Did anyone go the first Budget Hearing today? From what I could read from news reports it seemed to go pretty good. Secretary Kirwin was the first to testify (for three hours!!) followed by the Constitutional Officers.
The two chairs seemed very open to some of the Administration’s budget blueprint. Areas that seemed to garner the most discussion and concern were:
In referring to the line item consolidation of which it is reported that 900 items were shrunk to 600 items, Rep. Alice Wolf of Cambridge had this to say:
“I think that we will probably find some changes that will come about through the Legislature, and that will show our different functions. As you know, we are elected by a group of constituents, and we have statewide issues, certainly, but we also are sent here to look at the best interests of our communities ? We do think we have some wisdom in the Legislature to know programs that do work.”
Many other Legislators seem to stake their claim for favored line items and programmatic earmarks within those line items. Most all defended the legislature’s constitutional function in crafting the budget and identifying state wide and regional priorities in the process.
At this point is seems that they are willing to consider some of the Patrick initiatives and not dismiss them out of hand like they did to Romney or the other Republican budgets of years past. Only eight more hearing to go!!
Please share widely!
Sorry for my formatting errors…first time I tried it!
take out all the spaces in the brackets (<>) in your html tags, and it’ll be fine.
end of blockquote needs a “/”, fwiw.