Paul Thibault was talking about cutting pork from the state's diet.
Enthusiastic oinking punctuated Thibault's speech Saturday at Future View Farm south of Willow Street.
"Here we have the supporters of pork in the distance," Thibault ad-libbed.
That was why, of course, Thibault's campaign for the 13th state Senate district chose the hog farm owned by the Jeff Frey family as backdrop for a speech about ways to cut taxes and spending in Harrisburg.
With some of his 17 supporters wielding stuffed pigs as props, and the real McCoys staying far warmer in their barns, Thibault talked about his tax-and-spending plan should he be elected to succeed retiring Sen. Gib E. Armstrong.
The platform includes eliminating the property tax, reducing the state income tax, axing new tax credits for movie producers, limiting spending to inflation plus population growth, barring the hiring of lobbyists by government agencies, focusing spending on "core functions" of government, ending taxpayer-funded public service announcements for individual legislators and reforming the grant program commonly called walking-around money, or WAMs.
This little pig ...Thibault, a former county commissioner, told his supporters that he found out about the "constant climb" in state spending "in an intensely personal way" at the courthouse.
County government is an agency of the state, he pointed out, and must carry out state-mandated programs — even when the state doesn't supply money to pay for said programs.
Even "local match" programs require counties to come up with 10 percent of the funding, Thibault said.
The inevitable result, he noted, is that county commissioners have to raise taxes.
One year, he said, when the county had to raise local millage 28 percent, he responded by cutting his salary $3,000.
"You hear about pay hikes," Thibault said. "I do pay cuts."
Thibault touted his record as commissioner, noting that he's the only candidate with "real-life experience with this most important problem facing us."
"The way to choke off the constant rise in state spending is not easy, but it is fairly direct: Go over every single line item in every single department in Harrisburg," he said. "Cut what's no longer needed; minimize the cost of what is needed, and don't create new programs, especially not temporary ones. As Ronald Reagan once said, 'The closest thing to eternal life in this world is a temporary government program.' "
He advocated making the legislative grants called WAMs more transparent, pointing out that while the grants often go to good programs, the problem is the process by which the money is awarded.
Thibault is one of four Republicans, along with Lloyd Smucker, Steve McDonald and Bill Neff, in the wide-open April 22 primary.
Thibault's critics charge that when he was a commissioner, the county spent too much and raised taxes too often. That's the point, Thibault said after his speech — the county is constrained in its spending by state mandates.
Ninety percent of the county budget revolves around state services, he said, and even former Commissioner Jim Huber, a budget hawk, had to support a 60 percent tax increase in 1987.
Running for the Senate makes sense, Thibault added, because "that's the place to choke it off."
"We need to cut a lot of the pork from the budget," Thibault said, "and return it to the taxpayers."
Helen Colwell Adams is a Sunday News staff writer. E-mail her at hcolwell@lnpnews.com, or phone 291-4962. 
