Modern government is not an employment agency, and conservatives and businesses are often the first to defend the principle. So why do they have a hard time with the companion notion that government is not there to be a ready source of contracts?

If government is to be run like a business, a favorite conservative mantra, then government should seek the best prices it can for the taxpayer's dollar. And that's what the Rendell administration is trying to do.

Yet some legislators and businesses around Pennsylvania are complaining -- complaining, mind you -- that the administration is trying to save the public up to $100 million a year. The state would do this through competitive mega-contracts that achieve lower unit pricing for items like food, office supplies and asphalt. A relative handful of big contracts would replace thousands of sales agreements with smaller, higher-priced dealers.

General Services Secretary Donald Cunningham said state government used to buy pens from 2,700 companies, two-thirds of which did $1,000 or less in state business. Office supplies bought that way cost Pennsylvania $22.5 million, he told a state House committee Tuesday. The new bulk-purchase contract would run less than $13 million.

Sounds exactly how American families do their buying, when they can. Two cartons of toothpaste shrink-wrapped together, large containers of maple syrup and reams of paper rather than packs all offer savings to consumers because of the higher volume purchased.

Is it any wonder that the state can accomplish the same? The Rendell administration would perform a disservice to the taxpayers if it did the purchasing any other way. It's just ironic that the vocal opponents to the state's volume purchasing see excess public jobs as expendable, but not excess public contracts.