Charlie Baker begins by telling you that despite what Governor Patrick says, Charlie is going to tell you “about the actual state of our state.” Baker says when the Governor took over three years ago, the state had a $1B surplus and now has a $3B deficit.
Unfortunately, Charlie is only telling people half the story. The supposed $1B surplus that Governor Romney claimed he left behind was widely discredited by independent budget watchdogs. And Charlie conveniently leaves out the fact that we have all suffered through a disastrous global economic crisis that has negatively impacted state revenues in MA and across the country.
But hey, we’ll forgive Charlie for forgetting about the economic downturn – it’s still early in the response. Let’s look at more…
He goes on to say that state spending has skyrocketed, and that Governor Patrick gave state employees a pay raise while unemployment spiked this month.
Now hold on – this is starting to get a little out of hand. I know Charlie is “smart”, but all three national, independent rating agencies recently affirmed the state’s AA rating, specifically citing the Patrick / Murray administration’s responsible handling of state finances. Oh, and Charlie conveniently leaves out the fact that the FY2010 budget was less than the budget the year before…(No wonder he left that out – it would ruin the “spin” around skyrocketed spending.)
And while he correctly points out the rise in unemployment this past month, he neglects to mention that unemployment in MA fell the past two months, and is still below the national average. Or that Governor Patrick recently negotiated concessions from state employee unions that will save taxpayers millions, or that he instituted a mandatory furlough program, or eliminated thousands of positions in state government…(I think we are starting to see a pattern here, Charlie…)
The video continues, with Charlie declaring “our state is a mess”, and saying that it’s time to send leaders who will take action to end the circus on Beacon Hill.
Circus? I vaguely remember something about Weld, walruses and Baker defending it in the Boston Herald – maybe that’s what he is referring to…
He goes on to say that Governor Patrick’s policies are driving business away.
Again with half the story, Charlie! What about the cut in the corporate tax rate that went into effect on January 1st, or opening up the insurance market and attracting new firms into the state, or investing in life science, biotech and clean energy businesses…or the fact that the business confidence index has gone up 9 out of the last 10 months?
Then Charlie talks about his own record, letting us know that he has turned around tough situations before, with the state in the early 1990’s and with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care.
Hmmm…what do both stories have common? I know…Charlie used a tax increase from Governor Dukakis to balance the budget as A+F Secretary, and he used a state-supported bailout to help Harvard Pilgrim. I thought this guy took a “no-new taxes” pledge?
Charlie ends his video with the request that if you agree with what he just said, please help make reform happen.
Like reforming the pension system, or the ethics laws, or abolishing the Turnpike and reforming the Transportation bureaucracy, or reforming the auto insurance market, or joining 49 other states in allowing civilian flaggers? Wait, that didn’t happen under Weld and Baker – it happened under Governor Patrick!
The voters of MA are smart, Charlie. Next time, try giving them the whole story.
For updates and inside information on the Patrick campaign and MA politics, follow me on Twitter @DougRubin.
Pity they aren’t germane to the statements you match them up with.
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p>’Patrick gave state employees raises’ = ‘We have a good bond rating!!!’
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p>OK, but, DID the Governor give out raises? And was that FY10 budget smaller as ISSUED, or smaller after mandated 9c cuts? Oh, and those ‘fait accompli’ negotiated concessions haven’t been ratified yet, have they?
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p>’…widely discredited by independent budget watchdogs…’
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p>Watchdogs called….DNC? SEIU? ANY link or direct citation, so we the smart voters can determine its credibility?
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p>Mr. Rubin – this is a tough room. Save the faux-sardonic italics for more gullible crowds.
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p>(Full disclosure – Mr. Baker isn’t exactly my top choice here, but I just detest a ham-handed hatchet job)
You know darned well that the Mass Budget and Policy Center had been pointing out long before Patrick took office that our state had been running structural deficits. Your darling Republican Governors, with the State Legislature either looking the other way or actively cooperating, found lots of accounting gimmicks to disguise that fact. Putting the salaries of employees of Mass Highway on the capital budget, for example. (I’m no accountant, but my guess is that in the corporate world, that would be a criminal offense.)
