For a politician whose mantra both during and after the 2014 election was “transparent government that works,” the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf sure spends a lot of time and energy fighting to keep things secret.

The latest example of this is the administration’s trip to Commonwealth Court this week. The administration asked a judge to reverse a decision by the state’s Office of Open Records, which ordered state officials to make public records of the financial incentives offered to Amazon as part of the so-called HQ2 sweepstakes.

Pennsylvania’s major metropolitan centers — Pittsburgh and Philadelphia — have both emerged as finalists in the company’s search for a second headquarters, which as of now still has no timetable but is forecast to bring 50,000 new jobs and billions of dollars in capital spending on construction.

Those kind of numbers are enough to make any elected official do a double-take — and then everything in their power to try and bring that project to their neck of the woods. So we don’t begrudge city and state officials the use of tax incentives to try and reel in Amazon. How else are they supposed to compete?

Using those incentives is one thing. But spending time, effort and money to keep the details of these sweetheart deals secret from the people who will ultimately foot the bill is just bad business.

It’s not transparent government. It’s not government that works. It’s government that does whatever the heck it wants and actively denies taxpayers access to information that will help them draw informed conclusions about whether or not officials are cutting a bad deal.

There needs to be more accountability at both ends of the process when tax incentives are being used to entice companies to move into, or stay in, Pennsylvania.

Taxpayers should be privy to the details of these deals before they are inked, and companies should be expected to provide data showing how many jobs and how much capital investment taxpayers’ largesse has generated.

We would expect a governor committed to transparency and better government to understand and support those goals, not actively work against them.

—PAR