Like most of you, I’ve been grinding my teeth at each new austerity measure enacted by our governor, Tom Corbett. The man is on a mission — an escalating series of reverse-Robin Hood maneuvers designed to take from the poor (and the elderly, and the school kids, and immigrants, and … well, everyone) and give the proceeds to his rich friends and contributors.

The mega-rich gas drillers raping our natural resources upstate at Marcellus Shale get a pass — no fees or taxes — while the state’s school systems go under and state colleges get by on far less than they need. The governor’s reasoning here is that if we don’t give away the store to the drillers, they’ll pick up their equipment and move to neighboring New York or West Virginia.

They won’t.

Marcellus Shale represents perhaps the largest pocket of natural gas anywhere in the country, and a cash cow for decades for those drillers, their investors and the peripheral businesses that stand to benefit. Other states with exploitable natural resources — Texas and Alaska come to mind — charge a pretty penny to those corporations for the privilege. Those states then use the windfall to pay for things like schools, roads, and maybe even the lowering of property taxes.

This is not a crushing burden on those companies. With the vast amounts of money to be made, those state taxes and fees amount to a small drop in a very large bucket. But here in Pennsylvania, not only do corporations eat free, Corbett has gleefully ignored the environmental and human costs, gutting regulations that would at least keep those corporations from poisoning our air and water for generations.

He’s cut off the money to public schools, made college an unreachable goal for thousands of Pennsylvania families, sat on his hands as Attorney General even with the full knowledge of Jerry Sandusky’s heinous crimes at Penn State, and given us the new voter ID law, the most insidious violation of citizens’ basic rights and dignity since “Colored Only” water fountains.

For these, and a thousand other reasons, there’s only one recourse left for those of us who wish to live in a free commonwealth that lives up to our state constitution: Impeach Tom Corbett.

Yes, impeach him. Storm the castle with pitchforks and torches and throw the bum out on his ear.

Turns out, though, that I’m not the first to come up with this idea. Type “Impeach Corbett” into your favorite Web browser, and you’ll be as surprised as I was. Several petitions to oust Corbett can be found on Facebook, Twitter, Change.org and ipetitions.com. The Internet is bursting with Pennsylvania residents who’ve had the idea for months — some who started their petition drives not long after he took office.

Is success just a matter of the number of signatures collected? Frankly, no.

Unlike states whose constitutions allow for a popular recall vote, like the one mounted earlier this year in Wisconsin to recall Gov. Scott Walker, Pennsylvania depends upon its legislature, specifically the House, to present articles of impeachment.

Because of the Republican legislative majority, there’s probably little chance of getting articles of impeachment through the House, let alone an actual up or down vote. That fact, however, should not stop us from trying.

If enough Democrats in the House are courageous enough to take up the banner, it is possible that even the threat of impeachment will be enough to punish, harass and embarrass the governor into doing the right thing — especially since that embarrassment would come in the middle of an important election season.

Corbett has laid waste to the commonwealth’s constitution, the very document he swore to defend. He has time and again violated present law and common decency in his ongoing effort to make sure his cronies and contributors get fat while the rest of Pennsylvania starves to death.

So how about it, progressive House members? Will you continue to roll over, keeping silent while Corbett and his GOP minions shred your constituents’ state-guaranteed safety net, gut the education treasury in favor of school vouchers and poison our environment?

It will only take a few of you. Get your legislative aides to compile a list of Corbett’s most egregious constitutional violations, and they are myriad — and prepare the articles of impeachment.

Make your colleagues across the aisle defend the indefensible, while hitching their careers and political futures to a callous, partisan hatchet man. Make Corbett look the old folks and school children in the eye while he cuts their throats.

Even if we fail to ultimately impeach him, it will be an effort well spent.

Daryl Gale is the Philadelphia Tribune's city editor.