In case you were wondering which direction Republican Charles Baker plans to take Massachusetts if elected in November, look no further than his GOP convention address from this weekend.
What Baker says, or more importantly does not say, is telling. It's also amazing that a guy who for the past decade has served as CEO of a health insurance company, completely neglects to mention “health care” in his convention address.
Baker’s Convention Address (by the words)
Health Care – 0
Clean Energy – 0
Solar / Wind – 0
Green Jobs – 0
Life Sciences / Biotech – 0
Transportation – 0
Bill Weld – 2
Paul Cellucci – 1
Kerry Healey – 1
Frank Cousins – 2
The Stompers – 1
Curt Schilling – 1
It's almost as if Baker is trying to validate Governor Patrick's excellent line: “If you’re for yesterday, I’m not your guy. If you’re for tomorrow, then we have work to do.”
Charlie is just trying to hide from the fact that he’s a overpaid health insurance CEO… and who’s to blame him?
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p>These days health insurance CEOs must be about as popular as the guys who tow your car three minutes after your meter expires.
It sounds like Baker said nothing that really matters. He gave the old “Mom and Apple Pie Routine” and played it safe.
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p>I can understand that, at times, a politician has to “play it safe” and not give “red meat” to the political base, at events such as a college graduation. I NEVER get angry over this type of thing, but I don’t cheer and applaud it either.
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p>Not much of substance was said by Baker because her really doesn’t have much to say.
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p>Here’s how he’s going to campaign:
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p>He’ll say “tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts.”
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p>He’ll make up a few folksy yarns about $1,500 toilet seats, and say that he won’t let tax money from “just plain folks” go to the corrupt old cronies.
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p>And that’s about it.
We’ve also posted a fact check of Baker’s remarks here: http://www.timmurray.org/2010/…
Deval Patrick and Tim Murray let us know what they stand for and the issues that they care about. The contrast is striking.
He didn’t mention the Big Dig financing plan either.
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p>Hmmm — I wonder why?
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p>John Walsh, Chair
Massachusetts Democratic Party
For a campaign like this (right wing GOP Governor run in Massachusetts for 2010), there is no way Baker will say anything about his role in The Big Dig.
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p>The Big Dig was a large government spending project.
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p>There were cost overruns, and at one time, a woman was killed by falling tunnel parts.
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p>Baker said some absurd things about money in this Big Dig affair.
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p>Apparently, he advocated borrowing more money for the project. That is fine, but payments would have to be made on the loans.
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p>When the costs of the project exploded, it ate up the funding for projects outside of Boston.
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p>Is Baker solely to blame for all of this? Probably not.
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p>What would concern me the most is the way he presented the costs of the Big Dig, as if the money would not have to come from somewhere.
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p>The days of the Big Dig were not heaven on earth, but economically we were not in a depression, as we are now.
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p>It is time for new, bold steps to be taken to stimulate the economy in this state and nation.
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p>All states except Vermont have a legal obligation to have a balanced budget.
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p>What is needed is an amendment to both the Massachusetts and US Constitutions to outlaw the requirement that states balance their budgets.
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p>Tax hikes and spending cuts by the states, mandated by balanced budget requirements, are slowing economic recovery. If 50 states and the federal government were providing stimulus together, the depression would not be as severe as it is.
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p>This is a tall order, but drastic changes may be needed to get this nation out of the recession.
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p>What is not needed is candidates for Governor campaigning on “tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts” and nothing else, when the reality is that the taxes would not be cut if they were elected because it is impossible.
The government (not sure which parts, but presumably at least some committee chairs in the lege, and some executive branch types like maybe Baker) knew ten years in advance about the price tag increase.
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p>Feature creep (‘hey, while you’re down there…can you build another tunnel?’) and materials cost increases contributed largely to that price increase from the initial total. Most of that cost was still probably worth it, despite the increased costs.
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p>BUT – the lege/executive branch sat on the new total cost and kept them from the public for a whole decade because none of them wanted to be blamed for it (and unelected). Sure, understandable, but awfully cowardly of them.
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p>Now, I’m not saying whether or not Baker has culpability in the cost “overruns” (which didn’t exist, as I said), but we can definitely he certainly had a LOT of say on HOW we financed it, and to this day we have NOT had a good answer on why the pied piper came due so terribly harshly with the swaptions-whatevers, and also, how this has bankrupted the “forward-funded” MBTA and Mass Pike depts.
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p>It looks an awful lot like Baker kicked the financial can down the road, until it nearly exploded and thank god Patrick did what he could to fix the problem, because we were in deep shit on the debt.
The Big Dig was and is a bargain in comparison to the alternatives. It is an enormous public policy mistake (not to mention distortion verging on dishonesty) to criticize its cost in the absence of what the other choices were.
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p>The Central Artery, that the Big Dig replaced, was falling down. It was handling far more than its design capacity — due in no small part because our government made essentially no effort to develop sufficient public transportation to siphon trips off of the highway.
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p>Any attempt to rebuild the Central Artery in situ would have been FAR MORE expensive, would have taken FAR longer, and would have done nothing to address the capacity problem. There wasn’t room for extra lanes. There wasn’t room for ramp redesign.
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p>The high cost of the Big Dig was the predictable and predicted result of decades of failed regional and local transportation policy.
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p>We have conveniently forgotten that even with the Big Dig, we still need to make substantial investments (comparable to the Big Dig) in the MBTA. The Green Line is an antique that belongs in a museum. The Silver Line should be light rail. A high-speed high-capacity rail connection between North and South Stations is vitally necessary — it would open all of New Hampshire and Maine to much-needed (and demanded) passenger service to the rest of the nation. New light rail routes are needed, new capacity is needed underground in the existing system, new signaling and control systems are needed throughout the system — the list is lengthy and expensive.
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p>All of this was true and known during sixties and seventies, all this was true and known when the Big Dig began, all of this is true and known today.
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p>The Metro in Washington DC was enormously expensive and took decades to plan, design, and build. The local governments of Washington DC, Maryland, and Virginia somehow made it happen. Massachusetts has utterly failed to do likewise.
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p>The MBTA (and public transportation) has been a favorite target of anti-tax faux-populist politicians for decades. The Big Dig debt was a handy tool to use against it. The right wing (both red and blue) told us, loud and clear, why they saddled the MBTA and Mass Pike with this debt burden: they wanted to “starve the beast” and kill both.
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p>They are succeeding.
I mean, Mihos scored on Transportation and Health Care (and I THINK green jobs) – but you wouldn’t have liked his take on it very much…
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p>Image courtesy of wordle.
But I did hear him mention somebody’s failed campaign promise of property tax relief. Oh, silly me, Deval was too busy hiring friends at $100,000+ per year to care about the little people. Sorry kids, truth isn’t libel.
I heard Baker mention Deval spending $3,000,000 of the “rainy day fund” That must be a lie. I heard Deval say in his inauguration speech that it didn’t exist.