Kicking Rendell When He's Down

You know Ed Rendell is a lame duck when his hometown newspaper, the same newspaper that has sugar-coated so many of Rendell's faults in the past, is doing critical stories on the gov.

From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Battered by deep cuts last year, groups that offer services to the disabled, the elderly, and children are wincing at what they see in Gov. Rendell's latest proposed budget.

Rendell, delivering his eighth and final budget address on Tuesday, announced plans to trim some areas that touch the most vulnerable, such as literacy programs and disability payments for people living below the poverty line.

Small though they may be, the proposed reductions - along with the budget's reliance on hundreds of millions in federal recovery funds not yet approved by Congress - strike fear in the hearts of agencies that deliver food, health care, job training, transportation, addiction counseling, and child care to Pennsylvania's neediest.

"Rendell has always avoided hitting the poorest in the state," said Jonathan Stein, chief legal counsel for Philadelphia-based Community Legal Services. "This is contrary to his efforts over the last seven years."

Rendell's $29 billion spending plan contains nips and tucks across the board for most agencies, and no restoration of funding for some departments that took substantial hits last year, such as the Department of Environmental Protection and the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources

. Read the full story, "Fears that Rendell's budget shortchanges needy," at the newspaper's Web site.

Originally posted at TONY PHYRILLAS