Manufacturing Down; Public drunkenness Up

Whilst Pennsylvania has been hemorrhaging the few manufacturing jobs it has left:


                              8/08     9/08   10/08  11/08   12/08 1/09

Manufacturing % Δ   -2.0    -2.2     -2.9      -3.7       -5.3    -5.9

Governor Rendell's (D) Secretary of Labor and Industry, who was appointed due to partisan cronyism:

She was previously chief of staff to a Democratic state senator and political director of the state Democratic Party.

has been getting blotto:

Vito, 43, who was charged with public drunkenness after an incident at a bar at the Hilton Harrisburg Wednesday night, is expected to return to her post after a leave that could last for about a week, Gov. Ed Rendell's press secretary Chuck Ardo said.


"She notified us this morning that she intends to seek treatment and hopes to get a better understanding of how alcohol can affect her decision-making," Ardo said.

In order to help save Keystone staters some of their hard earned tax dollars, I've developed a graph to help illustrate for Vito (D) the impact that alcohol has had on her job performance:



UPDATE I

Newsbusters points out that CNN conveniently glissands over the inconvenient fact that the vino loving Vito is, in fact, a Demo.

UPDATE II

Again, in an effort to quantify how "alcohol can affect [Vito's] decision-making", whilst Vito was drunk as a skunk, "Pennsylvania lost 41,000 jobs in February, most since 1996"

Gov't shovel for citizens in economic hole

The logic escapes me in Pennsylvania Governor Rendell's plan to tax video gambling losses:

- Player losses would be taxed at 50 percent.

IMHO, promoting gambling, in general, is typically a regressive tax and will lead more people into bankruptcy.

A point of trivia, I did not know that Penn State University apparently, is not, despite its name, in fact, a state school:

- Proceeds would be used to provide grants of up to $7,600 a year for students attending Pennsylvania's state-owned universities or community colleges. The state-owned universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester.
- The breaks would not apply to students attending private schools or the state-related schools -- Penn State, Pitt, Temple and Lincoln.