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p>In any case, no responsible accounting would have agreed with Romney’s rose-colored-glasses outlook, and reality proved him wrong, as you well remember, I’m sure. So, this state was in a sorry mess before Patrick took office, and then came the GOP-engineered economic crisis.
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p>And, to reward all of this, we are supposed to elect Republicans? I don’t think so.
But the legislature killed the effort to end the practice – so don’t they kind of OWN it now?
In House One, the governor doesn’t put a mere few DEPARTMENTS onto bond funding –
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p>He puts all of MassDOT – five agancies! – onto trust and bond funding!
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p>Debt – it’s the new black…
For the party that likes to bill itself as the ones who understand business, I wonder at the malevolence it takes to insist that a 7% increase in salary over 3 years is a “raise”. As everyone understands, there’s a thing called inflation. $1 in 2010 doesn’t have the same purchasing power $1 did in 2007. That’s a fundamental fact of our economy and it can no more be ignored than the fact of gravity or evolution. People can argue about how large the rate of inflation actually is, but the best work by generations of economists has resulted in the Consumer Price Index as our best guess. And the CPI for 2007-2009 shows an increase of 7.2%.
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p>So a more accurate description of the union contracts that were approved by the Governor would be that he chose to not force a pay cut on the people who keep our state running. Given that there is a need to increase workers’ salaries to allow them to maintain their purchasing power, only someone ignorant of the fact of inflation or engaged in class warfare could characterize such an increase as a raise.
It could be that some negotiated raises were paid, but where I work, an agency with about 850 employees, nobody has seen a raise in about 3 years. Most of us aren’t griping about that because those of us who haven’t been laid off are glad to still have our jobs. The prices of gas and oil have risen in that time, health insurance costs and co-pays have risen in that time, and like our friends who work in the private sector, we’re feeling squeezed. Managers have already furloughed about 9 days apiece; pending ratification of the amendment to the union contracts, others will be furloughed, too. We’re all losing money in this economy.
Fair point on the links – I included one in my response, but will work harder in the future to include links for more of the facts we present.
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p>However, the purpose of this post is really to let people know that we are very proud of the Patrick / Murray record, and will work aggressively to address and correct anyone who tries to distort it.
…. Under no circumstances, howevever, should that tie ever come near him again. That tie isn’t workin for him. I suppose it’s possible that he’s not actually wearing a tie, but that he slurped a half-a-bowl of split-pea soup just before the speech and dribbled most of it down his shirt…
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p>All seriousness aside, it looks, too, like he’s lost some weight. Having been an observer for almost 4 years now, I think this is as close to fighting trim as I’ve seen.
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p>The speech is good and he’s actually more confident and declarative than he was four years ago. It plays well.
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p>And, yes, juxtaposing the video of Charlie Bobblehead and Deval Patrick is a useful thing: it clearly shows that Charlie B is a complete asshat for the stupid remarks about what he thinks Deval will say. Someone ought to do a mashup. I wish I had to software to do it…
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Simply put, it would not exist today if not for the fact that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts gave it a massive bailout.
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p>I’m sure Charlie Baker’s done an admirable job in managing the company, but he’s doing a tremendous disservice to the people of this Commonwealth in neglecting the role of the taxpayers in “turning around” Harvard Pilgrim.
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p>As far as I’m concerned, Charlie Baker should be including a hearty thank you in every stump speech for the role citizens of the Commonwealth had in saving his company — and allowing him to become a millionaire CEO.
The comments about a “state bailout” are all a bunch of hooey.
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p>For the record, I was Executive Director of HEFA when Charlie became CEO of Harvard Pilgrim. Charlie approached HEFA with respect to re-financing the large amount of debt he inherited. While the financing was complex, he was treated exactly in the same manner as any non-profit organization seeking HEFA’s assistance. Yes, the bonds are exempt from state and federal taxes, but that is a benefit to the purchaser of the bonds; and, again, that is no different than any other non-profit issuing debt through HEFA.
