Adam Reilly has helpfully posted the full text of Kerry Healey’s speech at the official kickoff for her campaign for Governor.
My take: nicely packaged Republican rubbish. It’s an excellent example of the fallacy that Republicans have been perpetrating on this country for years: you can cut taxes forever, increase government spending forever, and never run into problems.
Just look at her speech:
Government can guarantee that every citizen has certain opportunities in life, and it should always be generous in doing so….
I believe that Massachusetts should offer top-quality education from Kindergarten through college. In order to compete in this new global economy, our schools need not to be just the best in the nation, but as good as any in the world. To fulfill our promise to todayâs children, we need to focus on education in new ways, creating enhanced opportunities for early childhood education, intensive early interventions for children with learning difficulties, and more time in the classroom for everyone. I also believe we need to make public higher education more affordable for everyone….
I believe it is our duty to care for those who cannot help themselves, both young and old…. They are not a problem for us; they are a priority. We pride ourselves on compassion in government here in Massachusetts, on helping those who cannot help themselves….
[I support] public college scholarships for Massachusetts students who score highest on the MCAS, and for National Guardsmen who fight to preserve our freedom….
I will find every opportunity to reduce fees and hold down property taxes, by giving a larger share of our state revenue taxes to our cities and towns….
What do our communities need? They need healthcare reform to help contain mounting insurance costs. They need housing incentives, so young people can afford to stay in the communities where they grew up, and school aid, to help with the rising cost of educating our children. And finally, our communities need support for their local police, so that citizens are safe and the only people who are in fear are the criminals. Thatâs why Iâve been fighting so hard for higher local aid, and more funding for housing and schools….
Our communities across Massachusetts are also entitled to see measurable improvement in our schools…. In our upper grades, we need to increase our emphasis on math and science and engineering. And for our youngest children, we need to start school earlier with high-quality early childhood education programs….
I propose … a longer school day and … after-school programs that keep kids occupied, supervised, and safe….
We should raise the age of mandatory school attendance from sixteen to eighteen years old, and expand our alternative education options so that all kids can have a real shot at success in their lives….
We must reduce the cost of public higher education for middle-class families….
Wow, what a huge list of new or expanded programs Kerry Healey is supporting! That’s going to require a lot of new spending, right?
Well …
We show our respect for taxpayers by leaving them with more of what they earned….
The next governor must stand up to the tax-and-spend attitude of the Democratic legislature….
I will continue to call on the legislature to immediately lower the income-tax rate to five percent….
Even now, there are more tax-and-spend proposals before the legislature, and youâll hear a lot more about them in this campaign….
Healey has put it right out there for anyone who wants to see it. She wants a huge expansion in government programs – education, health care, local aid, you name it – and she also wants tax cuts. Well guess what, Kerry: government programs cost money, and someone has to pay for them. You want tax cuts? Fine – but be honest about it and tell us what programs you will cut. You want new education programs? That’s fine too – but tell us how you will pay for them.
Let’s hope the mainstream media calls Healey out on this kind of doubletalk without delay.
UPDATE: Now seems like an opportune moment to somewhat belatedly add the enjoyable and well-sourced blog Kerry Healey Out of Touch to the blogroll. It’s a good read – be sure to check it out!
Well, first I link to you and steal (er, I mean quote you) THEN I make snarky comment. 😉
…the health-care crisis, except for her brave, brave promise not to further burden business with new taxes?
<
p>
Where’s her mention of the Commonwealth’s crumbling infrastructure?
<
p>
We’ve all got to be really scared, because if the Commonwealth treats big business just like any other ordinary citizen, all those big businesses will just bug out of Massachusetts!
<
p>
Just more of the same, old, tired Republican nonsense.
“It’s an excellent example of the fallacy that Republicans have been perpetrating on this country for years: you can cut taxes forever, increase government spending forever, and never run into problems.”
<
p>
I was making this same point recently here: http://neopolity.blogspot.com/
<
p>
But David is more succinct.
Regardless of what one thinks about Kerry Healey, she skillfully drove home one message that resonates with Mass voters – that a Republican chief executive provides “balance” to a Democratic-controlled legislature.
<
p>
This message – and $16 million – are likely to be enough to carry her to victory in November.
… I just wonder if voters’ experience of 15 years of Romney/Swift/Cellucci/Weld will temper this message somewhat. I guess it depends on how well people think that worked out.
