When the plan to toll Interstate 80 was approved last year by state lawmakers, few sophisticated observers of Pennsylvania politics imagined that the idea, backed by House and Senate leaders and accepted as a necessary evil by Gov. Ed Rendell, wasn’t a done deal.

Faced with the dilemma of paying for billions of dollars in needed road and bridge repairs, turning the state’s major east-west interstate highway into a toll road managed by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission must have seemed like a good idea. (At least for those whose constituents don’t live along I-80 like we do here in Mercer County.)

A year ago, if you listened to members of the Turnpike Commission, federal approval of tolling I-80 was a bureaucratic fait accompli. They signed a lease with the state for the road and launched a major publicity blitz to sell the idea that tolling the interstate was the only solution to the state’s transportation woes.

Foes of the plan like Third District Congressman Phil English were tilting at windmills, those in the know were sure.

But that may be changing.

First the federal Department of Transportation rejected the Turnpike Commission’s initial plan for tolling the interstate, saying the plan lacked details such as what the money collected on the highway would specifically be used for. The rejection was expected, the commission said, and members are preparing a more detailed offering.

Then, perhaps sensing public opinion wasn’t 100 percent behind leveling a toll on a highway already paid for by public tax dollars, Rendell renewed his earlier call to lease the Turnpike to generate the money needed to repair the state’s roads and bridges.

Add to that the recent news that federal prosecutors are alleging that the chairman of the Turnpike Commission, Mitchell Rubin, was a “ghost employee” of the state for three years before he was appointed to the post. They say he earned $30,000 a year, doing little or no work, as an aide to indicted state Sen. Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia.

Rubin hasn’t been charged in that case, though his wife is one of Fumo’s co-defendants in a wide-ranging fraud case that allegedly cost state taxpayers more than $3 million.

Then last week, the Commonwealth Foundation produced a report attacking the commission for a culture of “power, patronage and politics” and detailing the links between prominent politicians like Fumo and turnpike officials, noting lavish spending by top executives and alleging corruption and inside dealing, according to the Associated Press.

Matthew Brouillete, the conservative think tank’s president, said the Turnpike Commission “represents everything that’s wrong with Pennsylvania government.”

We couldn’t agree more and, like Brouillete, we’re wondering why the powers that be in Harrisburg are willing to make the state “dependent on the turnpike commission for the major funding of our roads, highways and mass transit.”

Meanwhile, we’re waiting for the next shoe to drop.