Globe op-edders say House budget is bizness as usual:
The governor fared badly on his attempt to consolidate budget items so that state managers could spend limited funds more effectively. The committee kept scores of earmarked items for the courts, while it rejected the governor’s plan to finance spending on state parks from a single account and to merge programs for the homeless into a single initiative. And because the committee maintains hundreds of inefficient line items, it would not accommodate the governor’s plan to increase immunization programs by the Department of Public Health. This would negate one of the most cost-effective initiatives in the governor’s budget.
Some line items are detailed to the point of absurdity. The committee insists that the Commonwealth Zoological Corporation, which runs the zoos in Boston and Stoneham, supply animals at the Trailside Museum in Milton with “vitamins and diet supplements and Zoo Prem (sic) feline diets.” Specific brands of animal food do not belong in the state budget.
Is it too much to say that the House made a dog’s breakfast of the budget?
The earmarks are a real sticking point. This is just a straight-up conflict of institutional prerogatives. Remember, Patrick took some criticism back in December to keep some of the controversial things (i.e. gazebos) in last year’s budget; I don’t see him repeating that favor this time.
The real question of line-item consolidation is whether you trust the executive branch, or the legislative branch to decide how the money gets spent. I think I know the answer to that question, — but it’s not just that I trust Gov. Patrick’s judgement more. When you have the Executive Branch making that decision, you know whom to hold accountable. If the programs fail and the money’s wasted, you blame the Governor. If things go well, you give him credit. Simple, easy, accountable. If the legislature wastes your money, on the other hand … most likely you get to blame someone in someone else’s district. If everyone’s responsible, no one’s responsible.
Furthermore, the problem of homelessness (for example) demands a comprehensive approach (“wraparound”) that coordinates various services seamlessly. That’s a lot easier to do with a consolidated budget than a zillion little earmarks.
The defining mark of the Big Dig Culture is its diffusion of responsibility: Our political establishment seems to love the quasi-independent agency, like the ‘Pike Authority, MassPort, the state school board, and on and on. I just think it’s much easier and clearer to point to the Governor, say “It’s your job now”, and expect results. But that requires the legislature to give him the tools to succeed. And they’re not going to like that very much.
When no programs are getting all the funding they need, the programs themselves are concerned about having their money lumped in with other under-funded programs. Looking at the example of the various housing and homelessness programs. MRVP And RAFT were just two of the programs consolidated under the Governor’s budget. Both have been working with less money than they need and it’s fair for each to worry that without their own line item their funding will be sucked up by other needy programs.
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There’s certainly a need for accountability and the ability of the executive branch to be able to exercise oversight and control. But it’s not so easy as just saying that the legislature likes its pet projects (at least not in every case).
I’ve always felt BMG criticism of Mitt Romney’s performance was specious. Now Charley seems to be setting the stage for excusing Governor Patrick’s performance. Boo hoo, meanies on Beacon Hill won’t give the Gov the “tools” he needs …
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Considering Romney could even sustain a veto, how effective could he be?
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Deval should be more able than Mitt to find compromise with the legislature; same political party, right?
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It has long been discussed here how crappy the legislative system is, and long have bloggers railed against it. However, Mitt Romney was more than just a veto-proof tool; he ran the executive branch – badly. Plus, the things he tended to veto were, largely, stupid, if you’re a progressive who wants, say, good education or stem cells or whatever corporate bug Romney had up his ass at the time. I agreed with the override of most of Romney’s vetoes. They were on things I WANTED to fund. The stuff that should have been vetoed? Sometimes it was, and if I recall, I even posted about one or two of those in praise, and berate the legislature for hackism. However, that was a rare case.
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Romney did not lead by leading, he lead in absentia. He didn’t even try after a while, because governing here would have meant actually doing work, taking away from his time running for president. So yeah, he bares a lot of fault, veto-proof lege or not.
if the governor is invisible because he is in Ames, Iowa, or if he is invisible because he is behind closed doors “working on the budget”?
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Both create a power vacuum that was, and is being occupied by legislators who, by dint of parlientary rules, are imbued with far too much power.
but only up to a point. If the conflict isn’t between parties, it’s between branches. Different people are going to want different things. Human nature.
Sen. Barrios is in the same party as Sens. Morrisey and Baddour (Friend of LG Healey). Guy Glodis and Dianne Wilkerson were of the same party in the Senate.
