Now that the Massachusetts Senate has finalized its budget proposal for FY 2014, the next step is for the House and Senate to produce a single budget that reflects the priorities of the Legislature as a whole. To that end, a House-Senate Conference Committee will reconcile the differences between the House and Senate budgets and negotiate a budget that can pass both houses.
Differences between the House and Senate budgets include:
- $75 million in additional House funding to help make higher education more affordable
- Senate initiatives that begin to address the large and growing wait list for children seeking early education & care.
- An $11 million gap between the Senate’s higher funding level for Youth Empowerment Programs and the House’s lower level
These are just a few of the many differences—large and small—that the Conference Committee will have to address.
Looked at more broadly, though, the House and Senate budgets are quite similar. They include comparable amounts of new revenue; they both direct the majority of this new revenue towards fixing and improving our transportation system; and both have only a modest amount of additional funding to invest in other areas, whether education, health care, or beyond.
The Governor’s budget proposal had incorporated some broader investments in our communities, including plans to give more kids access to high-quality early education & care, and to combine transportation fixes with more new transportation projects in coming years. To fund these investments, the Governor proposed a revenue package substantial enough to offset a significant portion of the long-term effect of the income tax cuts of 1998-2002—which continue to cost the state $3 billion each year.
At this point in the process, it is the more targeted differences between the House and Senate budgets—and not the broader differences between these and the Governor—that will be taken up by the Conference Committee and that will shape the budget moving forward.
Read more in our Conference Preview
I found it on your website.
I’m far more concerned about “the broader differences between [the combined House and Senate budgets] and the Governor” than I am about “the more targeted differences between the House and Senate budgets”.
The Governor’s proposal addresses the urgently required and enormously important investment in our collective future in a courageous way that has been sorely absent for far too long. The initial House response was totally inadequate, and the Senate counter-response was only marginally better.
This was pushed off the media by the Marathon Bombing and it’s aftermath (sadly, the Globe is STILL flogging that dead horse daily). It is time we bring it back to the front page.
The Governor has led the way. I encourage this community to aggressively push the legislature to substantively address the issues raised by the Governor. We’ve kicked the can down the road long enough.
during the conference. Just can’t happen.
So, once the upper and lower resolve differences and pass it in both houses, the governor can either veto or sign it. Which do you think he should do, and why?
In my view, the heart of the Governor’s proposal is his proposed significant investment in transportation infrastructure and the associated tax structure changes to fund it.
I’m leaning towards wanting him to veto it. The Senate version was slightly better than the House version, but not enough (in my view) to get the job done. Since the most likely outcome of the conference process is a result closer to the House bill, I think the Governor should veto it.
The overall cost, in terms of lost business, lost wages, and long-term economic decline, of doing anything short of the Governor’s proposal far outweighs the modest increase in taxes required to fund it. The House/Senate version, by not addressing the long-term systemic changes already required, is the worst of all worlds. Taxes continue to increase, but the systemic problems aren’t addressed in any substantive way and so the long-term costs continue increase unabated.
As a new homeowner, I am reminded of the similar dilemma faced by the owner of a “heritage” home whose failing roof is revealed by peeling paint in the hallway and discolored spots on the kitchen ceiling. In my view, the only viable answer is to invest in the new roof and stop the water infiltration. The combined House/Senate approach is analogous to that of the short-sighted slumlord who proposes to instead paint the walls and ceiling and cover the damage just long enough to get the place rented to the next tenant. We’ve already been doing that for the last dozen or so tenants, and the result is rotting floor joists, sagging floors, and crumbling plaster (locomotives that won’t run, doors on Red Line cars that don’t stay closed, a system that has to shut down for every ten inch snow event). Further delay only escalates the costs and exacerbates the problems. Meanwhile, by biting the bullet and doing the right thing now, we can put the property back on track towards being a valuable asset to its owners, its residents, and its community.
I think the Governor should force the issue, now, by vetoing the House/Senate bill unless it miraculously comes MUCH closer to his initial proposal.
