Worcester County Freedom Trail

This just in from our good friend Len Mead in Westboro.

When Deval Patrick ran for governor, he promised local property tax relief. Most believed he was promising more state aid to cities and towns if elected – primarily in the form of increased Chapter 70 funds for schools.

Now come the details of his “Property Tax Relief and Stabilization” plan for local communities. You’ll never guess what Democrat tax relief turns out to mean – it means higher taxes! “Relief” turns out to be a plan allowing Westborough and all local communities to raise local taxes on meals (the ”cheeseburger tax”) and lodging which are now taxed by the state at 2 percent and 4 percent, respectively.

More Chapter 70 funds? No. Spending control? Nowhere to be found. What voters are getting is a shell game of new local tax hikes and bigger government. Quite a slap in the face.

Deval’s local tax hike scheme actually gets worse in the details. The reason, friends, is that communities that make the mistake of raising these local taxes only get to keep 75 percent of the hike. The rest goes into (hold your breath) a state fund that would reimburse communities that provide property tax abatements for senior citizens.

The beauty of these taxes, from the point of view of those imposing them, is that citizens forced to pay them usually can’t vote to have them eliminated. We once called this kind of thing “taxation without representation” and went to war against Britain to stop the practice.

Communities that mistakenly rush to raise these local taxes may quickly find citizens happily avoiding their communities and instead choosing to eat and lodge elsewhere where taxes are lower – including places outside the state.

For leaders in Westborough, however, Deval’s bogus tax relief really presents us with two positive opportunities.

The first opportunity is to refrain from raising any local meals and lodging taxes to make our town relatively more attractive. Let visitors to Westborough enjoy our lower relative costs of eating and lodging – boosting business at our many fine restaurants and hotels.

The second opportunity is for our School Committee and selectmen to really slow down spending growth – which is the simplest, most effective way of providing real tax relief. The place to start is right now as new public union contracts are being negotiated to start next summer.

Town Coordinator Henry Danis has just announced a proposed FY ‘08 Westborough budget of $78 million, which rises 5.2 percent – about double the rate of inflation in 2006 reported by the US Department of Labor. The increase is driven mostly by exploding increases in health insurance and retirement costs taxpayers pay for our union town employees – our policemen, firemen, and teachers. This is because public workers pay as little as 10 percent towards their own health and retirement benefits – taxpayers pay the rest.

Citizens in the private sector generally pay a much higher percent of their own health and retirement benefits – and many are lucky to have these benefits at all. This unfairness has burdened Westborough private citizens for far too long. In fact, for the five years from FY ‘01 to ‘06, taxpayer paid health benefit costs for public union school and town employees are up 117 percent and retirement costs are up 71 percent compared to inflation which rose only 14 percent over the same period.

What can you do to make the new contracts fairer for taxpayers?

Contact our School Committee and selectmen and demand that taxpayers be relieved from paying such a high and unfair percentage of the health and retirement benefits in the new union contracts. You can also ask our Advisory Finance Committee to disclose past union contract benefits and employee contribution percentages compared to the new contracts. That way, taxpayers can compare the new with the old and decide if fairness and spending control justify funding approval at Town Meeting.

You’ll find these public figures on the Town’s new Web site, www.town.westborough.ma.us.
 
The new union contracts usually run three years, and if taxpayers approve funding of the first year, we are obligated to fund all the remaining years regardless of how unfair the union benefits may be relative to those in the private sector.

The Lt. Gov’s office has gone e-marketing on us! Tim Murray just sent me an e-mail, the “first of a series of updates for my friends all across Massachusetts.” According to Murray, “Our state is facing some major challenges, and we can’t overcome them alone. So please stay involved, and stay in touch.”

Topic 1: Help for Cities and Towns.

This is his pitch for the Municipal Partnership Act where the Governor’s office encourages towns to impose higher taxes on the citizenry to help lower property taxes. Yes, that’s right. The plan is to impose a new tax to take care of that pesky old tax. Oh, and they are proposing to close some telecom loopholes and handle some nasty pension reform. Call me skeptical! Read the press release.

Topic 2: St. Patty’s Day.

Tim wants us to join him for a night of fun and entertainment on March 1, 7-9pm, at the Fiddler’s Green, 19 Temple St., Worcester. Suggested contribution is $20 (notice they don’t call that a tax….methinks they dare not!).

If you want to subscribe to the newsletter, email Joe O’Brien, joeo@timmurray.org.

If there are no repercussions for wrong behavior, people tend to misbehave. This isn’t a hard concept. Ask any good parent. But try to get the public school system to throw off their fear of litigation (that’s a whole separate post on the idiocy of many of today’s parents) and do what’s right. Here’s a great letter to the editor from today’s Worcester Telegram:

North High School has seen very promising results from above-average improvement on MCAS scores to sending more people to good four-year universities, including great schools like Boston College, Holy Cross, my school, WPI and many others. However, what we do not see is what goes on behind the scenes.

