Pennsylvania Leads in Spending Taxpayer Money to Lobby Congress

A new analysis from Open Secrets finds that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (i.e., our state government) led all states in spending taxpayer money on federal lobbying in the first quarter of 2010 (HT Grassroots PA).  The City of Philadelphia and Allegheny County also rank high on the full list.  In the past, the Turnpike Commission was among the biggest lobbyist – but after losing the bid for I-80 tolling, this seems to have declined.

Of course, a great deal of this lobbying was for another bailout of the states – that is to say, we are using tax dollars to lobby for higher taxes.