Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Plenty of arrows

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Ms. Buckingham has this flaming nonsense at the end of her flaming nonsense column today.

  No doubt there are plenty of arrows still in each candidate’s quiver and despite the maw-mawing about negative ads, voters will see plenty of critiques from both sides that will inform their decisions. Here’s one I predict will shake up the race: Both Deval Patrick and Christy Mihos will be labeled by Healey as tax scofflaws – Patrick for getting a lien on his house for not paying federal taxes and Mihos for avoiding Massachusetts excise tax on his boat. Do voters want to trust the corner office and decisions about state tax policy to tax scofflaws?

FYI Ms Buckingham,  The definition of scofflaw is :

One who habitually violates the law or fails to answer court summonses.

As for “Patrick for getting a lien on his house”, there is really no way you can twist this into “scofflawness”.  (Damn, I can’t even make up a word.)  Here is what your friends over at the Globe  (March 8, 2005) had to write about it:

The Patricks have always met their obligations, public records show, with the exception of a period in 1996, when Patrick was assistant US attorney general in charge of the Civil Rights Division in Washington. That year, a tax lien was placed on the Patricks’ Milton home after they failed to make payments on $8,778 in back taxes they owed to the IRS.

Patrick, in a statement to the Globe, stressed that he and his wife have ”never failed to repay any loan we have ever had, or to meet our financial responsibilities.”

  So, my dear Ms. Buckingham, The Patricks got behind on their payments to the IRS in 1996 (because of a change of job which entailed a severe cut in pay) and you think that it can be used by Ms. Healey to cast a serious doubt about Mr. Patrick’s character?  If that is the quality of the arrows that Ms. Healey has left in her “quiver”, then this race is most decidedly over.  The electorate has tired of having its buttons pushed;  “Free tuition for illegal alien kids”, “gay marriage”, “0.3% income tax rollback” are not the issues that are going to bring them in throngs to the polls.  Perhaps after eight years of the common sense governing by Mr. Patrick you will be able to understand how to prioritize our real values ahead of these pseudo values.

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Comments

  1. So, my dear Ms. Buckingham, The Patricks got behind on their payments to the IRS in 1996 (because of a change of job which entailed a severe cut in pay) and you think that it can be used by Ms. Healey to cast a serious doubt about Mr. Patrick’s character?

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    Good reasons notwithstanding (i.e. I’m only making a few hundred thousand a year and can’t afford to pay my taxes.)

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    It is against the law to not pay your taxes, and it is incredibly bad judgement to ignore the largest and most powerful debt collector (i.e. IRS) in the free world, to the point that IRS is compelled to lien your home in collection of those taxes.

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