Governor Patrick may have properly claimed his contribution to Education funding under the ARRA program, but may be missing the boat on Economic Development. Although Education is key to long term economic growth, the shorter term stimulus for economic development must be wisely spent. The following quote from the cited article implies the Commonwealth may be failing the test of leadership on this issue.
Governor Deval Patrick’s administration has determined that dozens of worthy projects are not eligible for federal stimulus money because the US government has dictated that only certain types of public improvements can be funded, even if they have limited economic potential.
http://www.boston.com/business…
And it appears they are having trouble achieving the job creation objectives established by the federal estimate (79,000 jobs) for Massachusetts.
That means the initial round of stimulus spending may generate fewer jobs than Massachusetts officials had expected.
It would be regrettable if the Governor and his staff accepted less than our potential because of rules he has had the opportunity to influence, or not stood up to change them when it is proper to do so.
