Flourtown, PA – Joe Torsella, the Democratic nominee for Pennsylvania State Treasurer, today released his new ad. In “Fighting Waste & Corruption” Joe talks about his policies to make Harrisburg more transparent and accountable.
“Three of Pennsylvania’s past five state treasurers have been indicted for corruption. That’s outrageous,” says Torsella. “I fought waste and corruption at the United Nations, saving millions for taxpayers. As Treasurer, I’ll post online how every dollar is spent in Harrisburg and when corporations get government contracts, I’ll reveal exactly how much they’ve given to politicians.”
As State Treasurer, Joe Torsella will fight to make sure the Treasury Department is more efficient, transparent and accountable in managing the Commonwealth’s funds. Torsella has proposed:
- Appointing a Chief Integrity Officer. On day 1, Torsella will appoint a Chief Integrity Officer for the Department of Treasury. This officer will ensure that the Department of Treasury will operate with fairness and integrity, uncompromised by conflicts of interest, political affiliation, favoritism, or other unfair considerations.
- Shining New Light on Campaign Contributions and Pay-for-Play Politics. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania has an opportunity to lead the nation in transparency and integrity in state government by making it easy for any citizen to see political contributions made by state vendors or vendors. Treasury already manages an online database of state contracts; Torsella will take the next step of adding vendors’ reported political contributions to the database. Creating a truly accessible and user-friendly tool would let citizens see all information on political giving and state contracts in one place.
- Make Public Employees that Trade Public Money Disclose Personal Trades. Currently, only traders in the Treasury office report stock trades. Torsella will require that the people trading public money in the stock market disclose the trades they make on their own accounts. The office will prohibit the use of non-public information for private profit, including insider trading government employees who are trading and investing public money on behalf of the Commonwealth.
- Publish the Pennsylvania Sunshine Checkbook. For transparency to matter, Pennsylvania needs to invest in Open Data. Torsella will leverage technology and citizen engagement to expand and enrich access to state government information, ensuring that Pennsylvanians know exactly how their tax dollars are being spent.
Torsella previously served as representing the United States at the United Nation. From 2011 to 2014, Joe was US Ambassador to the UN for Management and Reform. He was the architect and chief public spokesperson for the Obama Administration’s UN reform plans released in 2012, and was the United States government’s lead fiscal watchdog at the UN, from its $36 billion in annual budgets to its $41 billion pension fund to its $2 billion headquarters renovation project. In his tenure, the US reversed a decade-long trend of unbridled growth in UN budgets, brought new transparency to the UN through webcasting of meetings and publication of UN audits, and won milestone reforms toward ending sexual exploitation and abuse of civilian populations by UN peacekeepers and ending the unfair exclusion of Israel in UN bodies. Torsella’s plainspoken style earned him praise from UN watchers and from publications ranging from Le Monde to the New York Post, and he was recognized for his successful use of social media and public diplomacy to promote US policy. As an outsider, Joe spoke frankly about the need for the UN to end “business as usual” and frequently reminded his UN colleagues that the “obligation to our taxpayers” is to “do more with less.”
To Read the Entire Plan Go Here