Oddly enough, that’s the rallying cry from our Education Secretary Jim Peyser
Education Secretary James Peyser’s firm rejection of a proposal that would generate $1.9 billion for Massachusetts transportation and education evoked a strong response from proponents and opponents of the measure, Gov. Charlie Baker appears comfortable taking a wait-and-see approach on the issue.
So what’s Peyser is so strongly against? An amendment that would raise revenue by establishing a surtax of 4% of income over a million dollars that would fund education and transportation expenses.
Peyser outlined his opposition to the notion that higher taxes are necessary to improve education, adding that the proposed constitutional amendment could “weaken our economy” and “damage our ability as a commonwealth to support the schools and the other services we desperately need.”
Peyser, who shockingly once headed the Pioneer Institute, hot take is based what? Experience of the last three decades when conservative policies crashed our economy? Think about it, parents who are now taking their children to schools have lived their entire lives experiencing failed economic policies of conservative presidents. Economic failure based on what Jim Peyser has been try to push has been clearly debunked.
So what’s Jim solution?
I don’t think the issues that we face as a Commonwealth here are really about the fact that we don’t have enough revenue. It’s about how we’re using our revenues wisely and well
Charter Schools? I also heard that it will stop hunger, global warming and will bring world peace. Just ask any unicorn, they will tell you. Or maybe all you have to do is ask a charter school lobbyist, which by chance happens to be our own ed secretary. (Maybe still a lobbyist? they won’t say.)
EduShyster posted filings to the commonwealth by Families for Excellent Schools which still lists Jim Peyser as a Director for the non-profit organization, but also more disturbing their lobbying arm Families for Excellent Schools Advocacy Inc. If that name sounds familiar, Families for Excellent Schools is funding Great Schools Massachusetts that is spearheading lifting the cap on charter schools. Jim’s charter school lobbying group is a 501(c)(4) dark money group that does not list it’s donors. Funny thing, while Family for Excellent Schools posted Jim’s resignation to the non-profit, they haven’t commented on Jim’s involvement in the lobbying group which filed it’s annual report in August 2015 with Jim Peyser’s name listed as a Director.
for Great Schools Massachusetts. Funded by Jim Peyser’s lobbying group.
James Peyser has just shown that he is not fit to be the state’s Education Secretary. Instead of making the argument that the education system doesn’t need more money, he is making the argument that we shouldn’t try and find more money for it.
Why does this matter? Because as Education Secretary, he should be working to make the educational system better. He is not. He is putting his overall tax-averse position above the educational system. He is not following his duties.
It is fine for the governor and/or legislature to weigh the difference between higher taxes and a better-funded educational system. It is quite different when the Education Secretary uses his ideology to oppose a better-funded and better equipped system.
Can you imagine if the manager of the MBTA would say “I don’t support buying replacement cars for the lines because that is money that is being taken out of the economy to pay for them”?
…I have long believed that any person who does not believe in the mission of a given department and government’s role in advancing the cause of that department’s portfolio has no business being that department’s secretary. Same goes for heads of sub-cabinet divisions and other agencies.
Jim was a recent addition to my Google alters. Did you know that Jim is representing the Commonwealth in a lawsuit to lift charter caps.
This is not a joke.
We are being sued by a group who wants to lift the charter cap and Peyser is representing us. yes, you read that correctly. Bay State Banner has an article where that the NAACP wants to intervene and add testimony on the negative impact of charters on special education and depriving quality education to students.
I’m sure the MTA knows it, but do their members? Really? The long-term goal of the Pioneer Inst., and its founder Le Grand Charles Baker, is to do away with public schools, to corporatize and privatize public education in the very state that started public education in the U.S. almost 400 years ago. And that means doing away with public school teachers, their unions, and the very protections that those unions provide. And charter schools are the first step in that process. So, teachers, time to engage … while you still have jobs. Whether its Baker, Trump, Cruz, Rubio, or whomever, the simple truth is they do not have your long-term interests at heart.
I wouldn’t make this a broadside against the Pioneer Institute – it is a research foundation that fills a much needed void, given that the General Court does not have its own equivalent of a Congressional Research Services. The research coming out of Pioneer is not falling neatly in liberal/conservative buckets. If people are unhappy with the results of that research, they should respond to the issues raised up, and not turn this into a jeremiad about the research institute itself.
But Peyser needs to explain his ill advised comments. Is it really his business to comment on tax revenue policy, as Education Secretary? Is it really acceptable to keep a foot in the boat of the non-profit advocacy world, once he’s cabinet Secretary?
What I like about Charlie Baker is that, as Governor, he’s keeping the head down and focusing on the job at hand – steering clear of national politics, staying away from ideological disputes. Same can be said about his Democrat and independent cabinet members. Transportation Secretary Stephanie Pollack; Housing and Economic Development Secretary Jay Ash; I can’t imagine them taking a highly charged political position at odds with the office they hold.
Baker is resigned to conservative incrementalism – that is his only hope in this state. For example, yesterday he announced an economic development package that could easily have been put together by Deval Patrick – but hidden inside was a provision that allows “fulfillment centers” to not pay time-and-a-half for work performed on Sunday. Nice conservative gem there, a foot in the door because other retailers immediately started saying “hey, how about doing that for us too! It isn’t fair!”.
How are fulfillment centers defined?
this is from mass.gov
I’m thinking the new law is saying that if you work in the warehouse for a retail concern, you don’t have to pay overtime on Sunday. In any other type of business besides retail you’re already not paying overtime just because it’s Sunday.
I wonder how many retailers are affected.
One comes to mind.
thinks Baker’s proposal applies only to Amazon and I think they are right.
They are also plenty P.O.’ed about it.
