Rendell Ends Taxpayer Funded Legacy Project

Reported here earlier, the Rendell administration had been paying a public relations guru to research the “successes” of Rendell’s policies, to be used to lobby for higher taxes.

Today. Gov. Rendell announced that he would be pulling that contract (and paying for services rendered out of campaign funds), that it was an inappropriate use of state dollars, and that he knew nothing about it.

Even if we believe that the Governor knew nothing, it raises several serious questions:

• Who authorized the contract without the Governor’s permission? Does he/she have authority to do so?
• How much taxpayer-funded lobbying is going on without Governor Rendell’s knowledge? In state departments and agencies?
• If this is unacceptable, why didn’t that same standard apply when Gov. Rendell paid $100,000 for a PR consultant last year?
• If the media had not caught wind of this and made it into a sensational story, would our self-proclaimed “fiscally conservative” Governor revoked the contract?