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Scalpel Applied

Barack Obama and Deval Patrick have campaigned heavily for each other, eager for you to know they’re on the same page. The Massachusetts experience may be instructive given the presidential debate’s focus on applying a spending freeze and taking a hatchet to the budget (McCain) vs. investment in America and applying a scalpel (Obama) in tough financial times. Here’s Patrick’s latest scalpel work. Boston Herald:   

Bay State residents should brace for less day care, shuttered museums and libraries, dirtier parks and beaches, fewer cops and cuts to AIDS funding and other crucial health care programs as Gov. Deval Patrick implements sweeping cuts in a desperate bid to close a $1.4 billion budget gap.

In addition to chopping 1,000 jobs from the state’s 45,000-strong workforce, the governor plans to ax more than $1 billion from the budget, including:

$368,000 for a beach preservation program;

$1 million for Head Start pre-school programs;

$1.5 million for AIDS prevention and treatment services;

$611,000 for suicide prevention;

$5 million for opiate addiction treatment facilities;

$285,000 for a teen pregnancy program;

$5 million for infant immunization programs;

$9 million for workforce training;

$24 million for the University of Massachusetts system and between $500,000 and $1.9 million for the state’s other colleges; and $3.9 million for senior home care. 

“People will feel these cuts,” Patrick said. “(These) cuts will affect services . . . There is real cause for concern but not panic.”Also among the cuts are $9 million for law enforcement, which at least temporarily derails Patrick’s bid to put 2,000 additional police officers on the streets.

Another area that will be hit hard is the mental health field. The governor’s plan calls for a $27 million cut to adult mental health services, $3 million for state facilities for the mentally retarded and $1.9 million for the Department of Mental Retardation.

The fiscal fiasco won’t do any favors for the state’s crumbling infrastructure either. There are cuts to public works projects including a $390,000 dam safety program put in place after a spate of failures that caused massive flooding.

“It’s a sad day for the Commonwealth,” said state Rep. Martin Walsh (D-Dorchester). “I feel terrible that we’re in this economic crisis because people are going to lose their jobs.”

Republicans lamented the cuts but said the governor and the heavily Democratic Legislature ignored warning signs and spent freely on pork projects, which exacerbated the crisis.

“We knew there were going to be problems a long time ago,” said Sen. Robert Hedlund (R-Weymouth). “We were sounding alarms during the budget debate last spring. We built a house of cards and now we’re being reactive.”

That’s a $5 million whack to Sarah Palin’s kid. $27 million cut says crazy is as crazy does. $9 million for cops … hasta la law and order. $9 million for workforce training … and I thought Republicans were the ones who don’t care about the unemployed proles … unless he’s talking about training the state workforce in which case, good move! Surly layabouts aren’t trained, they’re bred.

It’s a scalpel wielded like a chainsaw. $24 million for the University of Massachusetts … I have no doubt they could find millions of dollars worth of hackery and worthlessness, but not much confidence they will. Stay tuned for fees, tuition hikes. I assume this is the end of talk about taxpayer-subsidized higher educationf or illegal aliens … no, that’s crazy talk.

I am all in favor of cutting Massachusetts state spending … drastically. Vote Yes on Question 1. Let the Legislature know how you feel about the decades of waste, nepotism, patronage. Critics call it a hatchet where a scalpel is needed. Maybe. But the brain surgeons on Beacon Hill, when sober, have proven incapable of determining what is tumor and what is gray matter, nor have they ever shown much interest in excising the cancer. Hence the desireability of a little shock treatment. Nothing focuses the mind like an execution. If you know anyone who has gone from the private sector to state government, or have had direct contacts with state government, then perhaps you have heard of the difficulty of getting people to actually do anything there.

There are exceptions, and the Registry of Motor Vehicles, once hack holy ground, sorely abusive of the public goose, became a model of prompt, responsive efficiency under the heat of Republican administrations.

The only problem with Question 1 is, even if voters act to abolish the state income tax, the many, many do-nothing hacks on the state payroll are not the ones in danger. It is the people who actually provide useful services. That and the fact that the Legislature’s hacks, if for once they lack the gall to defy the will of the people, will continue to support their crack habit with other fees and taxes.  This is interesting. Not the fact that Patrick is cutting even deeper into law enforcement … yeah, that’s interesting, too. But look who else is allegedly on the block.  

Another $52 million will be saved through voluntary cuts to the Legislature, the judiciary, district attorneys offices and Constitutional officers’ budgets.

Here’s an idea for starters, especially given the Legislature’s eagerness to show it is all business in advance of that “reckless” Question 1 vote. Make the Legislature part-time. Fire the hack staffs. How do you figure out who is worthless, who provides vital services? Here’s a couple of easy measures. Are you actually involved in providing services directly to the unwashed public, with contact, or do you lay hands upon infrastructure that is used by them? Have you ever taken Evacuation Day* off?

Back to the Obama-Patrick nexus. There is one key noteworthy difference between them. Patrick cannot spend more than the state takes in. Obama just has to run up the deficit to put a chicken in your pot.

* Hack holiday, officially observed in Boston, Cambridge and Somerville, celebrates the departure of British forces from Boston on March 17, 1776. Seized upon by Irish pols as a two-fer — a great excuse to take St. Patrick’s Day off on the occasion of a British humiliation — but embraced by hack pols of all ethnic backgrounds. As they say in the State House, you could fire a cannon down the halls and no hit anyone. Unless someone sticks his head out of the press room to see what the commotion is.

Topics: pols

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:26 pm on Thursday, October 16, 2008

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