1. Gary is the single BMG poster (and fledgling RMG poster) who has irrefutably, over several months, pointed out the MA inconvenient truth.
I wonder who will play Gary in the movie version. I’m picturing…Jon Voigt.
Gary’s mantra: health care spending and raises for state employees, combined with same for muni employees (local aid), combined with underfunded pensions, we simply can’t handle. Can. Not. Handle. Even Together We Cannot Handle the stark math.
In boom years, we can only keep up; in bad years, we lose ground.
Gary is right.
2. The global warming small potatoes details (how fast, what about China, gorging Gore’s beef intake) — they matter, they’re important, but they distract.
So too do with MA budget.
David’s Whiner Line post today asks for constructive dialogue about the small potatoes, and I wholeheartedly agree. $10 million here and $50 million there MATTERS.
But this budget is one of four unlikely to touch third rail issues. 2008. 2009. 2010.
3. No candidate ran on a platform of addressing MA’s inconvenient truth — not Gabrieli, Reilly, or Healey either. This is not a Patrick issue. This is a “MA voters don’t want to hear the inconvenient truth” issue. Third Rail.
For all the carping, most MA voters are reasonably satisfied with the status quo.
4. Our Budget Inconvenient Truth Commonwealth Hell will preclude almost any big new investment in CHANGE. In progress.
Hence BITCH is a bigger problem for TRUE PROGRESSIVES than others.
Those of us who want MAJOR upgrade in QUALITY of urban schools, or in precision of DSS, or in mass transit — and we imagine it happening thru a 1-2 punch of a tough, possibly brutal, accountability systems combined with real new investment (but not one without the other) — we’re not going to see it so long as BITCH persists.
5. I would distinguish “true” progressives from two other types who claim the mantle.
There is the sweet-but-nutty Hugo Chavez wing who only occasionally interact with “reality-based.” Any fact that does not need there “We just need to throw huge money at it” frame just bounces off.
There is the “we talk a good game about wanting change to befuddle the true progressives, but we actually are pretty cool with the status quo” entrenched interests. They have bought and paid for a number of self-identified “progressive” electeds.
6. I wonder if true progressives actually need to align with the fiscal conservatives in MA.
Fiscal conservatives know that they’ll never beat back the MA entrenched interests by themselves. They can’t have their best case of smaller gov’t here.
They can only have their “better” case of better gov’t. It’s “better gov’t” or status quo.
7. The deal on the table would have to be “We’ll tackle BITCH together, but we won’t pocket the savings, we’ll reinvest” — a transfer of cash from entrenched interests to better government.
8. Hence: the need for RCMG. Real Change Mass Group. I can imagine the logo — the MA map encased in one of those delta signs.
I bet there are, what, at least 7 or 8 people across the state who’d jump at this.
9. Never mind.
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As a fiscal conservative, I agree with this whole heartedly. The current system is so broken that it is almost impossible to have any meaningful discussion about reducing the size or role of government.
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This needs to be tackled by a group of people from outside of the two parties. This issue is a no win for both Democrats and Republicans. And when they do try and tackle this they end up in partisan bickering instead of making any progress. It is always reduced to either “we followed the Republican governor’s recommendations” or “the Democrat lege overrode my spending vetoes” and nothing gets resolved.
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Your premise is inherently slanted. You complain that we can’t talk about “reducing the size or role of government”. Why should we be discussing your end-game?
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Instead, why don’t we talk about “the role of government”. Not just about reducing it. Maybe reducing it, maybe expanding it. Maybe reducing some roles, expanding others.
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To progress down the path that you suggest presumes that we will reduce government, and we will just haggle over how much. That’s hardly a debate. Those are terms of surrender.
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Just what is a “fiscal conservative”, by the way? Is it someone who demands that money be spent smartly and efficiently by government, or is it a clever euphemism for someone who believes that government’s size should be reduced so that it is small enough to drown in a bathtub?
…they really want their government services, they just don’t want to ship their money off to the state government or the federal government to help pay for them. They want them to be paid for. Somehow. Somewhere. Somewhen. But they don’t want to be taxed for them, certainly not now.
