At some point, we reach a reckoning point for political and policy wisdom: The rewards for long-term thinking come to fruition (though often under-appreciated); and the bills for political cowardice and short-sightedness come due.
How long ago did we know the MBTA was in trouble? How did we get to this most glorious day in this, the best of all possible worlds?
As far back as I can remember doing this blog, we’ve been talking about the Big Dig debt piled on the T, and how service was suffering. It’s been bumbling along seemingly forever. Back in 2006 we knew things were deteriorating. From BoMag’s “The Little Transit System That Couldn’t”:
More cause for alarm are the complaints about the Red Line, once the system’s crown jewel. In one recent 30-day period, even more trains on the Red Line were disabled (11) than on the Green (10). (During the same period, the Orange Line reported four disabled trains and the Blue Line three.) “My ride in was HELLISH this morning,” reads an entry on BadTransit.com, a website popular with increasingly disgruntled MBTA commuters. “It took one hour to get from North Quincy to Park Street!” Another Red Line rider tells of a stifling subway car smelling of rotten eggs. Later in the day, this same traveler took another ride. “Wouldn’t you know, must have been the same train. Still no A/C. Still smelled like rotten eggs.”
This is the status quo ante that we’re supposed to be happy to return to in Charlie Baker’s plan.
By 2008, the legislature knew they had to do something … but they just didn’t want to pay for it.
REFORM before revenue. The Senate has consistently applied this philosophy in its reform proposals for transportation. This philosophy seeks to ensure that tax- and toll-payer money is spent effectively and efficiently so we don’t pump new funding into a broken system. It has allowed the Legislature to advance an agenda that ensures we aren’t leaving scarce resources on the table because of inefficiencies and poor planning.
The idea that we needed both reform and revenue was too much. Indeed, one might need revenue to execute reform properly: It takes money to bring contracting and project managers in-house — an investment in on-time and under-budget performance. Did we ever get that?
BMGers knew the Senate’s plan was insufficient to the challenge. As our David predicted 10 years ago:
Likely result: House and Senate squabble for a while, then pass a watered-down transportation bill; Governor vetoes all or part of it; House and Senate override, thereby saddling the state with a transportation “reform” that solves a few short-term problems but doesn’t really address the long-term situation. Five years down the road, here we go again.
To its credit, the legislature did streamline and consolidate the transportation bureaucracy — an improvement in political accountability, at least.
In 2013 Gov. Patrick proposed a $1.9B investment plan in transit. And Sen. President Therese Murray and Speaker DeLeo were terribly proud, even defiant, at putting forth a patently inadequate funding package:
Murray said the plan holds the MBTA and MassDOT accountable for “delivering savings or revenue and working toward contributing the same share of their budget.” Murray went on to say that the Patrick administration’s proposal “… will have deep and biting effects on people in every community across the Commonwealth,” because it would raise the income tax and eliminate 44 tax exemptions for constituents. “For many in the Commonwealth, their paycheck is spent long before they even bring it home, and raising the income tax will affect the ability of low and middle-income individuals to make ends meets. Now is not the time for us to make their paychecks even smaller, or to threaten their ability to provide for their families.”
What about getting to work? Is there anyone in Massachusetts feeling “deep and biting effects” right now?
Gov. Patrick was not happy, calling the legislature’s bill a “fiscal shell game”. Furthermore:
“The problem is you are asking people everywhere in the Commonwealth to pay, and not actually delivering anything for them at home. The reason that I think that is bad politics is, at that level the legislature is going to be back here in a few years and … everybody [is] going to say ‘What happened? You just asked us for $500 million, and I don’t see any change,’” Patrick said.
Transportation advocates knew what was going on:
Kristina Egan, director of Transportation for Massachusetts, an advocacy group that had pushed for Patrick’s funding plan, called the proposal “woefully inadequate.”
“We have an unprecedented opportunity to make a transportation fix for the next generation, and I’m worried that we’re squandering it here,” Egan said. “It feels like this package is locking in chronic underfunding.”
And here’s what I wrote in 2013: “The DeLeo-Murray Feckless Fare Increase”
When your train breaks down; when your suspension bottoms out; when you couldn’t get to work or to an appointment because of our congested, rusting transit system … you’ll know who to blame.
Has there been any reflection by those who were in the fight back then? In a recent Commonwealth podcast that will make transit advocates burst a blood vessel, former Senator and Transportation co-chair and reform-before-revenue adherent Steven Baddour says he’ll never take the commuter rail, and then has the gall to complain that not enough attention has been paid to traffic problems for those who drive:
“We need a traffic czar here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, someone whose pure focus is through-put, getting people from A to B as quickly as possible,” Baddour said.
My dude, this was your job.
The only thing that has woken up our legislature seems to be the defeat of two of the Speaker’s lieutenants to primary challenges; and the current ferocity of anger at the MBTA’s decrepitude — felt “inside the building” of the State House. Apparently it takes a total crisis, not mere common sense, to be felt “inside the building”.
I’m mildly hopeful that a new generation of legislators are impatient with the legislature’s (and this administration’s) typical can’t-do attitude. But we have to assess the consequences of yesterday’s rationalizations and political poses. Those folks, those leaders, those ideas, political tropes and calculations — they let us down. Yesterday’s leaders failed us today. And here we are.
SomervilleTom says
The 2013 whining from the legislature about raising the income tax and removing 44 exemptions ignored the other changes, specifically doubling the personal exemption, that meant that ONLY the most affluent households would see a change, and only on the amount above that generous threshold.
That makes the following statement a lie (emphasis mine):
This is simply a lie. Deval Patrick’s proposal included DOUBLING the personal exemption. The lowest four quintiles of income distribution (which is what “low and middle-income” MEANS) would have been unaffected.
