Smitty: Bash the Governor. Meddle with the Dept of Elementary and Secondary Education, trying to convince them to stop pushing for regionalization of school districts entirely. Ignore the educational benefits of having larger districts (e.g. opportunity to offer more specialized classes that smaller districts wouldn’t have enough student interest in) and the cost savings that come from regionalized districts (e.g. fewer school buildings to heat and maintain), and focus on scoring political points at the Governor’s expense. Be proud of getting all that per diem bonus money while local schools get screwed, and refuse to take a 5-day unpaid furlough, in spite of going on Christmas vacation rather than working to fix the budget crisis.
Me: Cut the legislature’s $18 million slush fund. Find ways to raise revenue that don’t hurt the economy like the sales tax does (if the legislature had done this in the beginning, we wouldn’t have to make 9c cuts now. But they just figured, hey there’ll be a linear increase in revenue from the sales tax because there’s no way it could possibly affect consumer purchases). Give the Governor the authority to fulfill his responsibilities to the state’s citizens. Pressure the Auditor and AG to look into Tim Cahill’s pay to play schemes and the high-priced defense attorneys the state provides for various officials and former officials in ethical trouble. Protect municipalities from unfunded “local option” commitments through legislation treating funding promises by the state as unfunded mandates if municipalities make commitments they can’t get out of when the state cuts funding from promsied levels.
I’m sure I can think of more; this is just a spur of the moment response to Smitty’s comments in ther Berkshire Eagle and some of the uninformed comments made on BMG. Let’s put the blame where it belongs: the legislature has refused to accept its fair share of the burden throughout the crisis, and needs to be held accountable.
I don’t think that the sales tax increase is taking in less than anticipated because it has caused a big decrease in spending.
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p>The main problem is that we have had a multi-billion dollar structural hole in our budget for the past three fiscal years. The hole is upwards of $3 billion. Additionally, there was a big imbalance in the transportation section of the budget.
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p>The sales tax increase was not meant to fill the entire hole. In fact, part of the sales tax increase is dedicated to transportation.
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p>Look at the state spending over the past few years, the problem becomes really evident. Remember that the budgets run from July to June, for example, FY 2006 started being prepared in 2004, and went into effect July 2005.
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p>FY 2006: $24.3 billion. This was a Romney budget.
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p>FY 2007: $26.2 billion spent. This was a Romney budget
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p>FY 2008: $28.0 billion spent. This was Patrick’s first budget, though I’m sure that it was being worked on before Patrick took office (you don’t start a budget from scratch in January to go into effect in July).
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p>FY 2009: $27.7 billion spent.
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p>FY 2010: $27.0 billion projected to be spent.
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p>FY 2011: $27.0 billion being talked about.
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p>See the problem? The budgets have actually declined, yet we all know that costs don’t go down from year to year, particularly when multi-year contracts are in effect.
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p>I don’t know how the Health Care Reform factors in here either — is it taking up increasingly bigger pieces of the budget?
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p>We have plugged the holes with both rainy day fund and federal stimulus dollars, hoping for the economy to get better. It hasn’t. That is why cuts have been necessary.
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p>Although Patrick hasn’t made good on his promise to lower property taxes, he hasn’t targeted Local Aid the way Romney did in 2003 when there was a much smaller deficit. He’s done everything he can to avoid that.
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p>I don’t think people understand this, because the only message being drummed out there is coming from the Republican party, who have been telling half-truths about how Patrick “hired” all these state employees — neglecting to tell the public that were not new positions, and they were hired to take the place of people who left their positions.
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p>I don’t think the public realizes that we are having budget problems due to revenue shortfalls. I think they think that Deval Patrick jacked up spending and busted the budget.
Part of the grade given to Chief Executives is how they work with their boards and Legislators. If you get “nothing done” then you didn’t work well with them, if they do things you don’t want then you exerted no power. Deval is responsible for everything happening under his watch and if you don’t believe that then ask George Bush who is blamed for everything happening under his watch (both with a supportive Republican Congress and with an opposing Democratic Congress in the end).
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p>Politicians like Deval (and President Obama) have to stop blaming “the other guy” or Legislature or whomever… take the hits and take the credits!
A CEO is in a fundamentally different situation. He or she IS the boss of all the company’s employees. The Governor IS NOT the boss of the legislature, the courts, or other state constitutional officers.
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p>Failure to lead is one thing. Failure to command your own people to do the right thing is blameworthy. But your reasoning allows anyone except the person at the very top to avoid any kind of responsibility. This isn’t simply legislative slacking because they haven’t been prodded; this is actual interference with the Governor’s attempts to rectify the problem. When you intentionally obstruct attempts by “the boss” to do what needs to be done, you buy responsibility for things that go wrong as a result of your malfeasance.