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p>At all times I found Charlie to be bright, honorable and supremely professional. He does deserve sugnificant credit for rescuing Harvard Pilgiom…and it is why, in part, I support his candidacy.
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p>Let’s take this canard of a bailout off the table, please.
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p>Bob Ciolek
can you supply more detail? The rescue of Harvard Pilgrim is an important and interesting story. It’s also complicated. Is there a place we can go to find out what really happened?
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p>Thanks!
…to the complex details of the Harvard Pilgrim situation, I think you’d agree that Ryan is guilty of political hyperbole that frankly poisons public discourse. Using a phrase “massive bailout” connotes the level of Wall Street bailouts we’ve seen in the last year and that is no where near the truth. Also it is completely dishonest to say the Commonwealth saved “his company”, when in fact Baker was PART of the rescue effort and had nothing to do with the failures of Harvard. And then we had the sprinkling of Populist rhetoric by blasting him for being a “millionaire CEO”, which he is technically, buy that roundhouse comment is intended to bunch Charlie in with the irresponsible CEOs taking $40 million comp packages while driving their companies into bankruptcy.
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p>Ryan (I assume you’re reading this) will you be labeling Steve Grossman as a “millionaire CEO” as he runs for Treasurer? Did you slam Deval for taking millionaire CEO-like salaries when he worked for Coke or TExaco?
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p>Demonizing of political opponents has gone on forever and will continue. Not only is it intellectually dishonest, in tough times like this, all it does is great a greater divide and helps paralyze a political system that must address serious fundamental problems that will required a more unified approach. So in that vain, my critique will be bipartisan
but they’re also a great way to lose an election.
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p>You don’t bring a knife to a gunfight, yet the Democrats have been disarming themselves for years. Apparently many just don’t feel comfortable attacking their opponents. Well, welcome to politics.
…and making sh*t up to demonize your opponent. Demonizing happens on both sides (yes, conservatives demonized Martha first, but when the final weigh in occurred, the Dems won the demonization wars–and look where that got us).
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p>We needed two things to beat Scott Brown and we had neither…we needed to tell the truth and we needed a good candidate to tell it. Two key issues cited for our loss was “health care” and “terrorism”. The truth is, Brown voted for the same health care reform bill in MA and now he flip flopped in opposing the Senate bill. As far as the “terror” issue goes…there was NOTHING the entire US Senate could do, never mind one Senator could do with regards to charging someone or making them an enemy combatant. Scott was full of shit on that issue and Martha (and the Dems in general) did not call him out. As they say, the truth sucks.
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p>Finally, ’06, ’08 and this election are strong indicators that negative advertising isn’t what it used to be. The R’s threw everything at the D’s in 06 and 08 and still lost big time. This election, the reversal was true. While I have no data to prove it, my sense is the swing voter that sees a barrage of negative ads from a candidate, they know that candidate is desperate and are more inclined to vote against them. Welcome to the new age of politics.
It lost Kerry Healey the election. Pity that firm has been hired again.
The problem is that one person’s truth is another’s “negative advertising.” I happen to think that Scott Brown’s attacks on Martha as essentially another political machine hack were unfair. However, I’d bet that you, PP, probably saw those ads as truth. So it’s nice to “totally concur” with a disappointment about political scorched earth advertising, but it doesn’t mask the fact that what is “negative” and what is “truth” depends on one’s point of view.
I remember ads that Mitt did during the primaries, saying, ‘Fred voted for this…’ with chapter and verse roll calls in the margin. Widely decried as negative advertising – but didn’t even say good or bad, just facts. Other ads saying, ‘Fred eats kittens!’ with no context at all – THAT is negative advertising.
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p>I saw Martha’s rape ad as negative (and I am pro-choice) as it implied Scott was against distribution of the drug itself – not for a conscience exception.
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p>It’s like all the stuff I’m reading today about CORPORATIONS spending money on electiosn, with zero mention that unions will enjoy the same lack of restraint.