Sorry, Tom, but the Legislature has made it abundently clear that they have no intention of passing a revenue package of any scale. That means the investments Patrick proposes are off the table. How do we get to the Governor’s proposal? There are only two answers. Either “we don’t and never will” or “elect another Democratic Governor in November 2014 and hope that they will have run in such a way that they have a more powerful mandate for real tax reform.” That’s the only realistic path. There is virtually no chance at all that anything remotely resembling the needed reformas (i.e. an income tax increase) will be passed before January 2015.
If that’s true, then the game is already lost.
If “the investments Patrick proposes are off the table”, then we should shut down the public transit system altogether — in its current state, it is a hazard to public safety. If an overwhelmingly Democratic legislature and a Democratic governor can’t get this job done, then its time for a new political party.
To me, it means the game is more long term than we hoped. To you, it means it seems to mean the game is already lost. But its almost inarguably true that the investments Patrick proposed are off the table.
Electing another Democratic governor in 2014 won’t solve the problem, because the problem is the legislature, not the Governor. “Long term” is meaningless nonsense, the basic structure of the legislature hasn’t changed in decades. I have seen NO proposals or strategies that will accomplish anything towards solving this problem.
Clearly, the pain isn’t severe enough. The overworked and underpaid public workers who’ve been holding things together with clothespins and baling wire are only enabling more plundering. The water in the pot isn’t hot enough, yet, to make the frogs jump out. So change that.
Kill the T. Kill commuter rail. Stop the trains, the subways, and the buses. The agency is bankrupt — declare it. Dissolve the contracts, start the process of selling off the assets. Make sure that EVERY VOTER knows that this is happening because Speaker DeLeo and Senate President Murray chose political expedience over doing what needs to be done. The collapse of the transportation system will create chaos and havoc. Do it.
When nobody can get into the city in the morning or out of it in the evening, because the already overcrowded and undermaintained highways see major traffic increases, make sure the voters blame the Democratic legislators and the Democratic leadership. When the thousands of schoolchildren who rely on the T every day can’t get to school in the morning or get home from school in the afternoon because the MBTA is shut down, make sure the voters blame the Democratic legislators and the Democratic leadership. Schoolbuses won’t work because all the roadways will be filled with traffic. Nobody will be able to park anywhere, because there’s already too little parking.
Let’s see how attractive a Casino in East Boston looks when there is no Blue Line and no Orange Line to access it. Will the traffic backups on 1A be measured in miles or hours? Let’s see what happens to Logan Airport when there are no trains and no buses to get travelers in and out of it.
We are talking about utter chaos. It won’t take more than a few months.
Then — and only then — offer up primary candidates who unabashedly and loudly advocate raising taxes to restore a workable transportation system.
We Democrats have had our shot at this, and we have failed miserably. A Democrat has served as Speaker of the Massachusetts House since 1955 — nearly sixty consecutive years. Similarly, a Democrat has served as President of the Massachusetts Senate since 1959. That is more than FIVE DECADES of continuous Democratic dominance — there’s no way to blame this failure on anybody BUT the Democrats.
Sure, I’ll work to elect another Democrat as Governor in 2014. I’ll work to reelect Denise Provost and Patricia Jehlen — each is a solid, strong, and progressive legislator. Deval Patrick, Denise Provost, and Patricia Jehlen are not the problem.
The right-wing anti-tax conservatives masquerading as Democrats have got to go. Mr. Deleo and Ms. Murray may be fine people and good Democrats — they’ve got to be made to feel the pain of betraying the passionate progressives who have supported them for so long.
What we are doing is not working. The house is falling down. I have zero patience for more “long term” approaches. The problem is RIGHT NOW and the response needs to be right now.
This is the key:
It often seems the goal around here is to make re-election as easy as possible for any schmo with a (D) next to his/her name, regardless of performance or policies. What’s the point of an 80% Democratic House or a 90% Democratic Senate that can’t pass things an overwhelming percentage of Democrats want? I’d rather have much smaller majorities if it meant getting things done.