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In the House Jamie Eldridge, Byron Rushing, Jay Kaufman and Jim Marzilli are in the same party as Philip Travis, Gene O’Flaherty, David Nangle and Stephen LeDuc.
Might as well be from different planets much of the time let alone different parties.
In Mass, a single party state, the dynamic is so significanly different then a strong two-party system that to say that Patrick is in the driver’s seat because he’s of the same party is naive.
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2. Both branches have a greater incentive to work together. Partly because they want to accomplish similar things and partly because it looks works if members of the same party can’t work together. Consider the difference when Romney and the lege fought – they both scored points with their base.
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3. And, if push comes to shove, unlike Romney, Patrick can credibly threaten the jobs of Democratic legislators. Defeating incumbent Democrats with Republicans is always an uphill battle here. Patrick, on the other hand, could call for (or endorse) primary challenges of uncooperative legislators. And Patrick has enough grassroots Democratic support that plenty of his candidates would win (as opposed to Romney – who increased Democratic dominance in the lege).
Absent extremely unusual circumstances, if my state senator or representative doesn’t vote to sustain a Patrick veto they’re going to hear from me, my wife and as many of my friends and neighbors I can talk into making the effort.
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And, truth be told, that wouldn’t have happened with Romney because:
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(a) I usually didn’t agree with Romney on the merits of his vetoes
(b) Since we don’t have many shared values and priorities I was, I was less likely to give Romney’s case on any particular controversy a sympathetic hearing.
(c) I was less motivated to act to support Romney in general (regardless of how I felt on the merits of a particular issue), because I didn’t support what he stood for
Until we have a viable two party system in this state the governor will remain nothing more than than someone that occupies space and has weight. The governor in this state is a man/or woman, devoid of any power but much responsibility and will be the focal point for criticism, no matter how unjustified.
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Yes, Romney did throw in the towel, shame on him, but after you get kicked in the pants, then kicked in the teeth, then you start to get the picture.
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This should be posted over the house speakers door: “Nothing is on the level, Everything is a deal, No deal too small.”
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The Republican party in this state has been decimated to the point where it is likely gone forever. The Greens are out there flopping around and saying foolish things that turn most people off. So where are we going to get another party for balance?
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Until there is a second party to sustain a veto Governor Patrick might just as well go out to his estate in western MA, enjoy life, and come in on weekends to check his mail.
For example, I would rather have separate line items at several agencies. To pick one example, DSS…if Harry
Spence gets a pot of money, no separate line items, then more of the department gets out sourced, less money for social workers and family preservation, and more for adoption…and no way at all to track how much money gets spent on what. Hint: I don’t trust Harry Spence…and several other agency heads and agency cultures with a “pot” of money and uses I cannot track.
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I think you have this exactly backwards… The legislature in this state would not be as powerful, nor as obstreporous, had not the previous administrations, from Weld to Cellucci to Swift and then Romney, made the deliberate, very very Republican, decision to only occupy space and have weight. They simply have not governed and the legislature has simply filled that gap.
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I no nothing about you or your experience, but I can tell you of mine: I’ve been a resident of Massachusetts since 1975 and I’ve seen all manner of government, none of which was as careless and dis-engaged as that which we’ve seen since Weld was first elected. I can tell you clearly the indifferent and sluggardly attitude of the past four Republican administrations has been, each one, worse than the previous, a clear detriment to the common wealth. I can also attest that, prior to Weld, few Commonwealth Governors could be accused of occupying space and simply having weight. It’s been so long since we’ve had an engaged Governor that people have forgotten how that used to be the norm.
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Be honest with yourself, now, and think about how the drift from central executive power to legislature occured over the course of these several administrations, two of which ended with the Governor (first Weld and then Cellucci) simply walking away from the job. Nature may abhor a vacuum, but politics simply won’t allow it. It is impossible to overstate the effect of Weld’s laziness; of Celluccis listlessness; of Swifts fecklessness and of Romney’s indifference. What other effect can there be on the ways and means and pivot points of the running of the state?
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Or, he could roll up his sleeves and get to work: hard work requiring patience and dogged determination and a clear eyed view of both the past and the present. The simple, and entirely Democratic, instinct for being engaged is, unfortunately, a shock to the system, but a necessary and, on the whole, healthy one…
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Oh, and you could be a little more patient yourself. Rome, it is said, was not built in a day.