The Governor went on Eagan and Braude yesterday. I don’t want to get too much into gotcha quotes, but one gets an image of a guy who’s not that closely plugged into the reality that so many of us have been living with the past month — no, no, the last 15 years or so.
When asked if he had ridden the T recently, he answered: “Not since this whole mess has arisen.”
“The idea that I would just go down and ride on it to make a symbolic gesture? First of all I don’t think it’s honest,” Baker said.
“Secondly, I think if people said to me, ‘would you rather have me or there or have me directing traffic in the bunker to make sure we’re doing all the things we need to do to clear our roads and all the rest,’ I think that one’s pretty easy to answer,” he continued.
So he hasn’t ridden the T. This is at the same time stunning and completely unsurprising for this guy.
If the Governor rides the T, sure, it could be an empty gesture. If you see the Governor as a top-down authority, as the originator of commandments, it would be. On the other hand, he could take the opportunity to learn something, to observe how broken it really is: To experience the delays; to feel how cold it is to wait for a train that never comes; to be on a slow train that is then “taken out of service”; to be behind a “disabled train”; to experience the frustration of being ridiculously late or missing an important appointment.
I just can’t imagine a guy pretending to understand the problem if he hasn’t experienced it or at least observed it, firsthand. This is why people fly to conferences, even when they could just talk on the phone. The firsthand experience is just different. He needs to know that.
And then there’s this:
Looking ahead to long-term fixes for the MBTA’s woes, Baker was adamant that plans for a tax increase were not on the table at this time.
“The thing I find so disappointing about this is everybody just says: we should raise taxes,” he said.
“They don’t look at the fact that no mass transit system in the United States has grown faster than ours has over the course of the past 15 years in a marketplace where the population basically hasn’t changed very much at all. They don’t talk about the fact that we dramatically expanded our commuter rail operation at the same time the number of passenger trips actually went down. They don’t talk about the fact that the operating budget for the T over the last seven or eight years has gone up by 50 percent,” Baker continued.
“The notion we just automatically press that button first before we’ve done any of the analysis on how we got here or why we’re here or how we get out, just strikes me as odd,” he said.
Does he really think there’s been no analysis? No D’Alessandro report? No “Born Broke”? Is he not listening to Charlie Chieppo? Braude gently pushed back at him on that point, but Baker didn’t answer the question. Again, where’s he been?
Look, if Baker has some fiscal rabbits to pull out of a hat to make the necessary improvements, let’s see them. This crisis has more than called that bluff. And the people who have put in the work, who have done the analysis, from across the ideological spectrum — none of them believe you can do it without major new revenues.
If Baker wants to play coy and seem reluctant to raise taxes, I get that. But at some point he has to face reality, and he’s going to look seem feckless, indecisive, and out of touch until he does.
whoaitsjoe says
So I used to work in Cambridge, and this past summer I was in my building and was going up the elevator with none other than candidate Baker. I shook his hand, let him know I was voting for him. Was SHOCKED by how real-life tall he is. Tall for days.
Anywho, his assistant said something about getting into Cambridge and I was like, oh I took the red line here. And Charlie was like “the red line comes here? “uh..yeah…I got off at Kendall/MIT, it’s just a few blocks away.”
The man gets a wistful look in his eye and goes “oh…Kendall/MIT” with a tone that one normally reserves for vocalizing really deep philosophical answers to life’s questions. At that moment it occurred to me that Charlie Baker had zero knowledge about the city’s public transportation system, and if I knocked him out cold and dropped him in the Ruggles Station, he probably wouldn’t be able to find his way home when he came to.
mannygoldstein says
Was anyone thinking that something other than this would be our Governor when they voted for Lord Baker?
SomeGuyInMetrowest says
There’s definitely enough analysis out there for the Governor to have an opinion, but I don’t agree with the need from him to actually ride the T. What more is there to learn by riding that he doesn’t know already?
Christopher says
…I’m starting to think you ought to yield your BMG moniker to the Governor for his use. All that runs through my head now when I think of his handling of the MBTA is “he’ll never return, o he’ll never return, and his fate is still unknown…”:)
Trickle up says
Will it be “not our problem” “lets study it” “blame Keolis” “reform before revenue?”
Or will it be, Let’s fix this sucker?
It certainly won’t be the latter without major pushback from the public.
And the outcome of this struggle will determine what happens until the next crisis.
Donald Green says
Who is paying the highest rate on their income for state and local taxes? Bottom 20%=10.4% Top 20%=less than 8% Top 1%=less than 5% . Conservatives are always carping they overpay in taxes. They don’t and just a little extra from the 1 million or so in the top bracket would eliminate harmful cuts and allow proper investment.
dasox1 says
I couldn’t care less if Gov. Fish-Tales rides the T or not. The issue is that he is unwilling to fund improvements to the system, and is not capable of understanding the very simple concept that the problems are a direct result of lack of capital improvements over many years that caught up to the state. That’s the issue. Senator Kennedy never lived a minute of his life as a member of the working poor, but he understood their plight as well as any politician. My point–you don’t have to ride the T to fix the problem (or even understand it).
Charley on the MTA says
Kennedy didn’t need to ride the T to understand. I think Baker does.
dasox1 says
I think that if Baker would stop and think, he’d recognize this as a giant opportunity. He can deny blame, blame others, pick this mess up at rock bottom, and if he will commit the resources (human, fiscal) there’s a huge upside. My guess is that he will be unwilling to make the investments in system that are necessary. I hope this new commission will push him in the right direction. This mess is terrible for the state’s economy.
Bob Neer says
The problem is not so much Baker’s underlying reflexive Republican “it’s just a poor people’s problem that will soon be out of the headlines” (hopefully within 30 days) reaction. That’s what the people voted for. It is (a) his inability to take responsibility for having played a direct role in creating the problem by lumbering the T with more than a billion dollars in debt for unrelated Big Dig highways, and (b) his apparent ignorance of the fact that the T is essential to economic prosperity in Massachusetts. He sounds like an object demonstration of the Peter Principle in action.
maggiemae says
Only slightly off-topic, but Governor Baker also said on Boston Public radio that he and his wife were dealing with ice dams in their bedroom. Though it had a certain regular person charm to it, it also made me wonder how such a wealthy person could have delayed maintenance, missed the extensive media coverage on the subject, and had not found a roofer so many weeks into this ice dam season. It doesn’t instill confidence that he protects important assets, anticipates upcoming problems, or responds quickly to issues with rapidly mounting costs. Just sayin’
chris-rich says
It supports my theory that wealth can make a ditz cocoon or bubble wrap around its victims until common sense drains away.
stomv says
with more roof and gutter than most, it’s only reasonable that he couldn’t possibly keep ahead of all of its needs.