Words matter…sometimes more of em’ works better
Reform is of course such an overused term it means little to people. It’s used for everything and anything – in part to gloss over budget cuts or other unpopular changes or to suggest change where there often isn’t much underneath it. The Governor’s campaign website does a good job at actually explaining what the content of his reforms are but he needs to, in his every utterance and communication, pick out the most salient point behind the reform and make it stick in people’s brains.
So for example, on transportation he needs to make people know that:
– he got rid of the Turnpike Authority, the patronage laden agency that represented the worst of the Big Dig culture; and
– saved taxpayers millions from changing the bloated MBTA pension system
On ethics –
– he increased penalties for ethics violators; and
– passed a tough ban on gifts from lobbyists
On pensions –
– he ended sweetheart deals for politicians that wasted taxpayer money; and
– stopped public servants taking a pension while remaining on the public dime.
Reform is a lazy term of art. It may save space on a twitter post but doesn’t spell out what it means. Make the change more tangible and people will start to believe it.
Policy matters more…can’t let Baker own this field
The real reform battle will not be about communications, although they will be important. Real ideas will matter most and here Mr. Baker will be no easy foe to dispatch.
Baker is a wonk. He likes thinking about how government can provide services differently, looking to the marketplace or by restructuring its agencies. The recent ideas he posited in the Globe (laying off more employees, consolidating human services and outsourcing some state services to private providers – like letting Walmart renew driver’s licenses) were disparaged on BMG because they came nowhere near closing the mammoth £2bn+ structural deficit the state faces.
But, let’s be frank here, Governor Patrick hasn’t proposed a gap-closing solution either. No one has. That is why I think we need to take Baker’s proposals seriously – steal the good ones and commit to looking at some of the others. And the reason we have to do this is because our state’s budget picture may not improve for years. The economic recovery is likely to remain weak for some time. We have been living hand-to-mouth on one-time revenues, particularly federal stimulus funds that will start to dry up after this year. And let’s face it; while we will have to look at further revenue generation to see our way through the ongoing fiscal recession, the political climate and reality of the structural budget gap we face make it unlikely new taxes will ever close the gap.
That leaves us no choice but to think more radically about what services we provide, how we provide them and who does it. Beyond tax and fee hikes, we are left to consider three options:
– Ending some services entirely
– Restricting access to services; or
– Fundamentally reshaping services.
It is on this last option where Baker is trying to make the running. I know the idea of letting CVS renew driver’s licenses sounds offensive, but if they could do it more efficiently, while meeting basic labor and pay standards why not. The savings could be banked for our schools or health care. Sounds a decent trade-off to me.
Private entities compete to deliver a range of services all around the world (so-called socialist Sweden let’s private companies run schools, in Britain post offices are private franchises and allow people to handle all forms of social welfare transactions) so we shouldn’t see it as a betrayal of progressive values to invite them into service delivery here.
The thing is, Baker’s ideas only scratch the surface of possibilities. We could give our elders personal budgets to buy the services they need – choosing the best options at the best price – whether nursing care or health care. We could invite more social entrepreneurs into service areas, channelling their profits back into their communities. And why not encourage municipalities or the State government to be more enterprising in delivering services for their citizens and others. Government is good at many things, despite what you hear. It could make money doing some of them and invest it back into service enhancements or just paying the bills. Municipal enterprise happens a lot already – whether its utilities or infrastructure or real estate. Could we take it further?
OK. I admit these ideas sound a bit too Republican. Public sector unions won’t like this stuff. And yes, private enterprise is often a corrupting influence and fails to deliver the savings promised. But, we have to think outside the box in coming years.
Governor Patrick has been a real reformer – just look at the police flaggers and Quinn Bill cuts – something Republican Governors just talked about but never got done. Patrick’s criminal justice policies are also cost savers aiming to help former inmates into work and keeping them out of costly prisons. Republicans don’t back such ideas because it doesn’t suit their dumb-on-crime ideology.
There is no reason to let Baker out “reform” him on policy this year. At the least, it would be good to see the Governor talking at the strategic level of doing things fundamentally different – maybe bringing in experts and entrepreneurs to develop ideas for reshaping government. It could pay off politically now and in his second term when he will need to balance the books without federal aid.
Records matter too…Big Dig should be Baker’s first and middle names’
I guess the last point I’d make is about defining the past – something the state Democratic Party is already doing with Baker. Governor Patrick was the outsider candidate running against the Big Dig culture four years ago. After three-plus years in office, he no longer stands apart from Beacon Hill. Baker will never stop reminding people of that. And yet Mr. Baker has spent a lot more time on Beacon Hill then Governor Patrick has – running the state’s finance and health care agencies for years. He has all these reform ideas – but why didn’t he implement them when he was there for more than a half-decade? Good question.