The actual truth is that Ms. Murray and Mr. DeLeo were protecting the interest of the top 20% — more specifically, the top 1% — of the income distribution.
The statement that this proposal would threaten the ability of ANY taxpayer to provide for their family was a flagrant lie.
I hope that today’s voters and the legislators they elect will take Mr. DeLeo to the woodshed for a well-deserved spanking while demanding that we dramatically raise taxes on the very wealthy so that we can begin the laborious, slow, and expensive task of repairing the damage we have already done.
Charley on the MTA says
Well, DeLeo is talking about injecting significant $ into the MBTA now, faster than Baker. He also supported the millionaire’s tax. So I do think it’s getting through to him. I’m suggesting this is really late, and that all this was completely foreseeable.
jconway says
I think this shows a few things. The problems with the legislature are not ideological. DeLeo is risk averse and temperamentally conservative, not ideologically so. You have to raise the costs of inaction. One you gotta get bodies in the building or letters to the offices for these folks in the bubble to even know people are pissed about something. It’s a very offline crowd. Second you gotta get the old media to pay attention to the story.
That’s the bigger difference between 2013 and now. A lame duck and aloof governor without a ton of political capital left who allowed his grassroots network to atrophy after his re-elect with a new Speaker just consolidating his power and a lame duck Senate president. A media that was largely hostile to Patrick.
Now we have a media finally chomping at the bit to challenge Baker and document his failures and a Speaker comfortable exercising power and a new Senate President eager to be a co equal leader. Much more vocal grassroots support of more revenue. Big credit to Dempsey and others for organizing T Riders. Maybe DeLeo dan even override the Governor! Imagine that.
SomervilleTom says
Yet another datapoint highlighting the failure of the Massachusetts Democratic Party to effectively use the media (old or new).
Surely there is no law precluding the Massachusetts Democratic Party from hiring any media consultants it chooses and running any media campaigns it chooses.
Surely the collective voice of Massachusetts Democrats would be louder if the only incorporated entity in the commonwealth allowed to use the name “Democrat” were the most powerful media voice in the state.
Surely even Mr. DeLeo would pay more attention to the organization if it commanded real influence that reacted immediately and powerfully to Mr. DeLeo’s choices.
Christopher says
We do have communications people; not sure what our budget allows for though.
SomervilleTom says
You’ve written several times that the Party doesn’t seem to get traction in local media.
Sounds like perhaps your communications people need help — higher budget, different direction, perhaps even different people.
johntmay says
This fiasco is the only outcome for all those, including far too many Democrats, who call themselves “Fiscally conservative but socially liberal” which in this case translates to “I believe in mass transit, supporting the working class citizens of the Commonwealth, but I will not spend a dime to support that belief, because…I am a fiscal conservative” ,
SomervilleTom says
Indeed.
I hope you’ll agree that your implied criticism also applies to those, including far too many Democrats, who call themselves progressives until they themselves are required to sacrifice — even a little bit, in the form of higher taxes or deferred raises — in order to support the working class citizens of the Commonwealth who suffer the most.
johntmay says
Yup, until they themselves are required to sacrifice — even a little bit, in the form of higher taxes or deferred raises —
But NO Democrat should ever break this one Commandment:
Thou Shall Not Ever Vote to Cut Wages of the Working Class.
Our current Democratic legislators did so just last year.
Christopher says
With the caveat that fiscal policy is not at all my wheelhouse, I’m struggling to understand the logic behind saddling the MBTA with debt from the Big Dig. Shouldn’t the state as a whole be responsible, or if it does have to be a specific agency, maybe what was then Mass Highway?
Trickle up says
What is this “logic” of which you speak?
It was pure spite.
Christopher says
Can you elaborate? Were some out to get the T for some reason?
SomervilleTom says
Charlie Baker was the architect of the skulduggery that saddled the MBTA with Big Dig debt.
The GOP has been attempting to kill the MBTA for decades. The phrase they’ve been using as long as I can remember is “starve the beast”. The deed was done in 2000, by then-Governor Paul Cellucci (who took over after William Weld resigned ). The GOP has ALWAYS opposed public transportation. The GOP has ALWAYS advanced the fiction that public transportation should pay for itself. The GOP has ALWAYS advanced the fiction that automobiles pay for themselves.
The actual cost of the Big Dig skyrocketed during the William Weld administration. The opportunity to simultaneously hide the impact of Big Dig expenses and burden the MBTA with unsustainable debt was too attractive to ignore. The Celluci administration was killing two birds with one stone — making the Big Dig seem free, and finally destroying the MBTA.
The responsible thing to do in 2000 was raise taxes in order to fund the Big Dig expenses. Neither Democrats nor Republicans had the integrity to say that or to advocate for it.
Christopher says
Doesn’t paying for itself stand opposed to being truly a public good?
Do public roads pay for themselves?
Do public schools pay for themselves?
Do police and fire departments pay for themselves?
Etc.
SomervilleTom says
@ Doesn’t paying for itself stand opposed to being truly a public good?:
Absolutely. Nevertheless, the GOP maintains its opposition to publicly-funded transportation.
The utterly false claim is that, for example, private buses pay for themselves and so there is no need for public buses. The GOP mythology is that “market forces” will somehow magically provide superior service to whatever the government offers. The same specious argument is made for rail passenger service, even though passenger service has never paid for itself (never mind generated profits) in the history of railroading.
It is classic conservative deceit in action and practice. Sadly, it is practiced by too many Democrats in addition to the GOP.
Too many voters accept the lie, because they’ve heard it all their lives, without question.
jconway says
Let’s not forgot Peter Pan’s owner significantly underwrote both of Baker’s campaigns and has been rewarded with the killing of Tim Murray’s proposed commuter rail expansion past Worcester to Springfield and the rest of Western MA.