… as does would-have-been Development Chief State Rep. Dan Bosley. David Bernstein scoops thusly … [Update: not a total scoop — the Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald had some breaks in this story this past weekend. See below.]
According to some state employees, Murray appears to have personally directed $11 million of taxpayer money to a man who had been caught bilking the state before.
That contractor, William MacDougall, was supposed to be boosting international tourism to Massachusetts, a task at which he seems to have failed, according to Commerce Department data that shows a steady loss in the state’s international-tourist market share – and a surprising drop last year – since he received funding.
… Still, the greater mystery to many in the tourism industry is why MacDougall received the budget earmarks in the first place, and why every attempt by the Romney administration to stop the waste was thwarted.
The answer, insiders insist, lies with First Berkshire representative Democrat Daniel Bosley and, more importantly, with Therese Murray. As a top Travaglini lieutenant who plays bad cop to his good cop, Murray controls the state budget as Ways and Means chair – and uses the power of the purse to reward and punish as she pleases, say Beacon Hill observers.
I’m sure we’ll see denials from Murray and Bosley. I’m kind of surprised at the implication of Bosley, who is thought to be a stand-up guy in his district.
Here’s an interesting quote for those who claim there’s just really no extra fat in the state budget:
“If your average taxpayer knew that you can take $11 million, give it to a couple of friends, with no oversight or supervision, and get away with it, they would go crazy,” says one individual who was directly involved in the bidding process for the state grant. “But that’s what happened.”
Just to keep in mind: Is this sour grapes from someone who didn’t get the bid? Maybe. Only Bernstein knows. But he seems to have the goods on this one — correspondence from folks like the MFA and Museum of Science condemning MacDougall. Yikes.
Do the Globe and Herald jump on this? (Hello! The Herald’s Jay Fitzgerald was all over this. More here, and here. Big Duh for me.) Is there more of this kind of thing in our budget? Can the new wheelin’-and-dealin’ Gov. Patrick do a better job at scouring this kind of thing out of the budget than Romney?
Will the Lege NOT thwart Patrick the way they did Romney’s attempt to shut this down because he’s a fellow Dem? You’re dreaming.
… but because he’s got a mandate to get rid of this kind of garbage, and because it’s embarassing to them. Conflict over this kind of thing cannot simply be chalked up to partisan sniping anymore. We’ll see how strongly Patrick deals with this, and how they react.
Find a place where you want the $11M. Tie it to something tangible. Keeping a nursing home open. Buying open space or repairing a particular park. Or bridge. Or potholes on specific streets.
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Make the connection.
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Then lean on the lege and say look — let’s make people’s lives better in these particular ways. Get rid of that $11M item there, put it here.
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Choose the projects well, and the public would lean pretty strongly. The lege has the power of the purse, but doesn’t want to be shamed. Help the lege quietly clean up this kind of crap, or help the Globe sell papers.
It’s not that the legislature is going to bend to Patrick’s will because he’s a Democrat. It’s that they can no longer say “Oh, the governor is just being partisan” anymore. They have to come up with a better reason. I’m not sure most of them are used to that.
Unless I’m misreading the article, everyone’s already agreed this needs to be killed on the merits…
And a little further down…
So if they’ve already discussed this at length and Murray has apparently agreed to go along, why is it ‘dreaming’ to think this deal will hold?
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This appears to me to illustrate the difference between real leadership and just issuing vetoes to score political points.
…why was vetoing it in a responsible and public manner which informs the public and onlookers just scoring a polticial point, and fixing it in a back room ‘real leadership’?
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Do you expect to be invited into ALL the back rooms?
And how many MORE policy decision will be made in a back room, and later validated here?
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That is not progressive process.
it’s not a progressive process – not at all. And I don’t like it. But, to paraphrase our old pal Rummy “You work with the legislature you have, not the legislature you want.” I just thought it was interesting that this reached our ears at all. Real backroom politics is, well, backroom politics… totally opaque.
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My suspicion is that this all may be the real reason for Bosley’s “withdrawal” from the development post (nothing at all to do with the casino stuff, which we all know will swiftly whither on the vine). And I further suspect that we’re going to see a lot more sewage flowing down the state house steps over the course of the next year. Wouldn’t it be nice if H.R.H. Therese were carried along with that tide?
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Yes, I’m a dreamer.
I admit it reads bad and it shows the problem with earmarking.
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Sen. Murray has denied the trip or trips to Italy, which would be easy to proove her wrong on, and that she did not “drink” with those mentioned.
Finally and most importantly, where is her pay off here? I find it hard to believe that she would go to this effort for campaign contributions. She is the Chairwoman of Ways and Means raising $$$ is no problem.