Patrick and the rest of us have to beat it into everyone’s heads that Baker is the consummate inside-player, a wannabee reformer who let the Big Dig’s costs run out of control, who then became a highly paid health care executive who fought reform and now wants to raise people’s premiums and cut services for those in need. Contrast that to the Governor’s record on reform (when spelled out clearly) and the battle over who has really delivered change can be won.
Who best expresses and demonstrates ideas for reforming state government will likely be the one to win this race. Governor Patrick can be that candidate if he get’s the words, innovative policies for the future and historic narrative right. I trust he will.
I notice that when any of the Governor’s reforms required a concession, it was usually on the part of state employees. In many cases this appeared appropriate.
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p>I could think of only one case, the abolishing of greyhound racing, where business owners were forced to make concessions.
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p>Can anyone offer some other examples where the Governor took a stand to demand concessions from big business?
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p>The closing of corporate tax loopholes only partly qualifies because it was structured to be revenue-neutral. The benefits stayed in the business community rather than helping to restore service cuts.
I’d say that was a rather big hit on corporations. That was in his first year in office. Probably saved a lot of state jobs too.
My understanding is that the legislation was revenue neutral.
to come down I think. They could freeze the reduction due to the deficit, which they should.
Here is a BMG thread about the legislation. Link: http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/d…
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p>And here is a Globe article about tying a lowering of the corporate tax rate to closing the loopholes:
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p>http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
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p>From the Globe article,
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p>Let’s say the loophole closure saved $400 million. How much of this was lost due to tax rate reduction? Was there any net gain for the state?
Good questions. The rate reduction was to be implemented gradually so it must have raised some net revenue so far. I also think the reforms will hit some of the big cross-state businesses harder because they won’t be able to allocate profits out of state like the used to. Believe me, big business did not like this so credit Patrick for a victory here.
The state got some money up front, with promises to cut the corporate tax rate by a small amount in the future. However, that small cut doesn’t really effect large businesses so much as it leveled the playing field for small businesses. The loophole cuts were represented a far bigger sum of money to those large businesses than the meager corporate tax rate cut.
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p>So, yeah, you can still say the long term “benefits stayed in the business community,” if you define those businesses as small and local. But if you define that business as Verizon? Nosiree.
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p>(Furthermore, as Lanugo menions, this all assumes the rate hasn’t been frozen because of the Great Recession — I honestly don’t know the answer on that one.)
How did the benefits to small businesses justify the service cuts that were needed to make up for the lost revenue?
We didn’t lose any revenue. For several years, we gained hundreds of millions. Insofar as small businesses have helped, it’s better than large businesses getting the extra boost and pocketing all the profits. The small business owners, at the very least, at least spend their profits in their own communities, inside Massachusetts.
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p>You make it seem like there was a choice, though. The Governor wanted to eliminate the loopholes. The legislature, at the time, by and large didn’t. A compromise was made so we could at least get some of the revenue, and one that swapped an unfair edge given to a few special interest/very large companies, to a small boost spread to all small businesses, including those that your friends and neighbors own or work at.
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p>Is it perfect? No. I’d rather the loopholes were cut without a promise of a small rate cut, but that just wasn’t feasible at the time. Lawmaking is a sausage-making process, the question is if the sausages end up helping regular people. In this case, it did.
OK, change “lost revenue” to “revenue that would have otherwise been gained”.
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p>If this compromise was all the lege’s doing, it would be nice to know why they thought this would be preferable to alloting all the gained revenue to social services, which have been cut due to overall depressed revenue. Just asking.
the right question to ask.
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p>For the record, I’m not sure if the corporate income tax rate has been cut in these economic times. It could have been delayed. If it wasn’t, then I’d agree, it should be rolled back, at least until the economy turns around.
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p>Any state legislators reading?
A 1% raise in a three year span coupled with a 15% increase in health insurance premiums? How is this exactly fair? State Workers are this season’s political scapegoat, just one level above undocumented immigrants. The only difference is that voting turnout among state workers is much higher compared to the population as a whole (80%) in some cases. So this translates to 60,000 people who are extremely pissed off at Patrick.
I have no quarrel with evidence that points out exceptions.
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p>I have been trying to find out, without prejudice for or against, why so many people are angry at the Governor. This helps explain it.
The abolition of the Turnpike Authority, whatever administrative savings it may bring, also eliminates a bargaining unit whose employees have achieved good, middle class benefits, and forces them into a contract with much worse benefits. As for whether the MBTA pensions are bloated, well, that sounds like the usual Republican class warfare to me.
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p>Patrick has alienated an awful lot of working people who thought he was their ally. I can’t see voting for him at this point, myself, and I was proud to do so last time.
