I know its all been said before and that I am preaching to the choir, but Charlie Baker’s latest criticism of Governor Patrick’s fiscal management is so painfully ridiculous I decided to preach anyway.
In the Globe article on Baker’s lame rainy day fund proposal, Baker, without a hint of irony or recognition of reality, says:
“Beacon Hill has not had the self-control to ensure that Massachusetts is living within its means and that has led to higher taxes and a depleted Rainy Day Fund,” Baker said in a statement. “This proposed law will protect Massachusetts’ resources and ensure we are not faced with year after year of budget deficits like we have during the past four years.”
Its like the GOP begat great recession, which has decimated tax collections, never happened. Its like the tax cuts Baker pledges, which will only make it harder to balance the books, were never proposed. Its like the 4-5% year on year spending increases Mr. Baker signed off when he was Welducci budget chief, were never spent. Its like an alternative universe reported as if it were our own.
Thankfully our eminently reasonable and highly talented A and F Sec Jay Gonzalez (whose showing Mr. Baker how to do the job without passing the buck) was there to point out:
Paraphrasing… That repeated withdrawals from the Rainy Day Fund… were necessary to protect services during the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
“It’s been pouring,” Gonzalez said. “That’s what the stabilization fund is for.”
DUH!
Its the same crap we get at the federal level, where the runaway deficits, spiralling unemployment, neglected regulations and financial meltdown George W Bush and Co left us with is such old news.
Baker, Boehner and the rest of em are obviously betting that people have short term memories and that they’ll take the difficult times and slow progress on recovery out on Obama, Patrick and those left holding their right-wing shit bag. But we got to take the argument to em aggressively – that they’ll take us backwards and make things worse. I’m pissed. Maybe finger pointing doesn’t always work but the GOP has so bankrupted our politics and economy we need to get as strident as we were during the Bush years – in their direction.
Enough introspection. Enough debate over whether our leaders have gone far enough. We haven’t gotten everything we wanted but we have seen more movement towards our priorities then we have in decades.
And we know who our real foes are and how wrong they’ve been. We know the damage they’ll cause if they get back in. Its all bunk and we need to call them on it.
President Clinton left office with a $230 billion surplus, the largest in U.S. history. When George W. Bush left office he left a record half-trillion dollar deficit.
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p>“They took us from record surpluses to an exploding debt; from over 22 million new jobs to just 5 million; from increasing working families’ incomes to nearly $7,500 a year to a decline of more than $2,000 a year; from almost 8 million Americans lifted out of poverty to more than 5.5 million driven into poverty; and millions more losing their health insurance.”
(President Clinton’s ’08 DNC address, Denver, CO)