PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
PAtownhall.com
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
Pennsylvania's Marketplace of Ideas
by David N. Taylor,
Executive Director, PA Manufacturers' Association
Following his years as district attorney of Philadelphia in the 1980s and then mayor in the 1990s, Ed Rendell helmed the Democratic National Committee through the contentious 2000 Presidential election. As Pennsylvania's governor, Rendell was treasurer of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) and sent his communications director to Washington to run the campaign group. Now in his second term in Harrisburg, Gov. Rendell finds himself as Hillary Clinton's most important supporter at her most critical hour: he must deliver her this must-win state. If he can give her a decisive Pennsylvania primary election victory that propels her to the nomination and, ultimately, the White House, Rendell can write his own ticket back to D.C.
During his tenure as governor, Rendell has attempted to enhance his national political stature by running the DGA playbook on state policy, particularly in the area of energy. To serve as his Secretary of Environmental Protection, Rendell chose Kathleen McGinty, the long-time advisor to U.S. Senator and Vice President Al Gore. In the 1990s, McGinty headed the White House Environmental Quality Board where she was "considered a bit of a zealot even inside the [Clinton] Administration", according to the National Journal. In 1997, Fortune magazine called "Green Queen" McGinty one of "the most dangerous bureaucrats in America."
The radical greens have realized that the energy sector is their most promising avenue of attack for seizing control of the economy, which is why the Rendell Administration and its allies have been working to mandate and subsidize inherently inefficient and overly-expensive "alternative" energy sources. Never mind that there is more coal energy under Pennsylvania than there is petroleum energy under Saudi Arabia. Along these lines, Secretary McGinty may have been a little too candid recently when speaking to the editorial board of the Uniontown Herald-Standard, which quoted her as saying "We need to find ways not to burn coal." (McGinty now disputes the quotation but the newspaper stands behind it.)
During Rendell's first four years, state General Fund spending increased more than during the eight years of Ridge/Schweiker or Casey/Singel. Having been handily re-elected, Rendell now resembles the TV pitchman who says "EVERYTHING MUST GO!" Whether it's spending future payments from the tobacco settlement, postponing business tax relief, or raiding the Rainy Day Fund, the governor's 2008-09 budget request seeks to chuck away the taxpayers' money with both hands. And the scale of Rendell's spending increases is cleverly disguised by requesting zero funding for many programs he knows will be restored by the legislature.
His multiple protestations notwithstanding, Ed Rendell is simply not planning on being in Harrisburg eight months from now. Instead, he expects to cash in his pivotal support for President Rodham with a Cabinet post (Secretary of Energy, anyone?) or perhaps a Supreme Court appointment for Pennsylvania's First Lady Midge Rendell, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
While no one knows how Campaign 2008 will play out, one can only imagine what the next two years will be like for Governor Rendell, who'll be stuck here in Pennsylvania if Hillary Clinton doesn't become President.