If you allow a conscience exception, you’re not for the legal drug being distributed when the prescription is appropriate.
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p>As far as I can tell, if you aren’t for it in 100% of those situations, then you’re against it in at least some of those situations (namely, the ones where the person responsible to distribute has a religious or other belief that makes them feel icky inside).
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p>P.S. w.r.t. corps & unions, the unions won’t have anywhere near the money available that the corps have… don’t worry about a bloody nose if you haven’t put a tourniquet on your severed leg.
If it says it was a state bailout, that’s good enough for me.
Thanks for the juxtaposition of those two videos, Doug. I had long heard about how charismatic Chalie Baker is supposed to be, but I found him wooden and stiff, nothing like the image that Scott Brown projected in his campaign. My lesson — be worried, but don’t be afraid. We still have the best candidate in Deval Patrick!
Best candidate to lose.
…in fact, Deval best hope is that a combination of Christy Mihos’ whackiness and the teabaggers upset him in the primary.
Thanks for posting the Governor’s SoS Address. I was not able to watch it live on TV. As always, it was beautifully crafted and delivered with Governor Patrick’s lilting tones and he made some good points. However, after watching it, it occurred to me that there were two words missing…two critical words in this re-election year…a name left out of the effusion of praise to numerous people for jobs well done (and even not so well done)…so, I figured I just missed it and rewatched the whole thing again…but, nada, not there…amazing…the name of the person who has done yeoman’s work to keep this administration from completely tanking…the name of the person who has kept the lines of communication open with disgruntled community leaders..the person who stiill has the respect of legislators…the person who has been to every corner of the Commonwealth and back again helping to rebuild this economy, school systems, transportation networks…the person who is the reason why many Democrats disappointed and discouraged with the Administration are willing to stay the course…one person, one name…HUGE oversight.
that would cover Aloisi…another interesting appointment
You have a great voice AND could do political stand up! That was a funny one!
First Lady Diane Patrick? Leslie Kirwan? Please tell us the identity of this political Superman so I can personally thank him/her efforts for restoring the state’s economy, putting the state budget on sound fiscal footing, and ending excessive political patronage, waste, fraud, and corruption in state contracting and management of public programs.
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p>I am anxious to learn the identity of this masked man of Superhuman qualities so I can suggest he use his superhuman statewide powers to delivering my local property tax relief promised, but undelivered, by candidate Deval Patrick in 2006.
that would cover Diane and Leslie…
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p>I guess you would have to ask local elected officials, or veterans and their families, or regional groups anxious for development initiatives in their regions (which will create jobs)…they know.
if anyone learned the identity of this key state agent, the other states would send teams of their secret agents to render our best agent inoperable, or perhaps to defect to their state. HLPeary is already saying too much.
as he now prefers to be called?
But You can call me E, or you can call B, or you can call me 3, or you can call me EB, or you can call me E3 or can me B3 or you can call me Ernie or you can call me Ernie B or You can call me Ernie B3
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p>But you doesn’t have to call me EB3.
I didn’t watch it
Then answer “A Republican, in lockstep with other Republicans” and list all of the Republican positions on taxes and so forth. Run it over and over.
That worked swell for whats-her-name. You know, that guy who just ran in the special election.
To be your designated Republican opponent. He’s easy to criticize and has the personality of a rock. Except Christy Mihos is going to win the Republican nomination and you’re going to lose the governor’s office among several others.
While Baker clearly seems to be the Republicans’ best candidate, I’m beginning to have a few doubts. Christy seems easy to dismiss (he’s always had sort of a buffoonish quality about him), but in this anti-establishment political environment, he might have an opening (as you said in your earlier post)…
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p>But will he even get on the Republican ballot? I’m not so sure that’s set in stone. Should be interesting in any case.
Having previously lived in closed primary states,I have always found the open primary law in Massachusetts to be an interesting democratic anomaly that can produce electoral results contrary to the wishes of a majority of party leaders and activists.
