Newspaper: Trust Rendell? Hardly

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review joins Pennsylvania Auditor General Jack Wagner in expressing concerns that the Rendell Administration will properly spend billions in federal "stimulus" dollars coming to Pennsylvania.

From an editorial in the newspaper:

Wagner suggests that an agency independent of state government provide oversight.

The auditor general's red flag and proposal raised the kind of hackles we've come to expect from the Rendell administration. Wagner's "assertions are unwarranted," said gubernatorial spokesman Chuck Ardo.

Hardly. The Rendell administration's record of sloppy oversight is a textbook case in how not to oversee disbursement of public dollars. Witness the horrendous record of the state Department of Community and Economic Development. Millions of public dollars have been squandered.

Taxpayers should have no confidence that Rendell & Co. -- even with its highly touted Stimulus Oversight Commission -- can properly account for a much larger pool of money.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.