Voters' rage is directed at Washington and Wall Street, but at least one angry glance at Harrisburg remains in order.

"We need all the rage we can get," says Tim Potts, that valuable gadfly at Democracy Rising Pennsylvania.

Gov. Ed Rendell has made $200 million in spending cuts, including a hiring freeze and an end to out-of-state travel by state employees. Even that likely won't be enough to stay ahead of slipping tax revenues, so state House Republicans are asking to re-open the 2008-09 budget to take further whacks at it.

Here's the first place lawmakers should start: themselves. We still have America's Largest Full-Time State Legislature, and a 2005 study had us leading the nation's states in legislative spending as a percentage of general government spending.

Legislators don't need a constitutional amendment to cut the spending, but they shouldn't stop with merely cutting the budget this year. They should begin the heavy lifting by slimming the oversized statehouse and trimming expenses for all-time.

A scattering of reformers in Harrisburg looking to shrink the House size from 203 to 161, and the Senate from 50 to 40. That would save tens of millions of dollars each year, and still leave us with more than enough lawmakers.

Illinois and Ohio are nearby, about our size and have comparable urban/rural splits, and they manage to run their Houses with just 118 and 99 state representatives, respectively. I'd bet my lunch money that no voter in Peoria or Akron is thinking their lives would get better if only they'd hire more lawmakers.

Rep. Mark Mustio, a Republican from Moon, is among the most vocal for reducing the size of the Pennsylvania statehouse. He asks voters to name any issue where Harrisburg has failed to act, and says, "If we could not do those issues with 203 members, we could not do them with 161."

The governor's freeze on hiring reverses Mr. Mustio's preferred approach, which would be reducing legislative expenses first, but all these cuts are needed.

Rep. Matt Smith, a freshman Democrat from Mt. Lebanon, says when he knocks on doors, the size of our General Assembly is part of "the national narrative" that the status quo is not working for citizens. Like Mr. Mustio and others, Mr. Smith would like to cut the Legislature's expenses by 20 percent even before cutting its size.

Mr. Mustio and Mr. Smith both have challengers this year. Mr. Mustio's opponent, Ayanna Lee, similarly favors reducing the size and cost of the Legislature, as does Mr. Smith's challenger, Jim Blazeck.

Challengers might seem the norm in a democratic society, but that is not so in Pennsylvania. Some 94 of the 203 House races are uncontested, and in the spring primaries, only 20 Republican contests and 33 Democratic contests were contested. Only one incumbent lost.

So despite replacing about a fifth of sitting lawmakers seats two years ago in the wake of the unconstitutional midterm pay grab of 2005, voters seem back to allowing these posts to be jobs for life.

The "Bonusgate" arrests will force some to explain in court why they handed out millions in taxpayer dollars for what looks like political work, and that investigation may yet nail some big names.

But our current system clearly is not working well.

Part of that may well be our own apathy, but it's not as if approximating other states' governmental models represents much risk.

Just don't look for Gov. Rendell to seize this moment of voter outrage to push for long-term reform.

"He supports a smaller Legislature but not as a byproduct of the economic downturn," the governor's spokesman, Chuck Ardo, said.

He doesn't think these times present the opportunity to accomplish that goal, and his priority is "figuring out a way to serve all the people that need governmental services," Mr. Ardo said.

That's a worthy goal, and one way to more easily provide government services would be freeing up tens of millions of dollars from the lawmakers serving themselves. Then we might lead the nation in something better. I'm just saying.