's intent is that the workers in fact be paid — even though they shouldn't be because they didn't work — lawmakers and the governor should be paid their regular salaries minus the generous per-diem pay and normally reimbursable expenses that they incurred between July 1 and Monday.

At this point, lawmakers and the governor should feel blessed that that's the extent of the financial accountability with which they should be saddled for failure to carry out their budget responsibility by the deadline.

During the standoff, Sen. Mike Waugh, R-York, blasted Rendell, referring to him as a bully.

"This is not a budget impasse," Waugh said. "This is just a bully's tap dance, and the dance is being done on the backs of 25,000 unfortunate state employees."

He's entitled to that perspective, but he shouldn't ignore another issue from the past. That is the big, although eventually ill-fated, middle-of-the-night pay raise that lawmakers — most of whom still are in office — voted themselves on July 7, 2005, and which Rendell signed.

That was foot-stompin' on the back of every person who pays taxes in the state, and in that instance it was the General Assembly, not Rendell, who was the main bully.

Lawmakers and state taxpayers can feel uplifted by the fact that, thanks to a $650 million state surplus as of June 30, that none of the seven tax increases proposed by Rendell in his budget address in February needed to be enacted.

But a budget accord should be achievable on or before June 30 without financial pain being imposed on 24,000 state workers.

The question each lawmaker and the governor should answer now is whether they intend to accept the per-diem pay and expenses reimbursement to which they would be entitled for budget-related time in Harrisburg after June 30.

Their answer should be no, just like the pay-for-24,000-who-did-not-work also should be ruled "no-go."

Perhaps the loss of that money all around will encourage a more responsible, more timely, budget process in 2008.