Baker got us into this mess: When revenues were good, and plans were being made, Baker gave away the farm. Big Dig. MBTA Carmen’s contract concession which netted Cellucci their support.
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p>”Big Dig Baker … we’re still digging out.” Lather, rinse, repeat.
There’s been a bipartisan tradition of Governors giving away the store since Dukakis: some of the older folks here might remember some of the games played when the MWRA was established.
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p>Segue to Weld, when a Republican (or Eddie King Democrat) with no marketable skills (but a maxed-out contribution record at OCPF) could always get a job at MassPort or MassHighways, ad tedium, ad nauseum.
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p>This is a structural problem, not as amenable to spin as some thnk.
I gotta admit, a strategy that starts with “hey, remember some five years ago when…” isn’t really a winner in my book.
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p>Especially when you’re running against the guy who denied health care to Grandma and made you wait three months for a specialist. The whole Big Dig thing seems unnecessary, suddenly.
The Big Dig seems unnecessary now because it mostly works and the crumbling, rusting, rotted mess it replaced is long gone.
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p>As expensive as it was, the Big Dig was far and away more affordable than any of the other options. It would have cost more to repair the expressway, and done nothing to address the traffic problems. The region still needs to invest a similar amount in replacing and upgrading the subway system — that couldn’t possibly have been done in time to avoid strangling the region after the expressway was closed and before the new transit construction was finished.
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p>The elephant in the room that nobody wants to talk about now is that we still need to invest something between $10B and $20B in replacing and/or upgrading the MBTA in Boston and surrounding regions.
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p>One of the Big Lies of the Big Dig was that it was an alternative to public transit investment. It wasn’t “Big Dig or …”, it was “Big Dig and …”
People aren’t allowed to write about the drapes anymore. No one cares. I’ve heard plenty of people give me their frank opinions about the Governor over the past few months, not a single one of them mentioned the damn office drapes. The only people who still seem to care about it are the ones who continually dust off those cobwebs in the media, because they’re too damn lazy to find something he’s actually done wrong in, say, the past freaking year.
Wishin’ ain’t thinkin’, and I know the drapes/Cadillac was the first impression many voters had of Deval Patrick, and that has never gone away. My barber is an example — three years on, that’s the first thing out of his mouth when asked about the governor.
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p>Those who talk politics all the time have moved on…voters (those pesky people who supported Scott Brown) haven’t.
The real problem here is exactly what many voters reported in the polls after the Special Election – elected leadership has not been bold enough – not that the establish has gone too far.
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p>We face 10,000s of regular people losing their homes annually to the foreclosure crisis – and those around them are losing the fabric of their neighborhoods, their property values and their municipal tax base.
The only visible government response has been giving vast amounts of tax-payer money to the biggest banks that got us into this mess.
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p>With the most job losses and income losses since the great depression, no regular person wants to hear about even more job cuts; this is called exacerbating the problem. With consumer spending being 70% of the engine of our economy, it is common sense to stop cutting jobs and services and instead stop giving away literally $100’s of millions in sweat-heart deals to huge corporations.
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p>With double digit increases in healthcare costs, we have to stop avoiding the truth that our healthcare costs at least twice per person than healthcare in any other industrialized nation in the world and we have worse health outcomes. How about actual cost-cutting measures that guarantee universal choice and universal coverage – it’s called single-payer healthcare. Our people, our businesses, our municipal governments and even our state government can no longer afford the present sink-hole of healthcare spending. The solution is clear and regular people are tired of waiting.
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p>And lets stop running away from the revenue question. We don’t need new taxes. We need to reinstate the old ones: remember all those tax breaks from 1989 to 2002? All the savings did not go to you and me as regular people; no, those went into the pockets of the top 20% in our state – the top 1% got a full half of those savings. Times are tough. Those who have benefited at the expense of jobs and services for the vast majority of us need to rejoin a commitment to paying a fair share like the rest of us.
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p>Some of us don’t want just reform; we want change – we want to reach down to the core of Democratic values – and build on the best of our history as a state that helped craft the concept of government by and for the people – for the regular people, not for the corporations – no matter that ill-advised decision the US Supreme Court just made.
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p>If we want politics that address the needs of regular people – then regular people have to run, regular people have to get involved to help and voters have to vote for the smart regular people like themselves, not just millionaires…
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p>If electing millionaires was going to solve our problems, we’d already have our problems solved.
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p>It’s why I took the risk, its why I am in the race, its why I hope you will join me in this effort.
Thanks for posting this. Can I ask for a couple of specifics?
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p>So what is the appropriate response of state government? Should the state take over homeowners’ debts in some cases? If so, which ones? If that’s not it, then what?