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p>The CEO who lets employees get away with doing whatever they want is incompetent; the CEO who can’t do his job due to the Board of Directors embezzling half the company’s funds is not.
I have been waiting for someone to defend him on BMG besides myself. Certainly he bears the blame or some things while he simply gets blamed for other things because he was in charge.
Absolutely. Idiocy of the immigration debate: not Bush’s fault. Terry Schiavo: mostly not Bush’s fault. Iraq War: Bush’s fault. Hurricane Katrina: not Bush’s fault. Flooding of New Orleans: Bush’s fault.
Lame-ass FEMA response … Bush’s fault. Flooding was Army Corps of Engineers.
… there were some budgetary issues for improvements that got screwed with some tax cuts.
Three major factors contributed heavily to the scope of the disaster: 1) diversion of funds to Iraq, 2) relocation of LA National Guard to Iraq 3) FEMA response.
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p>All directly tie back to Bush.
Here
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p>
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p>I can personally verify both the cuts and the complaints. The Times-Picayune had been writing about it for years.
to the Berkshire Eagle story you reference? This is an interesting post but a link would really strengthen it.
Here’s the beginning of the most interesting article :
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p>’It’s over,’ Pignatelli says
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p>Author: Derek Gentile, Berkshire Eagle Staff
Article ID: 13869676
Date: November 25, 2009
Publication: Berkshire Eagle, The (Pittsfield, MA)
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p>Thursday, Nov. 26
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p>GREAT BARRINGTON — Citing the reduction in the state reimbursements for regional school transportation, State Rep. William “Smitty” Pignatelli says the state’s push for rural schools to form districts “is over — it’s not going to happen.”
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p>The state Department of Education has been urging rural school districts like Berkshire Hills Regional School District and the Southern Berkshire Regional
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p>It’s been archived so you have to pay if you want the whole thing. But here’s a link to the archive search; the stuff within the last two weeks, including some info on the furloughs, is free:
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p>http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-sear…
By that do you mean comments like…”Pressure the Auditor and AG to look into Tim Cahill’s pay to play schemes and the high-priced defense attorneys the state provides for various officials and former officials in ethical trouble.”
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p>A more informed writer would know that an initial investigation was done by the Ethics Commission, which found Cahill did not violate Conflict of Interest laws. Given that, the thought of pressuring the AGs Office to investigate Cahill smells like the worst kind of politics we can engage in. And the irony of your comment, is that it was the actions of the AGs Office, who decided not to represent Cahill because of possible conflicts of interest,that caused he to seek out-side counsel. And please understand that I’m not a Cahill supporter, nor will I ever be. But I felt a more informed perspective was required.
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p>As for your main point…sure the Legislature is a big part of the problem. But Deval deserves his share of the blame. From day one of his administration, we had a structural deficit and he choose to ignore this reality and and hoped that the $2.5 billion raining day fund would put a band-aid on this gaping wound. Among the many faults Deval has demonstrated is his inability to confront reality.
during the worst economy in our lifetime is to cut more? That’s kind of out there, I agree with your last statement in general but during the time of an economic downturn is to have more money out there not less. If you haven’t noticed the rainy day fund was created for this exact purpose.
No more balancing the budget on that fund. Time to cut!
Starting with the estate/gift tax, on estates valued in excess of $20M. Feel free to slide the floor downwards towards $5M.
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p>The primary reason for the current budget hole is tax cuts made during the administrations of a succession of Republican governors (aided and abetted by a pandering and cowardly lege).
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p>The most important reality that Governor Patrick must face is that our entire transportation infrastructure is crumbling. The state’s economy will go down along with it if we don’t invest in rebuilding it. That investment requires new tax revenues.
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p>Clamoring for additional cuts during this economic cataclysm is the worst kind of fiscal, economic, and social irresponsibility.
so let’s say I cave to the estate tax on anything in excess of $20M. How much will this raise but please keep in mind that people with over $20M will move out of state or “dilute” their fortunes prior to death.
How we should be approach the delivery of critical government services in a severe economic downturn would be hijacking this post and suffice to say that Deval has contributed very little substance in this area.
Cahill can pay for his own attorneys’ fees. Why should the taxpayers be on the hook more just because he potentially did something illegal in the first place? Why should we be on the hook for Sal DiMasi’s legal fees after he stole from the state?
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p>I’m aware of why he sought outside counsel. That doesn’t justify the state paying for it. And the AG’s office’s concerns about conflicts of interest indicate they’re interested in investigating, which tells me the Ethics Commission didn’t do a very thorough job.