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p>If Mihos does make it on to the Republican primary ballot, and I give him a 50/50 shot at best, then I think he stands to benefit from a substantial percentage of unenrolled/Independent voters, who were so crucial to Scott Brown’s victory on Tuesday, taking a Republican ballot and making a similar statement of voter anger, frustration, and disdain by voting for Christy in the September Republican gubernatorial primary.
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p>That said, I continue to believe that in a general election campaign, Baker remains a more likely candidate to prevail over Patrick and Cahill (if the latter remains viable by November), because I doubt Christy’s idiosyncracies will appeal to the significant share of conservative and moderate Democrats voters that any Republican running statewise needs to obtain to win election in Massachusetts.
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p>Christy seems like a pleasant enough guy and was spot-on about the rampant patronage, shoddy engineering and design, and corruption with the Big Dig. Still, he has a streak of Perot-like outlandish buffoonery and conspiracitis that make him sound, at times similar to a JFK grassy-knoll, which will hinder, if not handicap, his candidacy.
Of the delegates are married to the Boston “insiders”. Mihos only needs to gather 15% of delegate votes to make the primary ballot in September.
on the Howie Carr show? Give me Deval anytime.
Even hub politics compared him to a crazed Oompa-Loompa:
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The problem w/ Charles Baker III is that he fits Mike Huckabee’s line about Romney, He comes across as the guy not who you’d want to have beer with, but rather as the guy who is firing you. I never thought i’d be saying this, but he sure is no scott brown. Its all true that he used his insider connections a the state house to get favored treatment to save his company.
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p>As for HEFA. Talk about resistance to reform. Many states actually have a “public covenant” they require the recipients of tax exempt bonds to demonstrate how they would use the money for the public. The sad reality is that multi billion and million dollar companies like Harvard, Beth Israel, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Mass General get the tax breaks and are not held accountable. Ciolek and Romney leftovers have resisted reforms that make sense. Have you looked at the glorious marble and brass lobbies at the Brigham and Women’s, and Beth Israel, or the $800 electronic toilets at the shapiro building at the B&W. They were all paid for by tax exempt bonds. Why shouldn’t Harvard and the like borrow money like other corporations and not get free deals from the state? Baker, Romney and Weld did nothing about this absurd situation, in fact, Charles used it his advantage for his company.
About the Baker video….
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p>he makes a point right off the bat that I have tried to share with the Governor before. The Governor keeps touting that conditions in Massachusetts are improving, and we are making progress. Perhaps that’s how it looks on paper, and perhaps in a few isolated areas, but that is not how it FEELS to most people here. Times are still very tough, with little or no real improvement in day to day living or any ease up for people who are trying to balance their own household budgets. I recommend that you change that message. If you want to tout specific successes, such as your auto insurance rate reduction success, or the jobs that have been created in specific areas, then please, yes, do that. But don’t characterize it as a sweeping jump in citizen prosperity. No-one believes it. Don’t give him that talking point anymore. It does rile people up.
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p>Otherwise, his video falls flat. I don’t think anyone believes your policies are preventing businesses from coming to our state. While people are quite angry about the state sales tax and local tax increases, they have been relatively moderate. Much more moderate than Baker portrays them. He comes across as an exaggerator. However, don’t raise anymore taxes at this point in time. Let the middle class recover first.
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p>Now about your speech.
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p>The good parts:
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p>you mentioned several time going out and speaking directly one on one with your constituents, in their environment. This is excellent is probably the single most important thing you can do to connect with the people of this state.
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p>Your statement:
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p>Excellent. And then reverse a tax because you’ve done this. Perhaps drop the sales tax from 6.25% to 6%. To wring out inefficiencies, as you have done to a certain extent, is great! But then to cut funding to critical programs and still raised taxes? That totally negates the glory of reducing waste in government. Of course I understand that you were trying to balance a budget. But Joe the plumber doesn’t get it. Even a small tax break for the working class will go a long way. Believe me.
