Today’s Globe reports that Governor Patrick’s proposed fiscal 2009 budget will include some (but not all) the anticipated first-year casino revenues.
In a challenge to lawmakers to accept his plans to expand gambling, Governor Deval L. Patrick will propose using $124 million of the $300 million that he said could be generated from casino licensing fees to cover a local aid shortfall….
“The governor’s budget will not be balanced with this money,” Kirwan said in an interview yesterday. She said the $124 million would make up the projected shortfall in the State Lottery, the major source of local aid to already financially strapped cities and towns, and would not be part of the budget’s balance sheet. The municipalities had been relying on projections from last year that the Lottery would generate $935 million, but that has been reduced to $811 million.
There’s already been some discussion of this gambit — and yes, it is a gambit. But it’s not a shell game, or a “trick.” It’s a challenge to the legislature. It’s saying to them: “we’ve got fiscal problems, and here’s my idea. You don’t like it? Fine — shoot it down. What’s your solution?”
Remember, in his first budget, Patrick included the anticipated revenues from closing corporate loopholes. Of course, those revenues were not guaranteed to materialize, and in fact they didn’t, because Sal caved to the Chamber of Commerce. This year’s strategy doesn’t strike me as any different — if anything, it’s a more modest approach, since the casino revenues are included only in local aid figures.
Here’s (Republican) Steve Crosby, not a noted Deval fan, on the strategy (from the Globe story):
Stephen P. Crosby, the dean of McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, also said Patrick was showing that he is learning how to manage the politics of Beacon Hill.
“This is pretty shrewd,” said Crosby, a former administration and finance secretary in the Cellucci administration. “This is ‘put up or shut up’ pressure on the Legislature and on the interest groups like the Taxpayers Foundation that want all the services and expensive programs but are desperately opposed to closing corporate loopholes or are critical of casino money.”
Righto. Show me the money.
Maybe it’s time for BMG to jumpstart a community conversation about the options?
Together we can. The man actually depresses me whenever I see or hear him on the tube. Banality and cliche, one after the other. Ano now he is “challenging” the legislature? It’s not the legislatures job tp provide direction and leadership. It is Deval Patrick’s. The man hasn’t a clue what he is doing.
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p>What Massachusetts needs is manufacturing and industry.
Like it or not, USA must become self sufficient gain, lest we find ourselves blackmailed and extorted economically.
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p>Deval has taken upon himself to front real estate developers in South Weymouth 43 million dollars to build roads. This has all the makings of a smaller scale “Big Dig”. The financial backing behind this enterprise has become very shaky since the sub prime debacle, now the governor is putting the taxpayers on the hook for 43 milion and likely much more.
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p>We will rue the day that Chris Gabrielli got shanked by Tom Reilly.
The “starve the beast” approach to governing has left us unable to fund the services we want and need. If the lege doesn’t like the Governor’s ideas, let’s see it come up with some alternatives.