More votes of confidence in Governor Patrick’s management of the fiscal crisis. This is via a campaign email:
I wanted you to have this information first, before it appears in the media, because it is an important independent indicator that Massachusetts is enduring the economic downturn better than most and is poised to come out of it faster and stronger than the rest of the US.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, which issues important monthly indexes that measure the economic performance of all 50 states, reports that since the national recession began in December 2007, the Massachusetts economy has performed better than 33 of the 50 states.
In addition, in the last three months the performance of the Massachusetts economy has improved significantly, outperforming 48 of the 50 states!
The results of the index are based on employment, hours worked in manufacturing, the unemployment rate, and wages and salaries paid. The most recent release from the Bank came on January 26th and covers the period through December 2009.
This excellent news follows the news of a couple of months ago that all three national ratings agencies (Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s) had affirmed Massachusetts’ AA bond rating with a “stable outlook,” specifically citing Patrick’s management of the budget.
Compare that to the situation in Minnesota — home of Gov. Tim Pawlenty, perennial Republican presidential contender. They just got the unwelcome news that Moody’s had downgraded their outlook to “negative,” and criticized the state for avoiding hard choices.
Moody’s Investors Service, one of the nation’s premier credit-rating agencies, has a message for the governor and the state: What you’ve been doing won’t work much longer. Stop putting off the hard choices or trouble will ensue.
Moody’s cited the state’s reliance on one-time solutions and empty reserves in its decision, days before Pawlenty’s [final State of the State] speech, to downgrade the state’s outlook to negative.
Another right-wing Republican who talks the talk on fiscal conservatism but doesn’t walk the walk. Wouldja look at that.
Are we worsening less quickly than others, or are we improving? The portion in bold indicates the derivative is positive — we’re improving. That’s great news.
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p>The next question is — how quickly? Obviously, we want to get better quickly without relapse. If we can get better quick enough, Deval Patrick might find himself his own Massachusetts Miracle.
I know you have access to:
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p>1. Number of job seekers who gave up [no longer counted in unemployment numbers].
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p>2. Average weeks in which unemployment is collected.
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p>3. Number of applicants per job per category.
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p>Inquiring minds want to know.
one can also use the positive:
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p>1. Number of people with jobs (full time, part part time).
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p>2. Total number of worked hours per week.
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p>3. Total wages earned per week.
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p>They’re both valid metrics, thought they tell related but different stories.
when the Philly Fed makes its numbers public, I assume.
take out prematurely what is left of IRA money
Sell house
Not file taxes
Disappear to remote woods survival location
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p>Like Camp Granada when it stops raining? I don’t think so. But facts are pesky things but I do find it strange that things “has improved significantly” and yet Scott Brown wins the “Kennedy” seat in the US Senate. Don’t these people know how good things are here in MA.
… just had that cleaned, mkay…
So all of the states are sinking and we are sinking a little slower then everyone else. Not sure that’s something to be proud of.
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p>Raising the sales tax 25% did have a severe effect on the Massachusetts retail economy. Gross sales receipts in the state dropped 10%. You can certainly see this in the booming border communities in Southern New Hampshire.
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p>We are lucky to have large Medical, and Educational organizations in this state – these industries are somewhat independent of the economy has a whole. Though I think families are starting to find college tuition is becoming unaffordable and so this will have a negative impact on our state.
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Actually, it is. Carry on.
Is something to be proud of? No snark intended.
Clinton is no innocent in this economic cluster, but it began with Reagan and Bush II put the nail in the coffin.
To think that we can get different economic results by doing the same damned things is not rational. The same economic situation exists today as in 2007. This administration is seeking to solve the economic problems through inflation as done in the Carter administration. (A method of robbing from the poor to satisfy the rich. It didn’t work then, it won’t now.)
