Corbett redux


An egregious waste of taxpayer money

When Tom Corbett was in his first year as governor in 2011, his first budget called for $1.2 in cuts in public-school funding. He said that the state did not have the money to continue funding at the same levels that were provided in previous years. 

Everyone must share the pain, he said.

Three years later, Corbett is running scared. He has taken a look at his approval ratings, and while they are not yet in George W. Bush territory, his re-election is looking iffy.

A June poll by a Republican firm showed that 65 percent of voters do not believe that he deserves another term. He trails Rep. Allyson Schwartz, who is basically unknown outside of the  Philadelphia area, by 12 points (46-34). <http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2013/06/internal_poll_prompts_national.html>.

He has also been hammered by his inaction regarding the prosecution of Jerry Sandusky in the Penn State child abuse scandal. 

Republican operatives are speculating that Corbett may actually step aside for another Republican next year. I doubt that. His ego is too large for that to happen.

Today, matters became even worse. Corbett decided not to appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit that he filed against the NCAA that challenged the sanctions that the organization levied against Penn State in the Sandusky scandal.  This is the horrible waste part of this story.
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/politics-state/corbett-wont-appeal-dismissal-of-ncaa-antitrust-suit-694700/

Corbett filed the action as an antitrust suit although most legal minds felt that he had no standing to do so. His suit was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane because it failed to provide any questions about antitrust law.

However, what makes this worse is that he did not employ the state's legal minds in this suit. Instead, he paid lawyers $500+ an hour to make it succeed. Corbett has not provided a total for this frivolous lawsuit, but it has to be tens of thousands of dollars.

Let's face the facts here: This was a thinly-veiled attempt to win back the Penn State alumni who were outraged at the NCAA sanctions but were very upset at him for siding with the PSU board in firing Paterno. 

Instead, this became an egregious waste of taxpayer's money. 


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