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That’s the main reason why I have come to pretty much ignore them.
at how people from all political believes complain about their possition being over generalized and yet continue to over generalize others.
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The funny thing is that with a couple of small changes, the same arguement is made against liberals/progressives.
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Perhaps we should all try to avoid these over generalizations of others positions.
…the problem that you have is that, as far as I can teill, liberals/progressives make no bones about their view. That is, they do not suggest that their pet projects are not going to be paid for–and obviously, the source of the payment will be from people who have the cash to pay for the program. The Republicans/libertarians/self-described conservatives’ problem is that they have their own pet programs (more later*) but they want to pretend that they won’t have to be paid for. They’re wrong in that, of course. Their pet programs might not be paid for currently, but they’ll be paid for eventually. Hence the Rep/lib/conservative hypocrisy.
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*Another difference is that the Rep/lib/conservatives’ pet programs are basically programs that benefit Rep/lib/conservatives. Programs like, say, defense overspending, the prison-industrial complex, the farm-industrial complex, and myriad other programs that benefit corporate America and their hangers-on at the expense of the ordinary taxpayer. Rep/lib/conservatives wish to ignore those aspects of government spending, but they make up much of the budget, and much of it is unnecessary spending.
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But, they’re sending the bill to the next generations, so why should I care? We don’t have any children. As far as I’m concerned, party on! We’ve bought Euros, learned a foreign language and own a house in Europe.
My belief is that government should be reduced. But what I was saying in my post is that for now those discussion need to be put aside. The current system of budgeting is so confusing, misleading and convoluted that we first need to fix this problem. We need to have meaningful changes in the budgeting process so we can understand what we are looking at.
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You could be correct, that the size of government may need to increase or stay the same, but we can’t know that under the current system. We need to put aside partisan bickering like this and focus on the real problems with our state finances that are not currently being addressed.
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To answer your question, a fiscal conservative is someone who believes that taxes should be as low as possible while providing the government services that we agree there should be in as cost effective manner as possible. This includes the privatization of some tasks, the combination of some departments to reduce the amount of administration costs and redundant costs and possibly the reduction or elimination of departments that are not actually contributing to the prosperity of our society or could be better handled on a local level.
Thank you for clarifying, and for answering the question about fiscal conservatism. I’m skeptical though, because when you describe it that way, who wouldn’t be a fiscal conservative? Are people in favor of not having taxes as low as possible, or providing services in a wasteful way? Do people believe that we should have redundancy in government? I doubt that many do.
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That leads me to believe that “fiscal conservative” is either a buzzword, or is a stealth position for people who want to eliminate government services — not “provide the services that we agree there should be”. Perhaps by convincing others that certain services should be eliminated (maybe by characterizing certain groups of people as lazy); perhaps by the old “starve the beast” mechanism which hampers government, opening it up to criticism.
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I think that if we were to approach government the way you described — by asking people which services they would like, telling them the different options, and then giving truthful descriptions of the costs and tradeoffs — we’d be in better shape. But instead, the arena is polluted by insane rhetoric (listen to fiscal conservative Howie Carr) that really seems to have a much larger goal of “socialism for me, capitalism for you”, where people try and cordon off services for themselves while trying to reduce services for others. Or worse yet, eliminating services altogether so that people can’t take advantage of the economies of scale that government can provide, thereby giving tremendous advantages for the few who can afford to purchase services privately.
Forget Voigt, just arrange a cameo somehow involving his daughter. Grrrooowll..
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The entitlement problem has never been so visible as with this budget: in excess of $500 million annually of automatic spending increases.
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And, the budget pays for 1/2 of them with a tax increase.
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Each year we’ll need 3% annual tax growth, and it will accellerate over the next 20 years because of the aging demographics. So, just to stay even, grow by 3%. “honey, if you don’t get a 3% raise every year for the next 3 years, your family will starve.”
This is an interesting idea and something that should really be considered both on BMG and RMG.
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The vibrancy of the community here shows folks are interested and engaged. The issues you bring up are ones that candidates have a hard time discussing because of the interests that protect both sides of the argument (unions against change to the system and businesses against pitching in more).