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p>I assume that, by this, you mean to immediately halt and reverse state budget cuts, and instead repeal the life sciences tax credit, the film industry tax credit, and similar programs. Are you concerned about jobs being lost as a result in those fields? Or am I misinterpreting your comment?
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p>No argument from me on that — in theory. But are you saying that the state should implement this on its own? If so, how will it be funded?
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p>Is this specifically about the income tax — i.e., raising it back to 5.95%? 6.25%? Some other level? Or are there other sources to consider? And what about finally changing the Constitution to allow for a graduated income tax?
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p>Looking forward to your responses. Thanks!
Just as weather and climate are different, wealth and income are also different.
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p>We should be taxing the wealthy. A graduated income tax misses the mark.
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p>The effect of enacting a graduated income tax is to make it harder for high-income individuals to enter the ranks of the wealthy, while protecting the enormous assets of the already-wealthy.
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p>Taxpayers who are already wealthy have a multitude of ways to avoid creating the high income levels that a graduated income tax would apply to. The already-wealthy don’t depend on wages or compensation, and if they have reasonable money-people working for them, they avoid taxable gains on their investments. The “income” that they report (for tax purposes) is essentially arbitrary. Have you forgotten Governor Weld’s infamous zero-tax (political) blunder, when he mortgaged his fully-paid-for Cambridge mansion to fund his campaign and then deducted the resulting mortgage interest from his income, resulting in zero income tax liability?
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p>Governor Weld got caught. Most wealthy taxpayers won’t. Such manipulations are all legal (after all, the legislators who write tax law have been bought fair and square). The fiction that a graduated income tax is an effective way to “tax the rich” is a convenient progressive fantasy with zero basis in fact.
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p>The bulk of the wealth (measured by cumulative non-home household net worth) in this state is not held by high-income taxpayers. It is instead held by the small number of amazingly wealthy Massachusetts residents.
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p>In addition, the constitutional process required to allow this badly flawed idea is lengthy, tedious, and has already failed the several times it’s been attempted.
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p>As I’ve written here before, a better way to skin the same cat is to significantly raise the estate and gift tax (so that the tax on generational wealth transfer is significantly increased) while establishing a relatively high ($5M? $10M? $20M?) floor and exempting households whose net worth is below that floor.
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p>There is plenty of wealth in Massachusetts. What we lack is the fortitude and courage to tax it.
I’d love to raise more from estate and gift taxes but wonder whether it is truly possible given the propensity of the wealthy to find ways to move their money, or their persons, to lower tax jurisdictions.
That’s why a similar effort should happen at the federal level.
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p>It really comes down to power. In this culture, money is power. At the same time, there are a lot more of us than of them.
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p>The truly wealthy have been waging class warfare against everyone else for decades. I think it’s time we fight back.
It needs a federal solution. Some wealth will head to the Caymans anyway but it would work better there.
Check out to see his efforts.
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p>Maybe its success has only been limited, but intervening in complex individual finances and lending arrangements is not easy.
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p>Patrick has also been addressing the wider impacts of the issue, using funds from the Recovery Act. See here some of the money going to affected communities
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p>As far as your comments about bailing out banks being the only visible response, its not only wrong but also unfair to pin on the Governor. He had nothing to do with the bailout as you well know.
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p>I’m all for a little populist rage but that doesn’t translate into solutions.
I agree that Governor Patrick has little influence on the federal programs.
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p>He is, however, running as a Democrat. Presumably, Grace Ross will compete in the Democratic primary.
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p>I think its perfectly reasonable to connect national party priorities and effectiveness with local party primaries. Such connections are certainly made in connection with the outcome of such elections — witness the visibility of the recent Scott Brown debacle.
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p>I think the Democratic Party must find a way to effectively connect to the reality that most Democratic (and unenrolled) voters live every day. That’s not “populist rage”, that’s being responsive to real concerns of real people.
The program you are referring to, Neighborhood Stabilization, gives more assistance to the predatory lenders and none to the struggling homeowners.
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p>The predatory lenders who are suffering from a glut of foreclosed homes on their accounts might be forced into negotiating with homeowners if the state did not step in and help take the foreclosures off their hands. This enables them to foreclose on even more homes. The number for the previous week was 421 new foreclosures filed in Massachusetts.
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p>My on going frustration with the predatory lending problem is one of the reasons I decided to work for Grace Ross’ campaign.
As somebody who desperately wants to see a real debate on the record and priorities of Deval Patrick within the Democratic Party, I’d ask you to write a full post on your priorities, platform, and agenda as a candidate for governor.
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p>It’s going to be hard to convince 15% of the convention to vote for you — and hard for me to vote for you at that convention — without seeing more in terms of a campaign than a website and an announcement. I mean this with the greatest respect, but I can’t vote for somebody unless they show sign of really wanting the job.