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p>A world-wide crisis brings us many views of resolution. Iceland is a beacon of hope. May we come out of the pending financial disaster not with social collapse, but with a determination to build a better government to honor our country. An open society that would prevent the disaster we face today. Promised by the current administration, it is now just another failure. Perhaps this administration’s failures will result in real change.
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p>Even a glimmer of hope shines from the rubble of Detroit where script is being printed to replace money that no one has. No doubt there will be other attempts to print “tools of exchange” as the dollar goes south.
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p>Now, what has the Commonwealth planned?
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p>(No, heading for the hills with your guns & gold just won’t work. Remember Ruby Ridge, Waco?)
That despite the biggest economic downturn since 1929 and the near-total collapse of our financial system, somehow Massachusetts would be unaffected, and we’d keep seeing a pleasant 3% growth rate with low unemployment, even though the rest of the country is falling apart?
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p>That’s just not realistic. We’re part of the national economy, and we were inevitably affected. Things are tough here, just like they are tough in every corner of the United States. That said, facts are facts, and the facts show that Governor Patrick has done a damn good job of managing his way through this, with the result that we’re better off than the national average in most categories, and that we’ll probably come out of the it sooner.
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p>And yes, that’s something to be proud of.
… then sucking less is indeed something to be proud of…
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p> Being in a world of hurt… well… hurts the whole world.
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p>Every time I walk through the Boston Common, I snap my fingers. I’ve never been attacked by a cobra. Therefore, snapping fingers in the Common keeps cobras away.
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p>Clearly the sales tax increase had some anti-consumptive impact. But, what else may have? I don’t know, maybe the general malaise in the economy? To have any sense as to the impact of the sales tax increase on the retail economy, one would have to look at the change in sales receipts in other states over the same time frame at the very least.
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p>But that’s work. Merely claiming that two pieces of data which moved at the same time are directly related because that fits your world view is so much easier. Wrong, foolish, lazy, and not-reality-based, but definitely easier.
sort of like when gas prices rise people drive less. Everyone seemed surprised.
You have that right. Every reasonable person does expect the sales tax to have a negative impact on, you know, sales.
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p>The question is the size of that impact and weighing its downside against the benefits of the state having more much-needed revenue. Further, with the state and municipalities pressured to cut jobs, isn’t it quite possible that, by keeping more state and local workers employed, it has prevented demand from contracting even further?
the state should have cut jobs a long time ago – given how unemployment compensation works in the the municipal sector. It seems to me that it will take 2 years just to clear off the expense of additional workers.
…that even in a time when jobs are scarce, the public sector is asked to, of all things, CUT JOBS? Doesn’t that throw more people out of work? Forgive me for sounding a little too cute, but bureaucrats are people too. They also have families to feed, clothe, etc.
Cutting jobs stinks, but the businesses in the private sector have been doing this for at least 3 years. The public sector (state of Massachusetts) instead of making hard choices raised taxes on the private sector, which again resulted in more job cuts in the private sector.
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I believe that’s the point KBusch made upthread. Please provide evidence for your assertion that a) the sales tax induced businesses to cut jobs that they wouldn’t otherwise have cut and b) that those job cuts resulted in a greater contraction of the economy than the cuts that would have been made in the public sector without that revenue.
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p>Please, sir, may we have some proof? Some actual data that identifies jobs lost as a result of the increase in taxes? Tx.
Generally speaking the jobs in the public sector, and the services those people provide, are too important to suffer from economic downturns. That’s precisely why they are public rather than private.
http://www.boston.com/news/loc…
…not political appointees. If the position can be eliminated, preferably by attrition, rather than refilled that’s fine with me as long as it really is determined to not be necessary. I’m not rehashing the controversy on this particular person and job, however.
Or do you not consider police, fire, and education public sector jobs?
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p>In my school district alone, we cut 44.5 FTEs this year as a result of reduced funding.
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p>Or do all public employees work for the bogeyman “state”?
and getting rid of the endless press secretaries assistants to assistants……….
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p>look at the chart below – you tell me what sector is hurting the most ?
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