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What would the elected officials do? How would the House and Senate leadership react if the volunteers who help get them reelected dry up and demand answers?
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How do you begin a process so large without a catalyst of some major problem?
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In that case, you had not just a catalyzing issue — forcing Israeli settlers out of occupied territories (right opposed) and building a fence (left opposed) — but two big-name leaders, Sharon and then Peres, joining forces.
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In MA it’s hard to imagine.
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Nationally, there’s this idea.
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2. But I’m necessarily thinking about centrism. Our current politics plots people on an axis of liberal to conservative.
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The axis which makes more sense is:
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*Those who “examine problems individually with intent to solve — solving problems, and understanding what makes one problem DIFFERENT from others, makes these people feel good”
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versus
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*Those who “examine problems strongly inclined to use them as examples to trumpet their beliefs — repeating their beliefs makes them feel good, and different, messy facts on the ground actually causes them internal strife….they like a nice clean consistent explanation for everything.”
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Today on RMG there was a silly thread where some right winger blamed CompUSA closing a few MA stores, but not NH stores, as sales tax related. That’s an example of someone who feels good by repeating his mantra — taxes are bad. There are a similar examples here on BMG.
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This website explores some of that.
for your fortitude. I tried to read RMG, and suddenly remembered why, when I tell people that thirty years ago the intellectual right was brighter and more focused on facts than the left, they look at me like I’m nuts.
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Personally, I am unmoved by the quest for a fictitious muddled middle. Among our actual leaders, the spectrum in this country ranges from a right that believes in abolishing habeas corpus, preventive nuclear war, torture, and the ancient royal prerogative, and a left that’s unsure whether Congress or the President has the power to declare war. In fact, I think the so-called middle is almost as ideological the right, given its propensity to resolve every Solomon’s dilemma by actually cutting the baby in half. Truth isn’t he-said, she-said, nor are fact arrived at by division.
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The woes of Massachusetts, in particular, are largely unrelated to divisions between right and left. Outside of Brookline, Cambridge, and a few other towns, the state really isn’t all that liberal; it’s mostly and truly moderate. It’s the rest of the country that’s gone off the deep end.
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The problem in this state is highly entrenched interests, and no power base from which to attack them; at least, not without opening the gates to the barbarians.
I’ve been reading this, and get their emails. Interesting concept.
…but only barely. Has anyone done a study showing whether MA’s budgeting (state and localities) is any better or worse than those of other states?
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I tend to pretty much ignore long-range budget forecasting and doom-and-gloom, since economics isn’t really a science and economists’ predictions tend to change almost daily.
could say the same re: global warming.
…the science behind global climate change is well known and fairly well documented. There is no science behind economics.
There’s tons of science:
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Calculus
Descriptive, Inferential, and Mathematical Statistics
Linear Algebra
Probability
Game Theory
Differential Equations
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to name a few. Because economics is a social science (tries to understand and explain what people do), it’s never going to be spot on. It’s like the weather vs. global warming — it’s hard to understand what’s going to happen within the next week, but much easier to understand what the long term ramifications of specific, significant, long term changes to the environment will be.
…signifying, pretty much, nothing. They are about as vacuous as string “theory” in physics. Equations are not the same thing as “theory.” If economists cannot produce theories that are testable, they don’t have a science.
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As far as I can tell “economic theory” is about as vacuous as “intelligent design theory.” You might persuade me differently, but I doubt it. As far as I can tell, self-described economists are the tools of politicians who want to implement certain economic policies, and the politicians use the brayings of the self-described economists in support of those policies. Nothing more, nothing less.
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/sarcasm
some pretty convincing pattens that show up in economics. Looking back 40 years or so you can find a drop in consumer spending will be followed roughly 6 months later by a decline in capital spending. Its not a science, but you can make accurate predictions based on it, and some people have made fortunes by being good at their predictions.
…explain the drop in consumer spending.
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The reason that there may be a relationship–even if tenuous–between consumer spending and industrial capital spending (which is what you’re really referring to, not consumer capital goods spending) is fairly evident. That there is a fluctuation in consumer spending, and why, is not.
Example – NO other state has a separate line item for each court house.