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p>Your desire to lower the cost of healthcare. From my perspective, you should already be well on your way to doing so, with success imminent. It doesn’t seem to me to have been a priority for you. Martha Coakley blew it on this too. She also talked about reducing the cost of healthcare. Well talk means nothing, when the talk goes on and on with no results.
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p>You’re statement here:
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p>
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p>This did not impress me. You should have been working on lowering the costs from day one. Touting that you hauled the insurance companies into public hearings was not a good idea because it produced no results. You can do backward somersaults trying to reign in the costs, but if it produces no results it’s viewed as a half hearted effort, or worse yet, a failure. Get going on that one Governor. Don’t just talk about it…DO IT. Even if you have to break the hearts of the insurance industry. This is a truly important issue. EVERYONE has real concerns about their health care costs. I am not personally affected by Mass HCR, but with the private sector employer provided plan than I have, I too am paying an unaffordable amount of household income on healthcare.
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p>The rest is not about policy but perception; I’m speaking from the view of the working class person, surrounded by working class people.
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p>Drop this term:
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p>We did the hard work –
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p>Hard work is standing on your feet all day serving restaurant patrons.
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p>Hard work is repairing a broken sewer pipe 6 feet underground on a hot and humid day.
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p>Pouring over legislation in a comfy chair in an air conditioned office is not viewed as “hard work.” Difficult, exhausting, mentally draining perhaps, but not “hard work” from the point of view of a working class person. If you are trying to reach out to those people,(and you should try to reach out to those people) you are getting nothing more than an eye roll, with a shut down of listening, and a loss of respect. Find another way to say it. Call it “the difficult task”, or “critical task”or some other descriptive term. Leave “hard work” to the man who comes home with cuts on his hands from working on automobiles all day, or the woman who was on her feet all day taking vitals signs in a hospital, cleaning unimaginable messes, and helping a loved one through the grieving process. You can roll your eyes at me for giving you this advice. But it is sound advice coming from someone who rolled her eyes at you when you said it.
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p>Also, get rid of… “we made it personal”. It should be personal. Our everyday lives are in your hands. It’s about the same as you saying “I did my job today.” It’s creates no positive impact on voters, and could even create a slightly negative impression.
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p>I wish you, Governor Patrick, the best of luck in 2010. With great excitement, I voted for you in 2006.
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p>I don’t blame you for everything that has happened to our economy. I do think you can do better though.
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Deval Patrick is driving away business – he has set loose 10M of auditor to harass small business in this state. At my company revenue to the state from the audit $750.00 – my cost in accounting fees $10,000.00. State Auditors time probably 3 weeks. Great way to keep business in the state. Just recommend a friend of mine to start his business in Southern NH.
How small of a business?
25 employees firm, 10K for a small business in today’s economy that’s a lot of money. Manufacturers (the few that are left) are mostly exempt from sales tax (as they resell). The state in it’s infinite wisdom decided to audit all (from what I can see) of the small businesses in the state for this. ‘
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p>of course if you are a politically connected film company the state writes you a check for 25% of every dollar you spend INCLUDING star salaries, but if you are a company that provides long term (50+ years) jobs to residents – sorry – we will just pick on you.
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p>The state actually went after a startup company, with the argument that nothing was exempt because they had yet shipped a product.
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p>no link (nor will there be) as I would like to be an ongoing business – but I will find the article on the start up company.
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p>The current administration does not get it at all. Corporate lawyers haven’t the foggiest ideas of what it takes to operate a business.
attacking the little guy, while cutting the big corporations a break, so really, I want to see a link.
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p>Then you’re doing it wrong.
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p>If you have 10K in extra accounting expenses and fees as a direct result of the audit that’s an explicit claim to incompetence. You should hire an accountant, run internal audits and keep your books well. Then, when and/or if the auditors show up, you simply show them the books and, if everything is kosher, there ought to be no further expenses. If however, you have to prepare and fix any major findings then that’s hardly the fault of auditors…
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p>That’s sorta like saying the health inspectors are harassing restraunters for forcing them to clean up their rodent problem…
They found $750.00 worth of items and we basically give it to them so they would stop. This is out of thousands of invoices.
