Charlie Baker made some anodyne statement when he took out his pen and cut a bunch of programs that particularly help poor people:
“My belief is we are not only obligated, but the people of Massachusetts expect us to live within our means, and we believe these reductions will make it possible for us to do that,”
Baker makes it sounds like well, we’ll just forgo the expensive family vacation, or shop at TJMaxx instead of Nieman’s.
Some people hardly have any means to live within. And Baker is cutting access for food for those people:
0.7 percent.
That’s about how much the $650,000 cut to the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program represents out of Gov. Baker’s $98 million in state budget cuts announced on Tuesday.
This amounts to less meals all over the state, including in Western Massachusetts, where about 211,000 people struggle with hunger and food insecurity, said Berkshire County Sen. Ben Downing, D-Pittsfield.
“There will be less support for our local food pantries … at a time when more people are coming to those food pantries,” he said. “Those are meals … that will not be served.”
Like other politicians in Berkshire County, Downing said he’s frustrated by the cuts. They’re not justified when other choices could be made to make up the state’s $300 million budget gap, including cutting earmarks in less essential areas or increasing the state income tax that was reduced last year, he said.
“The places [Baker] has chosen to cut are precisely the places that should have been protected,” he said.
Call me a socialist, a wild-eyed lefty, but I think people should eat. We can provide that much.
There are ways in which Baker doesn’t resemble your garden-variety Republican governor. And ways in which … he does. Considering that the legislature — even Bob DeLeo — says these cuts are premature, I wonder what’s in it for Baker.
jconway says
Some programs are sacred after all.
Christopher says
…from a Governor who “starts with the premise that people are already taxed enough”? Plus, families frankly don’t live within their means either. They have mortgages, car payments, credit card debt, student loans, etc.
Trickle up says
He’s basically said it. He’s taking the side of the honest thrifty taxpayer versus the spendthrift legislature. Legislative leaders never look good in that sort of contest; it’s like shooting fish in a barrel.
The cuts are tragic and are bad for the Commonwealth in the long term, but the short-term pain is borne by people whom the Baker majority probably does not care enough about to pay attention to the facts, as opposed to the optics.
So, he burnishes his image, shores up his base, and scores point with swing voters. Next election, if you don’t like those spendy Democrats, who ya gonna call? The only downside is his relationship with the Lege maybe takes a hit.
Trickle up says
.
Peter Porcupine says
Have you ever thought of changing the balanced budget law?
Make a select group, say Governor, President, and Speaker, jointly responsible for deciding 9-c cuts. As it is, the lege has no trouble sending a porked up budget, having the Governor veto to bring into line with the revenue projections and then overtiding the vetoes secure in the knowldge that the Governor will bear all the responsibility when the revenue isn’t there.
We had 20 years of that crap, with a break only when the Governor was a fellow Democrat.
If there was joint action, you could take money from GE, or wherever you wanted to preserve the lines you want. If course, you would have to take responsibility instead of cowardly hiding behind somebody else.