Pennsylvania voters have one more reason, as if they needed another, to vote out most incumbents running for re-election in Harrisburg.

Articles from newspapers across the state, including a commentary from a blogger with the Philadelphia Inquirer, are reporting that the current budget plan includes a big increase in what used to be called WAMs or walking around money. This is state tax dollars doled out to various lawmakers to be awarded to generally worthy projects and groups in the home district to endear the lawmakers to voters so they get re-elected.

Blogger Ben Waxman says that as people studied the budget details they found a "sudden increase in funding for the Department of Economic Development (DCED)."

It's through the DCED that grant (WAM) money flows. And that process was only developed to give the appearance that walking around money was not controlled by party leaders and given out as favors — or withheld as punishment.

In 1995, the courts ruled that WAMs are unconstitutional, so Harrisburg lawmakers, being Harrisburg lawmakers, adjusted the process slightly and sent the money through DCED, where it is directed as party leaders dictate. No matter what anyone in Harrisburg says, WAMs live on.

Waxman wrote Thursday that the budget agreement passed Wednesday includes a 23 percent increase in the DCED budget, or about $62 million.

He says this new money, in a tough budget year, will restore cuts made last year. The fact that this is an election year does not appear coincidental.

Waxman believes the increase in funding is related to the election, with the entire House of Representatives and half of the state Senate up for re-election. It appears the party leaders intend to soften voter anger against incumbents with a few million dollars here and there for local projects — all courtesy of the taxpayers. It's not the politicians' money to give away as WAMs — it's taxpayer money. The politicians only act like it's their money.

Some of the comments reacting to Waxman's reports are worth repeating. One reader said, "Rome burns, and these idiots continue to pat themselves on the back. They must be voted out of office."

Another wrote, "They honestly think we are idiots. And they're absolutely right, unless we prove otherwise."

A third brought back a slogan from the aftermath of the 2005 middle-of-the-night legislative pay-raise vote: clean sweep.

State Rep. Paul Clymer, R-Bucks, noted "We're going to cut state parks by 11 percent, but somehow we can find $60 million for DCED and we don't know who they are going to benefit or how the money is going to be spent."

House Republican Whip Rep. Mike Turzai of Bradford Woods calls the extra funding in the capital budget "a big pot of walking around money" and notes that most goes for many projects around Philadelphia.

Most elected officials in Harrisburg continue to operate with arrogance and a sense of entitlement. Elected officials continue to spend other people's money in ways that benefit politicians or their well-connected friends and keep them in their well-paying jobs with lavish fringe benefits and overly generous pensions.

This attitude has to change, and a good way to change it is to send different people to Harrisburg.

Voters should ask their lawmakers about the WAM funding. If this unwarranted increase in WAM money remains and is used as intended — as an incumbent protection program — voters should be inspired, as they were in 2006 after the pay- raise controversy, to reject all incumbents and to send a message that new people with new attitudes about public service are needed in Harrisburg.