Ah, selective memory.

A recent guest on a Philadelphia talk radio program, Gov. Tom Corbett told a caller concerned about rising school taxes he was barking up the wrong tree.

It's not the state government the caller should be talking to -- it's the local school boards, who offer sweet teacher contracts, excessively small class sizes and basically poor management.

The governor even had the gall to mention the generous pensions teachers receive.

Corbett urged taxpayers to basically go raise hell with their local school boards.

"I think the taxpayers need to help themselves," he said.

Speaking of helping themselves ....

Let's flash back to the state Legislature in the spring of 2001.

Lawmakers badly wanted a 50 percent pension increase of their own, which would allow career politicians to retire at almost full pay. They added the teachers and state workers to grease the wheels, so to speak, giving them a 25 percent increase in pension benefits.

A deal was reportedly worked out with former Gov. Tom Ridge: He wouldn't veto the bill if the lawmakers gave him the budget he wanted.

Everybody won.

Except taxpayers.

On the radio program, Corbett complained teacher pension costs will rise from $1.6 billion to more than $4 billion in the next four years.

He neglected to fully explain why.

Oh, the governor cited "past governors and Legislatures" for underfunding the pensions and misjudging expected rates of returns.

But Corbett neglected to mention one of the biggest drivers of this pension crisis -- pure, personal greed by state lawmakers.

School boards -- which, along with the state, are requited to contribute to the teachers' pension fund -- didn't negotiate this increase; they didn't ask for it or even want it.

It was mandated on them. By the state Legislature.

Corbett, formerly Pennsylvania's attorney general, wasn't in office then, but certainly he's aware of the pension increases and how they happened. It caused a huge outcry, similar to the middle-of-the-night pay raise scandal.

Now districts are struggling to set aside money to cover these rising pension costs, while also dealing with Corbett's heavy cuts to education funding.

Teacher furloughs, program cuts and tax increases are the answer.

There are plenty of reasons property taxes are so high and rising, and school boards share some of the blame.

But most people clearly remember one of the biggest, even if the governor chooses to forget.