Gov. Ed Rendell could use a vacation after spending five days on a bus crisscrossing Pennsylvania to hand out giant cardboard checks to all sorts of pet projects.

While it's better to give than to receive, people forget that this is our tax money Rendell is handing out.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review couldn't resist taking a shot at Rendell for his Big Cardboard Checks Tour '08.

From an editorial in the newspaper:

With funds totaling $642 million, Generous Ed showed up with public cash for this cause or that as a demonstration of his magnanimity. No doubt there were plenty of "grip-and-grin" photo-ops along the way.

Except in Pennsylvania, where economic growth trails the rest of the nation, the "grip" is on taxpayers' wallets. And nobody with half a brain is grinning.

If Pennsylvania somehow manages to pull itself up by taxing and spending, it will be the first state ever to do so.

Read the full editorial at the newspaper's Web site.

POLICY BLOG also questions the fiscal sense of Rendell's check-passing tour in a post titled, Rendellconomics 101