I’ve been saying for years on local radio (Saturday morning program) that all the other issues don’t really matter.
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Health care, excessive pensions, and unfunded retirement benefits for state and local govt employees are all going to crush us soon (as they have already started).
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The most intelligent thing I’ve seen in the last 30 years is the implementation of the law that is starting to require that cities and towns actually show the current value of their future retirement benefits as a liability.. and to be required to start putting money aside for it. (Many towns are panicking over this)
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Moving more employees from pensions to 401k/IRAs needs to be done.
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Something must be done at a federal level to deal with health care across the board (without giving up completely and making it another medicare program .. just look what’s happened to veteran’s health care.. do we want that for all?)
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Towns and cities need to start bargaining back the sick time and unused vacation buyback provisions in all these union contracts.
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All the other nice to haves, environment, welfare, immigrant and entitlement issues will mean nothing if we can’t find a way to deal with this stuff.
Improved Medicare for All is the best solution to our country’s HC mess.
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Overall, VA care is excellent and cost effective. Be responsible and look at the macro data not the appalling exceptions as profiled in WaPo of late.
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Don’t mix up Iraq war injuries overwhelming parts of the VA system with the benefits of Medicare-style streamlined financing to create a national health insurance program:
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Improved Medicare for All reform for the nation and the MA HC Trust reform for the state (in the short-term) both build on cost-effective public financing but PRIVATELY delivered care to achieve permanent guranteed coverage for everyone.
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Many health reform advocates have been making the argument for years that streamlined financing universal health care is the FISCALLY RESPONSIBLE way to address the biggest culprit in both state and national budget bloat.
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As this post states, it’s current HC costs and retiree HC costs that are breaking the budget… BILLIONS could be saved in this state almost immediately if “someone” had the cojones to champion these reforms, as Senator Shiela Keuhl and the majority of the California legislature did last session and is poised to again this year.
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We ougtta’ call these bills the “Healthcare Fiscal Responsibility Acts of 2007”!!
As Ann says, VA care is generally pretty good, in spite of the post-Vietnam reputation and the newest Walter Reed stories:
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The Walter Reed story obviously proves that they’ve got a ways to go, or that there’s been some backsliding in the last few years. But certainly much of the VA is doing something right — something to keep in mind during the current inexcusable scandal.
this is a great thread. Yeah, moderately readable but the questions being posed have important for the state. But after each point and counter-point I kept asking myself, “yeah but who in the State House (elected official) is thinking like this? Who is weighing these issues? If Patrick is up to this challenge, who can give him cover and then marshall support in each chamber?”
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Yeah, I’m depressed, too. There’s no one. At least not yet. Maybe Patrick is up to it, maybe not. Maybe the discussions he’s triggered here and in Widmer’s office, and on the Glob ed page hold out hope that there is some strategery to this budget.
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Yet, I’m optimistic. I think there’s a 4 year plan with the first being the deal-breaker – confront the Great and General Court head-on. They haven’t recently dealt with a Governor who couldn’t be overridden. They have to DEAL with Patrick. He delivered a blow to their breadbasket and did it in the most conspicuous place – the budget. Consolidation of line items and local options. The leadership warned him not to go down that path, that he would lose, and he did it anyway. Will he get those things in the legislature’s budget? Probably not. But they will pay with vetoes that make Mitt’s attempt to joust with the SH look like Bill Weld getting no answer at Jesse Helms’ door. And the vetoes will not be overridden. So they have to deal.
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As a first budget it answers very few, if any, of the questions being put here. But as a message and an indication of what this administration is willing to do, it opens up huge opportunities.
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This is just beginning to get good.
this guy. i was so impressed, i was ready to drop everything, pack up and move down there to help. then my wife said “um, newark?” okay, fair point.
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but the guy had a PLAN and he was relishing the fight. it wasn’t what steve suggested above – bland split the middle for its own sake. it was a legit and feverish attack on real problems, which is very different from trying to be perceived as attacking problems. there was a lot more real world “we’re going to fix X, it will cost me Y political capital, and this (major player) is going to blow a gasket” than “we’re going to make it look like we care about X, it will cost me 1/10Y political capital, nothing will get done, but i will yield Z political benefit and be mayor-for-life.”
