Tough economic times can translate into mean-spiritedness and make things difficult for those who are different. If you’re a Muslim-American, for example, you can be assumed to be a terrorist. If you’re Latino, you can be assumed to be an illegal immigrant. And, when an increase in bias against such groups plays out in the …
Continue reading Immigation: Massachusetts an Arizona Wannabe?
Governor Deval Patrick is in high gear! He’s all energy, enthusiasm and confidence out on the campaign trail. He has long had a good story to tell about his administration’s accomplishments: pension reform, ethics reform, education reform, transportation agency consolidation, collaboration with the legislature to pass budgets reflecting more than $9 billion in recession-induced revenue …
Our assignment today, fellow students, is to look beyond gubernatorial candidates’ touting of what they’ve done (which all may be laudable) and explore their recommendations of where we go from here. So let’s look at the rest of Republican Charlie Baker’s “Baker’s Dozen” proposals, released earlier this week.6. Reform Medicaid – He estimates between $175M …
Continue reading Baker’s Dozen – Food for thought in the gubernatorial campaign, part 2
Political campaigns in a media age too often amount to little more than sound bites, manipulation of symbols and repetitive slogans. Substantive discussion of issues? Fuhggeddabout it! Everyone’s in favor of “eliminating the waste,” “cutting the fat but not the bone,” and “making government more efficient.” Specifics of where and how much are usually lacking.Deval …
Continue reading Baker’s Dozen – Food for thought in the gubernatorial campaign, part 1
Tim Cahill appears to be a nice guy with a pleasant sense of humor. Over time he has become more relaxed and articulate in his public presentations, but when he speaks—and when he answers questions-- he skims the surface of topics, offering messaging themes and often avoiding specifics. Right now, his function is to divide the anti-Deval …
Continue reading Tim Cahill’s Independent Candidacy: Neither Here Nor There
As editorial director of WCVB-TV, Channel 5, I was an ardent opponent of Prop 2½. I thought it arbitrary to cap a city’s or town’s property tax levy to 2½ percent of the previous levy, unnecessarily tying the hands of local officials trying to cope with changing financial circumstances. Much of that is still true, …
Continue reading Prop 2 1/2 has become the gate keeper and should stay: confessions of a convert
These are good times for Charlie Baker, despite the poll reported in the Boston Herald that he’s in a virtual dead heat with independent challenger Tim Cahill in the three-way primary race to unseat Governor Patrick. Baker himself points out that even Christy Mihos had 22 percent at this stage of his 2006 gubernatorial race …
Dear Charlie,Thanks for your recent letter, sent by The Baker Committee to my home. But, Charlie, how could you let this missive go out over your name? You’re better than that!Was it done by a robo-writer? Every cliché in the book! “restore integrity” “demand accountability” “restore confidence in state government” “cut government spending” “streamline government” …
Governor Deval Patrick’s speech this morning to the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce was a home run, not a grand slam perhaps, but a home run nonetheless. He made a compelling presentation of his administration’s accomplishments in “the worse economy in living memory” and laid out a six-point plan for boosting the state’s economy, with …
The largest personage in the House chamber for Governor Deval Patrick’s state-of-the-state address wasn’t there at all. It was, of course, Scott Brown. The address, the Governor’s first chance to turn around an outraged electorate and rally his partisans in his reelection bid, was an opportunity to tout his accomplishments – and they are many …
Continue reading Patrick Speech: the To-Do’s not the How-to’s
Marjorie Arons-Barron 