(Again, Xposted…)
Ray-gun’s voodoo trickle-down economics of deregulation sure has proven not to work as a solid long term policy, but you-know-what definitely trickles downhill. That is, when the economy’s in jeopardy, the people facing the budget cuts end up being us.
That’s the news on the state budget, anyway – which will result in local aid being affected. I spoke briefly last night at the Lowell caucus with Senator Pangiotakos, chair of the Ways and Means, and he was quite sober. He cited what the news stories are saying – the state took in $200 million less in revenues in the first two weeks of September than this same time last year. The culprit is capital gains taxes, which fall in a declining market, and the fact that a large part of our greater Boston economy is the finance sector, which is particularly in trouble.
Right now, the legislature is denying Governor Patrick the same power to make budget cuts mid-year that they gave Mitt Romney, but it could be forthcoming if the news doesn’t get better. This is starting to look like 2003 all over again. And what happened in 2003 was very harsh…we still haven’t recovered from that. This time, in my opinion, there’s no fat, or even flash to cut. We’re going to have to cut structural bone.
I agree that things will get tighter and I also agree that the Gov should have the power to make budget cuts mid-year, I disagree on having nothing to cut. The state payroll increased by 2,000 people just in the last year alone (no link). This state, like many others, is ripe for cuts. I don’t have the budget in front of me but I’ll bet we have people and programs across the board that could be shaved. The Gov himself has been pushing for this “Volunteer” program for state workers where they “volunteer? (but get paid)” one day a month for various programs. One day a month is 5% of their time so IMO the Gov is saying these workers can leave their jobs for 5% of the time and it won’t effect productivity. If that’s the case, there’s a 5% cut we could make right away. Anyone in management would tell you they always need more people, but they would also tell you how they lost people through attrition and cuts and they figured how to survive with little effort.
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p>If you want to find out how much money a state worker makes you can check them out at this link.
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p>Walk around state buildings, watch state laborers and check out the abuses and then think about the statement of “having to cut structural bone”. Plenty of fat left.
No really, I hate this “there’s fat, see, there it is” and nothing to really back it up.
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p>The fact is, when we cut the budget before, it went into very harmful cuts in services and local aid and Chapter 70 that set us back in a serious way. We were just barely almost creeping up to the funding levels of 2003, (and probably not really due to inflation and cost of materials and health care). The fact that there are 2000 new state employees means nothing unless you compare that to how much we cut in 2003. If we’re just now building up to having the services fulfilled that we used to before 2003, then that’s not waste, or fat, that’s still bone.
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p>If there is fat, it’s pittance compared to what may wind up on the cutting block. Of course there’s always some efficiencies that can be found, but fact is, this governor gives a shit about efficiencies, and has already found a lot of them for previous budgets. There’s more to do, but without drastic structural changes in say, Mass Highway or whatever it’s hard to effect them, that takes time, can’t happen next week.
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p>You can find as many anecdotes as you want about government waste, but until you actually give me the metrics about efficiency, you have no leg to stand on. Basing your policy on gut feelings and anecdotal evidence is not the way to govern.
Some people think $150 large is excessive for a community college president. I think it’s not enough.
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p>Similarly, you can go through that budget and find many things you might not think are necessary.
I think the leg is probably going to think very hard about giving the Gov broader authority. I don’t think they trust his understanding of public finance yet.
Not. I know that is not it. The Governor has a decent working relationship with the leadership of the lege.
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p>What is likely happening here is that everyone is being so proactive, it’s hard to know to what extent this is going to affect the budget. Remember how the bubble burst in spring 2002 last time around? And it took until 2003 for Mitty to think it was important enough to do work on the budget and get this authority? If the lege gave The Hair this authority, a person they very MUCH less trusted or had less of a working relationship with, then they will give it to Patrick when it is time.
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p>With only two weeks’ data to go on, what it appears is that there’s a watchful wait and see going on. No one knows how badly this will affect state revenues or what will be necessary. Perhaps Patrick was a little preemptive, but it’s better than dealing with a do-nothing governor who spent half his time out of state.
Not everything needs to be contrasted with our previous absentee landlord. Was he given the authority? Yes. But Viser’s article even points to the fact that it was a gimme because it took pressure off the great and general court. Also, just because they thought he was a sleazebag opportunistic Republican doesn’t mean they thought he did not understand what was going on.
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p>Similarly, while they might like DP, House I pissed a LOT of people off. Particularly in W&M which ended up having to “correct” mistakes.
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p>I’m not saying this makes him a bad gov, so don’t get defensive. I just believe they’ll think long and hard before granting him that power.
…and the last I heard [someone correct me if I am wrong] we were back to 600 beds, with folk being put into prison to dry out, including a woman who died in Framingham MCI.
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p>The majority of mentally ill kids wind up in DYS not mental health treatment beds – this is not progress, not at all, not even holding steady.