Free Republic

<p>Pennsylvania has a friend in almost every corner of the world.</p> <p>Pennsylvania spends $2.6 million a year to run 15 foreign trade offices -- more than any other state -- representing the commonwealth from Australia to Singapore to the United Kingdom.</p>

<p>California's dozen foreign trade offices were already in jeopardy this spring before press reports in late May brought the first whiff of scandal. With the budget axe slashing deeply into state spending on education, public safety, health care and a host of programs targeting the state's most vulnerable citizens, the betting around the state Capitol was that the Davis administration would be lucky to secure money for three of the overseas outposts.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. SANTA ANA -- The state offices charged with boosting California exports overseas and luring foreign investment lied about at least $44 million in deals they claimed to have brokered, the Orange County Register reported Monday. Among other things, the trade office in South Africa falsely said it had brokered a $12,000 export deal for a Diamond Bar company; officials in the Mexico office lied about helping a Lodi sewage equipment firm to sell $150,000 worth of products and the Japanese office misstated its work on a $33,334 deal that supposedly helped...

<p>Overseas offices that cost millions to run, fail to generate commerce and often mislead lawmakers and the public about their performance are the state's ...</p> <p>SURPRISED: Mia Rose Palencar, who owns a cleaning-products business based in Orange, is baffled by the trade agency’s report that it helped her with a $40,000 export deal. “I’d love to know how they felt they helped me,” she says.</p>

<p>The directors of California's 12 foreign-trade offices should face perjury charges if they continue to produce false or misleading accounts to the Legislature of how they brokered businesses deals, key lawmakers said Sunday.</p> <p>The reform call is in response to an Orange County Register investigation into the trade offices - located around the world to increase exports and investment to California - that found more than $40 million in false or overblown deals. In case after case, business owners said they were surprised the state included them in annual reports as "success stories'' when they did little or nothing to help them.</p>