A Democratic challenger is going to have to point out that this state has fallen behind largely due to the lack of investment over the past few Republican administrations (and Romney making our state a national joke isn’t helping).
<
p>
It’s unfortunately a losing position for a Democratic challenger because if you’re pointing out that our infrastructure hasn’t been invested in for years, the implication is that you’re going to spend money, therefore falling into the “tax and spend” stereotype trap.
<
p>
What has happened in the past three years? Local services have been cut. Why? Because the state has diverted money from cities and towns so that it didn’t have to make any tough choices.
<
p>
What is happening to our population? It is shrinking, we are losing both relevance and critical mass, in danger of becoming a backwater state because it is too expensive to live here. Why is it so expensive? Because cities and towns have no incentives to build housing due to lack of support from the state. And that’s the way Kerry Healey likes it.
<
p>
Why are companies leaving? Not because of high state taxes — because of high local taxes and diminshed services.
<
p>
Why are our schools not improving? Because not enough qualified teachers are entering the workforce due to stagnating pay levels and turmoil at the local level, coupled by the inability for a teacher’s paycheck to allow them to live in this state. People are leaving for other states or for other professions.
<
p>
That is Kerry Healey’s world. She isn’t concerned about the social effects because in her world money allows vital services to be rationed.
<
p>
Maybe this article from Grover Nordquist’s organization Americans for Tax Reform shows what Healey and the Republican party is all about:
<
p>
http://www.atr.org/content/pdf/2006/jan/012606ot-property_study.pdf
<
p>
(warning: PDF).
<
p>
The most telling line is:
<
p>
“In the long run, residents also have the ability to sort themselves among municipalities that meet their optimal level of taxing and spending.”
<
p>
“Sort” is code for “economic segregation” — in other words, haves and have-nots. That’s what the Republican party is all about — people should only get what they can afford, meaning that if you don’t make the cut, you can “sort” yourself into a town that has lousy schools, lousy policing, and an overall lousy quality of life — because, in the Republicans eyes, you don’t deserve more than that.
<
p>
So as jobs get harder to land, as energy costs double, as salaries don’t keep up with inflation, as health costs eat up more and more of our budgets, and as pensions get eliminated, ask yourself, do you want to elect a candidate that believes that people are “overhoused” and therefore aren’t deserving of basic services like education and public safety, because they can’t afford to buy them on the spot market?
<
p>
Or do they want a candidate who believes that with the correct incentives, the private sector can guide this state’s economy in a way that we can all share in a basic quality of life that allows everyone to have good schools, safe neighborhoods — not just the people buying in the million-dollar neighborhoods.
It is actually a more carefully crafted message than Weld-Cellucci-Romney. Their strategy was be tough on crime (support the death penalty,) beat up people on welfare, promise to cut taxes. There was very rarely any policy initiative in their campaigns (a little more with Romney than the first two). K-H seems to be taking aim at the suburbanites who have determined each of the last four elections, and who still seem to believe you can have it all.
<
p>
That started when she leaked that she is pro-choice.
<
p>
On the other hand instead of the welfare cheats she has chosen the legislature as her target of choice. What she seems to be doing is trying to raise her competence profile which everyone knows is her weak point, by sounding a bit like a policy wonk. Unlike the last three Republicans she doesn’t come with a resume, so she has to make herself look substantive.
<
p>
Reilly will try and play the class card, which if he was any kind of campaigner would work. But he is not much a campaigner so he is likely to sound whiney. If he ever falls behind Patrick he will drop fast.
<
p>
Patrick has a complicated message/image and seems to have been remarkably adept at not getting cornered. And more significantly he is the only one who is building a real feild organization, especially in some of those very same suburbs that have elected our round of republican governors. He has appeal there. He gets to be more of an outsider than K-H, and more substantive at the same time. In fact he combines “the outsider with a resume ” strategy of Weld-Cellucci-Romney, with the democratic tradition (now seemingly forgotten) of building strong feild and GOTV efforts, instead of expecting that somebody else is doing it.
<
p>
The challenge from him will come when it moves from a ground game to an air war. Can he stay competetive enough that he can survive the assault and use his base to Get out his vote. My bet is he can.
<
p>
Two years ago our Mayor, a Democrat, led a failed effort to pass a Prop 2 1/2 override. It failed. We fired some teachers and closed a fire station. I wonder why Lt. Governor Healy didn’t come here to campaign for that override, since our Mayor was up on stage endorsing her yesterday:
Gloucester Daily Times