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heading back on acela, i had the same reaction as you, drek (my dad’s favorite word). on one hand, i don’t see that person in MA in full butterfly…but it’s a big state, maybe there’s a few caterpillars….
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(if you’re out there, let me know, i’ll raise some $$$ for you. plus gary will handle the accounting and, after a few beers, steverino will write zinger press releases, though he’ll grumble the whole time).
Cory Booker is the future. I followed his first race against Sharpe James, which he lost narrowly. I’ve had an ugly thing for James for a long time (since he accused Peter Rodino of being a racist) and had hoped he would take a hit well before this. But Booker ran an impressive race in the face of lowdown, bare knuckles, dirty-assed urban politics (only two places are worse – Boston and Chicago). He had to fight the card-carrying hacks Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who accused Booker of not being black enough and coming from the rich side of the tracks. In short, he had to fight the machine.
And ultimately he won. In his second shot at James, James, like any two-bit wiseguy, turned tail and withdrew from the race. Booker is now shaking up a system and process that has brought misery on its citizens for a generation.
He’s got his work cut out for him but it should give us all hope that even here in the Massachusetts where the Great and General Court believes line items and outside sections exist to employ their miscreant progeny, somewhere out there lies the ANSWER. GOD save Cory Booker – we need him to succeed more than Newark does!
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Thanks GGW for identifying real hope.
Thank you, GGW…this is a most excellent review of the hurdles faced with funding; do we focus on reform…or maintain “the devil we know” – the status quo.
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There is so little oversight by the state on so many programs. It’s not just the Big Dig – it’s DSS, DMR, the SBA, Chapter 70, DMH, the MBTA, MWRA….it’s just damned depressing. There is no one minding the “store.” We’ve got a few stalwarts in select areas, but auditing these programs for quality, efficiency and fiscal responsibility is nearly impossible with the system in place. The Commonwealth mostly operates on the honor system…much to the detriment of the taxpayer and people we seek to serve.
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Sign me up.
How though to you build a continuency for savings, when first, it’s a special interest’s job to ask for money and it’s a politician’s sole job description to spend it.
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“Saving” has a lousy lobby.
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Here’s an excel sheet of the 2008 Governor budget. I culled out the consolidations and transfers so that only the net increases and decreases show up. BTW, the net decreases are $490 million; the net increases are over $1.0 billion.
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A few of the
our lucky winnersrecipients:<
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-Early Intervention Services Medicaid Reimbursement
-Infection Prevention Program
-Teenage Pregnancy Prevention Services
-Elder Protective Services
-Department of Elder Affairs Administration
-Targeted Intervention in Underperforming Schools
-Department of Mental Health Administration
-Division of Health Care Finance and Policy
-Annuities to Qualified Disabled Veterans
-TANF Related Child Care
-Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke
-Soldiers’ Home in Massachusetts
-Reimbursements for Motor Vehicle Excise to Disabled Veterans
-Agricultural Innovation Center
-Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development
-Division of Labor Relations
-Fair Share Assessment Administration
-Department of Agricultural Resources
-Summer Jobs Program for At-Risk Youth
-Circuit Breaker – Reimbursement for Special Education
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Go ahead. Cut a program; tear at heartstrings. Oh my God, the sick, the teens, the old, the unemployed, the students, the vets, the teachers, the VA hospitals, the farmers, the hard working union members….
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Is there actually a politician who’ll cut OR honestly explain that if you want this stuff, it’ll mean more taxes? Hard to imagine. Maybe you’d put Lowell Wiker in that category — one term CT governor who ran, won, initiated an unpopular income tax and left office.
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I never agreed with what Wiker did, but it took hutzpa to do it. Patrick’s not that guy. Too many long term ambitions and special interest committments to make that unpopular call. His 100% 9C override showed that, IMHO.
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Maybe Mass could take a play from the Federal playbook: a non-partisan commission to recommend a solution to the rising entitlement cost issue, then the Leg would vote up or down. Problem is that the minority party is so weak now that there’s no real ‘non-partisan’ thing going on here.