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p>Our records and procedures are just about perfect. Other than ordering one item from out of state without paying use tax and a few items that have questionable classification.
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p> You do realize businesses in the state (as opposed to individuals and state reps at NH liquors stores) do pay a “USE” tax on anything they purchase out of state and are audited on it.
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p>When we purchase a book at amazon, we accure the tax and send a check to the state at the end of them month and we ALWAYS do it.
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p>You hire your accountant to assist with an audit we had to send (3) bankers boxes of records to review. Each purchase had to be reviewed from purchase order to invoice to bill.
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p>Our procedures are a hell a lot better than the state does on anything and why in $##$$$ would you come after companies that are hurting in the middle of recession. Manufacturing employment in this state is down 13,500 in the past ten years these are “Good Jobs at Good Wages” stop trying to drive them out of the state.
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p>I can’t get my mind around the health inspector analogy – maybe only to say a health inspector who shows up every day and asked the same questions to a AAA restaurant is either incompetent or harassing the restaurant.
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25 employees is a very small business. The auditors should be unleashed on the bigger businesses. I don’t get it either. It’s another case of wasteful spending; it cost far more to audit you then they recieved. I understand why you are angry.
Someone understands……….. 🙂
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p>There are legit reasons to audit a small business. Because A) they are so numerous and 2) most likely, either deliberately or through lack of proper training, to be sloppy in their bookkeeping, simply not auditing them is an invitation to waste, fraud and abuse. Most small business cut corners on hiring accountants and/or bookkeepers. Some are just bad businesses. In the hometown where I grew up, there was a moving firm that moved alot… and by that I mean, it’s offices changed location and the company name changed every 6 to 10 months. There only real assets were the trucks they used and some trained drivers to operate them. The rest of the ‘crew’ were paid ‘under the table’ with no benefits. I’m certain this was an illegal company and they moved around so much in order to avoid taxation, and, most likely, auditing of their books. So, while the vast majority of small businesses are legit, the vast majority of fronts and rackets operate through small businesses… it’s the nature of the small business beast
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p>So bad bookkeeping, deliberately evil or egregiously accidental, are a continuous hindrance to small business and to the government that charters their existence to begin with: It might be trivial, from the point of “roarkarchitect” to spend $750 to ‘make them stop’… but if the average recoup by the government is 750 across all small businesses (and I really have no idea if it is or not…) then it would seem to be a necessary service.
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p>Nor is 25 employees necessarily small in real size or in cash flow. If “roarkarchitect” is, in fact, an architect (where a 25 person firm is close to the norm) he/she might be designing, building and managing large constructions with bulk materials purchased. If he/she doesn’t have a trained accountant/bookkeeper on payroll then they’re going to get dinged on audits. Having the administrative assistant, or the intern (it happes!) do it when he/she has spare time isn’t going to cut it. Especially where, in something like an architecture firm, they are (often) the third middle-man in a stream of cash-flow and material purchases, none of which originates or terminates at the firm. The odd dictum “if you’re not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about” is very much true for business (if wrong for civil liberties…) because you can make it true: do the work right the first time.
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p>As for ‘bigger business’, they are indeed audited and quite heavily. I work for a financial services firm that made about 100M last year, which is not huge by financial services standards. We are always audited twice yearly and sometimes thrice: Since we incorporated in Maryland the State of Maryland comes in yearly and we have a KPMG audit yearly as well. We had, I understand, to do some extra work when Sarbanes-Oxley first came into effect, but we quickly incorporated that into the modus of our operandi.
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p>Auditing is not harrasment. It happens so as to ensure that people, and many small business people lack accounting training, are taking care of business…
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According to this link
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Why do they think this? Well read into the links
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p>
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p>Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,
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p>What a hilarious basis for calling small businesses more likely to be than large business. Of course large businesses are going to claim a tax liability. As if anyone is going to believe that they had $0 in profits. But that doesn’t mean they don’t under claim.