You are close to the answer. Fulfillment centers are the warehouses operated by Amazon and their ilk to package internet ordered good and ship them directly to customers. Warehouses and retail establishments do not get this sweetheart kiss in the Baker legislation.
please explain more of the obvious
You came close to the truth it in your previous comment and I acknowledged it and politely added a little more detail. Why the hostility?
and since you think it was “more of the obvious,” let’s be clear that you were mistaken when you wrote:
I’m thinking the new law is saying that if you work in the warehouse for a retail concern, you don’t have to pay overtime on Sunday.
It does not apply to warehouse work for retailers.
some level of intelligence. Your second comment is even more obvious than the first.
Pioneer Institute is a research institute in the same way as the opposition research units of political campaigns are research institutes. It was founded by an ideologue to advance a hard-line political ideology and locate whatever facts they can to support predetermined conclusions consistent with that ideology. The only reason they describe themselves as non-partisan is a cynical attempt to trick people by masking their essential purpose. If they were braver, or more confident in the fundamental premises of their politics, they would be more honest.
The first sentence on their web page is this:
Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government.
Sure, that is absolutely a conservative, libertarian worldview, but in no way is it concealed or hidden. Nor is it particularly dishonest to describe itself as “non-partisan,” particularly in Massachusetts, where (unlike the rest of the country) that particular ideology does not map very well to partisan identification. Indeed, as the earlier post on charters makes clear, there are probably more Democrats in our legislature that follow this particular line of thinking than there are Republicans!
So, if they produce materials that generate enthusiastic agreement among both the Republican governor and a not insignificant number of Democratic legislators (including the leadership), how is “non-partisan” a “trick”?
It’s not.
Pioneer is a republican training group in Massachusetts to say otherwise is dishonest.
So the Koch Brothers are non-partisan as well.
There may be tax implications for being overtly partisan. They can pursue an ideological agenda and claim that if someone with a D after their name happens to support their agenda that’s just swell with them. I’m not aware of either Cato or Pioneer coming out and saying we endorse John Smith or Vote Republican this November.
Let’s consider material from the Heartland Institute Center on Climate and Environmental Policy (emphasis mine):
Your benchmark would apparently lead to a conclusion that Heartland Institute is genuinely a source of “pro-environment policies based on sound science and economics”.
Since some of our members object when I characterize such material as “lies”, perhaps we might agree that this material is at variance with what the Heartland Institute actually DOES.
Surely the benchmark you offer leads us to an incorrect answer about both the Heartland Institute and the Cato Institute (described elsewhere here). It seems fair to me to suggest it also leads us to an incorrect answer about the Pioneer Institute.
I suggest that Pioneer Institute is approximately as “non-partisan” as the Heartland Institute’s dedication to “sound science”.
The Pioneer Institute is nonpartisan the way that the NFL is a non-profit.
Hi Bob, do you have specific examples where Pioneer provided oppo research for a political candidate?
Because I read that Pioneer is “no better” than the research unit of a political campaign.
The tone I am getting is “don’t bother to read, or understand what Pioneer writes.” That does not strike me as a constructive attitude.
The Pioneer Institute does not do oppo research on candidate. It is organized as a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, as defined under IRS rules. Donations are tax deductible. It is prohibited from participating in elections and lobbying. According to the IRS a 501(c)(3):
In addition, it may not be an action organization, i.e., it may not attempt to influence legislation as a substantial part of its activities and it may not participate in any campaign activity for or against political candidates.
See https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Charitable-Organizations/Exemption-Requirements-Section-501(c)(3)-Organizations
It may/likely has an affiliated 501(c)(4) which can communicate directly with its “members” about legislative issues but not advocate on behalf of or against any candidate.
https://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Other-Non-Profits/Types-of-Organizations-Exempt-under-Section-501(c)(4)
On the left side of the spectrum, MassBudget made the decision abut 15 years ago to shift almost all of its activity to a 501(c)(3) also. It too maintains a 501(c)(4) which has very limited resources. You will only see Noah and his staff commenting on the impact of policies but never advocating a legislative agenda, unlike in the old days of the precursor organization TEAM (Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts).
Institute not falling into one camp. It represents the libertarian-busines species of conservatism. Their people don’t foam at the mouth or drag their knuckles like much of the contemporary GOP, but they do have a clear, conservative ideology.
What I don’t like about Charlie Baker is that he is ideologically opposed to discussing our revenue problem. At some point, his ideological bent was going to come into conflict. That point is now.
Let’s see how he comes on this millionaire tax that’s being proposed. If he goes with it, or if he proposes a viable alternative. I would not rule that out just yet. Keep in mind that it was Peyser who spoke in opposition, not Baker.
With the fiscal discipline he brought into the office, Baker is actually making it easier to increase tax revenue. One of the reasons many have opposed tax increases in the past was that they considered it money going to a black hole. If there is acciuntability, and if there is good value provided by higher taxes, it us much easier to raise revenue.
Baker signed the petitions for both the millionaire’s tax and marijuana legalization saying something along the lines that if he believes in the initiative process he might as well help put both on the ballot. He has stated that he is opposed to marijuana petition, which is subject to modification even if adopted by the voters.
He has not stated his outright opposition to the Const Amendment, which cannot be amended by joint legislative/executive action. However, the revenue generated by such an amendment is subject to legislative appropriation, which cannot be overridden by the voters. In short, they can spend the money anywhere they want and not as the proponents wish. Every year the “new” money will need to be appropriated and at some people people will cease to think of it as “new” revenue, and just another part of the Commonwealth’s total revenue stream.
That will be a major shit storm among insiders during the first few years if the lege and governor try to scoop the cash for other purposes but I don’t think the public will be able to follow the insiders game of budgeting.