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p>In fact, a look at the state’s ethics laws would tell you the same thing. See the summary here: http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=et…
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p>If nothing else, there’s the appearance of a conflict when you give no bid contracts with little to no upside to the state and hundreds of millions of dollars at stake to a private company whose chief negotiator on thde deal is a friend of the asst treasurer working on the deal, and the negotiator on the private company’s side, mere months after the deal, hires the state’s negotiator for big bucks.
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p>See: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/s…
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p>Definitely a violation of the “appearance” standards, probably a violation of the self-dealing standards, and possibly a violation of the bribery rules.
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p>I’m not arguing that the Governor is blameless. He needs to accept his share of the blame too. But he’s taking a lot of flak even on those issues where the legislature could easily have prevented problems from arising, and they need to quit shirking responsibility.
…and I, like you, don’t like it…Cahill’s actions are related to his official duties as Treasurer and only if (or until) he is criminally charged does Cahill have to pay for his own legal counsel. You seemed to be suggesting that any government official who is sued in civil court for decisions they made as part of their government job, should shoulder the expense of the civil defense. That is an asinine position (or, to the point of my post–an uniformed position). If such a system was implemented, government officials would be paralyzed with fear every time that had to make a contract decision, knowing that they could be a target of a civil suit from a large corporation and they will have to pay for their own defense from their personal funds.
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p>I guess I had a problem with your whack at “uninformed” comments on BMG. Are there? Of course. But there are plenty more informed comments that certainly outweigh the dumb ones. While I agree with you general frustration about how we do business in MA, there are “informed” reasons why they happen (even in the case of the House legal bills, they had to turn over tons of emails and documents, a lawyer experienced in criminal investigations had to vet all that material), I just found it ironic how one defines “uninformed”.
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p>PS) welcome to BMG and hope to see more of you…sincerely.
First, regarding DiMasi’s bills: DiMasi has been indicted. Even under your reasoning we should have stopped paying his bills there.
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p>Second, we can distinguish between civil suits alleging an ethical violation (e.g. what’s actually going on w/ Cahill) and civil suits alleging other legal violations (e.g. a claim that he was negligent in his fiduciary duties to the state’s pension fumd). A claim of negligence or a claim that someone has misapplied the law is clearly within the scope of their official duties, and the government should provide counsel for them.
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p>A claim of bid rigging or conflict of interest is not so clearly within the scope of official duties. It relates to such duties, but the heart of the matter is an intentional violation of those duties. Those who intentionally break the law absolutely should have to pay for the costs of doing so. This doesn’t create too much risk of nuisance lawsuits paralyzing official action because courts can dismiss lawsuits that are wildly off base. Or, we could take legislative action requiring the state to pay legal fees in these kinds of suits initially, but requiring defendants to reimburse the state if they lose. If the risk of losing a lawsuit over corruption is so high as to paralyze an individual from taking action, that is a person who shouldn’t be in government in the first place.
…the subpoenas were issued against the House of Respresentatives/Speaker’s Office–not DiMasi himself. The information turned over comprised more than a half million e-mails and a hundred thousand electronic and paper documents that federal prosecutors subpoenaed in their investigation of DiMasi
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p>No doubt the subpoenas were wide ranging, trying to piece the web between Ways and Means, what’s-his-name-from Chicopee, Cognos reps and the ticket agent lobbyist. Hey, I’m no fan of paying for these legal fees, but until others get indicted, we pay.
They’re only being incurred to investigate him…
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p>Let’s make an analogy to a corporation: Say the CEO directs the company’s employees to engage monopolistic conduct in violation of antitrust laws, and they do it. Company and CEO get charged by DOJ with antitrust violations and are ultimately convicted. CEO goes to jail, company pays a fine, plus is on the hook for all the legal fees it incurred defending itself. Innocent shareholders lose money on their investments due to the CEO’s misconduct. So far, that’s pretty close to what’s going on in MA.
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p>But the shareholders have a recourse: shareholder derivative suits against the CEO requiring him to reimburse the shareholders for their losses resulting from his misconduct. I propose we create a similar device for government entities. In the meantime, if the feds want to subpoena documents, the legislature’s in-house counsel should seek an injunction barring the feds from doing so until they make DiMasi cough up the dough to cover the costs.
the Governor when he’s a knucklehead. He’s given me ample opportunity over the last few years. If you’re not disappointed with this guy, given the “together we can” and “no more business as usual” rhetorical he ran on, then it’s really not about the man, it’s the party. For me, it’s about the man, and nothing else.
Would stop bashing his own head against the wall by hiring friends to six figure positions, proving his fierce independence… I live in Massachusetts. I love my home state. I’ll give credit when its due. If Deval ever does something good.