Manning Up Isn’t For ‘Wusses’

As the old saying goes, “it takes one to know one,” and outgoing Gov. Ed Rendell, who has obviously spent more time analyzing the Philadelphia Eagles than bringing jobs back to Pennsylvania, made sure of that when he called city and National Football League officials “wusses”  for postponing a football game Sunday due to extreme weather.

“My biggest beef is that this is part of what’s happened in this country,” said Rendell.

Well, Gov. Rendell, our biggest beef is what you allowed to happen to Pennsylvania while playing the bully, instead of the coach.

Like most recently, when you failed to “man up” to unions for SEPTA and the Port Authority and instead of finding long-term solutions to festering problems, just bailed them out at future generations’ expense.

But this has been the attitude Gov. Rendell has had for eight years—that those who oppose his demands are just “wusses”—and he has been able to bully them into higher spending, higher taxes, and higher debt.  Like when he said Republicans need to “man up” and raise taxes; or his use of state workers, college students, social service agencies and the like as pawns in budget negotiations, hoping those “wusses” in the House and Senate would just cave to the pressure.

But like a pyromaniac now teaching the virtues of fire prevention, Rendell went on to say, “The Chinese are kicking our butt in everything. If this was in China do you think the Chinese would have called off the game?”

This is par for the course for Rendell, who led the nation at pointing fingers at everyone but himself.  Facts show the Chinese are far from the nation we wish to emulate with manufacturing.  China has zero involvement with product development, innovation, market research or packaging and looks constantly to the West for demand.  So where was the demand from Pennsylvania?

Problem is, according to the Council for Community and Economic Research, Gov. Rendell lorded over Pennsylvania as the second highest spending state in the nation (trailing only Ohio) in so-called “economic development” incentives to corporations.  Yet these corporate welfare programs have not lifted the state from near the bottom of the nation in economic growth and failed to create jobs here in the Keystone State.

Like any good team, football or otherwise, the problem isn’t always with work ethic or what time you play, it’s with leaders who create the right game plan and set their players up for success.  Philadelphia Eagles head coach Andy Reid admitted he didn’t plan to fail but rather failed to plan in his team’s loss Tuesday.  That would be refreshing news from a governor who is still refusing to man up even as he moves out.