Oozing snark and sass, millennial memes, and witty pop-cultural references, you might think its tweets are from a young “influencer” on social media, but instead, it’s the Pennsylvania Treasury Department’s official Twitter account.
One local Pennsylvanian who follows the @PATreasury account recently asked, “How did a government agency that is the near-definition of “boring” get its hands on such social media mastery?”
The Pennsylvania Treasury replied: “By deciding we didn’t have to be boring.”
The Twitter account is run by the staff of the Pennsylvania Treasury, who work under Treasurer Joe Torsella, a left-of-center Democrat. PATreasury talks with its followers about characters on the popular television show The Wire and where one can find the best cheesesteaks. It also wades into politics, with the account using witty memes and jokes to bash on billionaires, Wall Street, and Big Tech.
“Treasurer Torsella buys into the fact that people don’t care about the government and its activities more than their own lives. It’s not about us; it’s about them,” said Mike Connolly, head of communications at the Pennsylvania Treasury. Connolly had an in-depth phone interview with the Washington Examiner about the department’s official Twitter account.
“People can see a lot of important information on our newsroom page, but very few are clicking refresh and waiting for a new press release. Our Twitter account is different,” said Connolly.
Contrary to what one might expect, the writing of the tweets doesn’t take a lot of time or energy and isn’t “focus-grouped on a whiteboard,” said Connolly, but instead are written quickly and in the moment.
Connolly himself admitted that many of the tweets are not as carefully chosen, and some errors certainly occur on the account.
“They’re not as judiciously worded. That’s how Twitter is, though. Basically, we’re just trying to have conversation starters with the people of Pennsylvania,” said Connolly.
When asked who specifically handles the official Twitter account, Connolly said the department doesn’t release the names of the people behind it. That is in part because he says it’s funnier if the audience doesn’t know exactly who the person tweeting is.
The Twitter account is not meant to be the voice of anyone in particular within the Pennsylvania Treasury Department, which has 327 employees, Connolly added. It has poked fun of itself and the mystery behind the account from time to time.
Generally, the account tends to echo the perspective of Torsella, though, which is slightly left-of-center. Connolly adds that there are some issues on which Torsella “can be pretty aggressive,” though, such as Wall Street, which Connolly said played a role in Pennsylvania’s pension crisis.
“There was a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse on Wall Street,” said Connolly.
In particular, Torsella and the Twitter account have been skeptical of entrenched wealth and capital.
“We think power structures should be examined and scrutinizing those in power is OK, including of our ourselves,” said Connolly.
“Are we comfortable with billionaires controlling so much? We want to ask that question, but that doesn’t mean we have our hair on fire about the rich or CEOs,” added Connolly.
One of the most critical issues to the Pennsylvania Treasury that also happens to be on the national political stage is the issue of inequality. Although the issue has mostly been raised by Democrats, such as on the 2020 presidential campaign trail, Connolly says it’s a problem that transcends party lines.
“Income inequality impacts everybody, whether you’re on the Right or the Left. This is Pennsylvania, and lots of folks outside of Pittsburgh and Philly also have income inequality in their lives. We don’t think bringing up income inequality is a leftist thing to do,” said Connolly.
Although many of the people who interact with the PATreasury account happen to be left-leaning and pushing for liberal solutions to problems, Connolly says the account doesn’t discriminate by political ideology.
“We don’t have a ton of right-leaning people on the account, who are saying pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do it yourself, kind of thing. It just hasn’t happened so far. But they are more than welcome to the account,” said Connolly.
Like many popular accounts on Twitter, the Pennsylvania Treasury account has several “haters” and “trolls” who make fun of them and are often critical of their tweets.
Connolly says they have “a very open policy when it comes to trolls. Send us anything you want, and we’ll deal with it.”