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p>Large corporations don’t hold the halo on tax honesty. Sorry, just not going to buy it. How many of their accountants know beautifully well how to fudge the books
and rob the system.
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p>While I agree that there are crooked small business tax cheats (take a look at all the ebay sellers), I think that there should be strong red flags present before making a legitimate small business go through an audit. I don’t like the idea of attacking thousands of small businesses because $750. from all of them adds up. I think it would be better to thoroughly investigate multi million dollar companies, who spend plenty of dough cooking the books.
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p>You’ll have to continue this line of argumentation with somebody who is actually arguing this. That would be somebody other than me…
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p>Nearly 70% underreporting suggests, to me at least, the reddest of flags…
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p>As I mentioned previously (you might have taken the time to actually read it) large corporations are routinely audited. I won’t say the system is perfect (cause it ain’t) but your blind and continued blanket contention that ‘multi million dollar companies’ are somehow spared scrutiny is way off the mark.l
The link that you provided is saying what I’m saying: it’s not really a way to avoid an audit, it’s a way to avoid a painful and disruptive audit… by doing things right, like hiring an accountant and keeping receipts, etc..
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p>It’s amazingly
sorta,kinda, no wait, exactly what I’ve been saying…Thank you, Doug for an excellent analysis. I am frankly tired and disgusted by republican half-truths.
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p>I can’t believe that Charlie Baker claims credit for turning around Harvard Pilgrim. Geeesh!! Charlie Baker was hired by Harvard Pilgrim AFTER the state rescued the insurance company. If anybody deserves credit for turning around Harvard Pilgrim, it’s Attorney General Tom Reilly. Charlie Baker did absolutely nothing to rescue Harvard Pilgrim. He didn’t even work there when the crisis occurred.
Sorry, I feel as if we are missing the point of Chjarlie Baker’s video and its impact on potential voters. It Does not matter that he was wooden and stiff. What he did do in truths or half truths is speak to what people in this state are feeling. Which is that the economy sucks and the governor and the legislature are doing way too little about it. People have clearly demonstrated that they are not interested in the nuamces of policy. They want the mess cleaned up. Not responding to that gut level feeling, will bring us, as Democrates, a loss in Novemeber. I think Charlie Baker may well beat Governor Patrick in Novemeber. It also took him three minutes to sum up his view of the state. The Governor went on for more than 20. brevity is the sould of wit, and probably politics as well.
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p>We had best WAKE UP and speak to the concerns of voters, who are not as in the know as we all think we are.
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p>Rhonda
I’m a programmer. Clients always want me to write code fast (they pay by the hour) that runs fast. I ask them if they also want that code to work — I can write really fast code in an hour, so long as it doesn’t have to work.
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p>You and I watched his three minute summary. The trouble is, it doesn’t work. His generalizations are false, his recommendations are empty, his half-truths are completely misleading.
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p>Einstein famously said “Things should be as simple as possible, but not more so.”
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p>Yes, we must speak to the concerns of voters. We must also speak the truth. The “solutions” we offer surely must at least have some chance of working. Charlie Baker’s piece fails this minimal standard. If a majority of Massachusetts voters continue to blindly vote based on bumper-sticker lies, then our situation will get immeasurably worse.
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p>After we’ve woken everybody up, don’t we have an obligation to tell them the truth?
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I want to win an election with a democratic governor who actually cares about people. That is my truth. Do I want to tell voters my truth, yes I do and I will but that will not win votes. I think we are wrong in our entire approach to politics in this century. Say what you need to say, say it concisely, if you have done something own it, don’t try to nuacce it away. People who are mot political wonks like us don’t care about nuance. if the budget was increased, say it was in these areas. I am not advocating lying. I am advocating that we talk much less with a far more succinct message. I am advocating that we focus less on details and more on the big picture. We need to focus on and respond to the mood of voters. That was, I believe, how Scott brown won in addition to facing a reportedly impotent campaign.
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p>RhondaBourne