State Auditor Tom ‘See No Evil’ Wagner and State Treasurer-Wannabe Colin Bonini are now billing themselves as Delaware’s Fiscal Watchdog Team.
Set aside that the only watching they do is of their hairlines receding and bellies expanding. And set aside the fact that the Treasurer has little to do with ‘watchdogging’, and that Bonini is really just trying to ‘get the rub’ from the amiable dunce in the Auditor’s office.
Let’s, just this once, take Bonini at his word that he’s a watchdog. Let’s also assume that past performance is a pretty good indicator of future performance, especially if you have nothing else to go on.
By any objective measure, Colin Bonini is the watchdog who doesn’t watch. He barks, but doesn’t watch.
Colin Bonini serves on, or, more accurately, is a member of, a committee charged with reviewing state agencies, evaluating their efficacy and cost-effectiveness, and recommending changes in how these agencies operate. The committee also can recommend termination of agencies that do not serve their purported public purpose. This committee is really the public watchdog committee.
This committee is known as the Joint Sunset Committee, and it’s currently chaired by Sen. Dave Sokola (I understand that Sen. Bethany Hall-Long is now co-chair) and Rep. John Kowalko, who have done some strong work on this oft-maligned committee. The reason that this committee is maligned by many legislators is b/c, if it does its job well, it pisses people off, which legislators studiously seek to avoid. You see how pissed off Sen. ‘Uncle Thurm’ Adams was with the JSC’s actions on the Victims’ Compensation Board, since a couple of his cronies ended up in the crosshairs. In other words, the perfect committee for a dedicated watchdog.
Which, Colin Bonini is not. Don’t take my word for it. Take a gander at his JSC attendance record for public hearings and meetings since he’s been a member (you need to click the ‘Next 30’ button to scroll through the yearly records):
Even allowing for the relatively respectable attendance the last two years when his plans to run for office became public, this is abysmal. Let’s do the math, shall we?:
Memo to the News-Journal: Please feel free to double-check these figures and then report on it. Best of all, nobody even needs to use gasoline to do the ‘legwork’. It’s public info, and it’s online. I, for one, think that Bonini’s established pattern of not doing anything during a twenty year career is germane to this race. As (what remains of) the Fourth Estate, don’t you?
Let’s also remember that Bonini used to be on the Joint Finance Committee until his OWN Senate Rethug colleagues replaced him. Maybe, just maybe, he didn’t show up there either? (Good luck trying to pry those numbers out of Delaware’s most secretive government entity.) Let’s also remember that Bonini has proudly stated that he has not voted for a single state budget, most of which were crafted by a committee evenly split between R’s and D’s, and several of which he presumably helped to craft. He has never voted for a single dollar for schools, roads, state police, etc. Come to think of it, he’s never voted to fund the agency he seeks to head.
And, in a caucus that can easily fit inside a phone booth, he has never held a leadership position. Never. Both D’s and R’s that know Colin Bonini know that he is unfit to serve in any important capacity. They have seen over the course of many years the sheer laziness of Blowhard Bonini.
He has cashed a state check for close to twenty years now, and has done nothing to earn it. Now, he wants to be our watchdog. The only thing we know he’ll watch is a far larger paycheck being direct-deposited into his account. Which is what he’s wanted all along.