I am a graduate of North High School myself. As a student at WPI, I feel very fortunate to have the skills I acquired from North, but this is only a small part. I still stay in contact with a number of students and teachers, and am dismayed when I hear of the things going on, such as many recent suspensions (only a couple of days at most) for drug use on school property, and that is just a start. Just a few days ago a teacher was thrown to the ground and spit on by a student, and the teacher is not pressing charges nor has the student been penalized. The other day an assistant principal had been struck and thrown while attempting to break up a fight and nothing has been done about this. If anything is ever done it is usually just a suspension for a couple of days, because of what, statistics? No Child Left Behind?

If Worcester’s school administrators cannot support authority without politics, things will escalate, as they have up to this point, and the education system of Worcester will face much more than drugs and moderate acts of violence.

Andrew Crouse, Worcester

I’d like to again thank the Worcester Diocese for the presence of their excellent parochial school system here in Worcester. We have choices and that is a blessing. My daughter loves her Catholic school and knows there are rules for behavior that she is expected to uphold. If she doesn’t, there will be consequences.

The Massachusetts public education system is out of control. More time is spent on sex education and multiculturalism than reading, writing, and arithmetic. And now we have to worry about issues like the CDC’s overly-intrusive and way-too-instructive Youth Risk Behavior survey (High School version and Middle School version) and whether we as parents really have any rights to say what our children are taught from a moral and religious perspective (just ask David Parker about his lack of rights as a parent in the Lexington school system).

The good news is that a new Parents’ Rights bill has been filed on Beacon Hill, Docket # S2063: AN ACT REGARDING PARENTAL NOTIFICATION AND CONSENT. So far, 17 legislators have signed on in support, including Rep. George Peterson (R-Grafton), Rep. Karyn Polito (R-Shrewsbury), Rep. Stephen DiNatale (D-Fitchburg), and Senator Scott Brown (R-Wrentham).

But to make sure the bill gets through, we need more co-sponsors. Take a stand and let your legislator know that parents’ rights are important to the voters in Massachusetts. Find out how to get them on-board before it’s too late and our only recourse is to pull all our kids out of the public school system altogether!

Gov Patrick has been all over the place on the Massachusetts budget. One of his first acts in office was to rescind Romney’s $400 million in budget cuts. Then Patrick stopped and looked at the numbers and realized maybe he didn’t have as much money as he thought. Now he’s whining that we’re going to be $1 billion in the hole. Doesn’t that depend on how much he and the legislature spend? Things are getting a little hot now that his first budget has to be presented to the legislature this month.

This today in the Worcester Telegram,

State budget officials said yesterday that Gov. Deval L. Patrick will propose reining in spending growth from 11 percent in the current year’s budget to about 4 percent next year to balance his first budget, which will be filed with the Legislature on Wednesday.

State revenues are expected to grow by about 4 percent through the fiscal year that begins in July, according to Patrick administration budget chief Leslie Kirwan. She said spending on many fronts will have to be curbed to cover health care and education costs that continue to increase at more than three times the rate of inflation.

Those two “budget-busters” — health care and education — make up a little more than half the total spending each year, Ms. Kirwan said.

Hasn’t any politician ever heard of ZERO growth? Or maybe CUTTING the budget?!?!

I knew there was one reason I was going to like Tim Murray leaving his mayoral seat in Worcester to serve as Lt. Gov. for Deval Patrick. And that reason is our new Mayor Konnie Lukes. She immediately came out against the proposed increase in local meal and hotel taxes. Unfortunately, District 5 City Councillor Rick Rushton was drooling all over himself to implement the tax as soon as possible. In today’s Worcester Telegram, Dianne Williamson was all over this issue:

On Friday, Mr. Rushton called a press conference to say that he and other city leaders are thrilled with the measure because so many people flock to Worcester to work, dine, entertain and use the city’s hotels, and they should pay up for the privilege.

Give me a break. People who eat and sleep in hotels in Worcester are already paying more than surrounding towns. Auburn hotels, for instance, have a 9.7% tax vs Worcester’s 12.45%. And that’s before this new proposed tax. And I can get just as good a steak dinner in Shrewsbury as I can in Worcester. And if it costs less, then Shrewsbury here I come!

I was in Upton earlier this week and some of the local officials got talking about the proposed tax. There are no hotels in Upton and, besides Dunkin Donuts, one restaurant. They’re supposed to reduce property taxes with what?!?

Let me tell you with what…it’s called restrained government spending. And it’s especially important here in Worcester where we already have a dual tax that’s overburdening businesses. But restrained spending is a concept most politicians no longer understand.

FYI, fearless leaders, we do not elect politicians just to keep our government growing out of control just to they can cater to our every whim and fancy. Unfortunately, not everyone believes in personal responsibility anymore. The Democrats are sure they know how to run our lives better than we do ourselves.

Of course, based on Gov. Patrick’s major screw up on the car, the wife’s un-needed $72k+ assistant, and the way-over-the-top refurnishing of the Governor’s office…I know for sure that he doesn’t know how to run my life better! Heck, he can’t even run his own. How did this state’s voters expect him to run the state? Empty and vague campaign promises do not a leader make!

From a great columnist today, and one of the best observers of Massachusetts politics around, Dean Barnett of Townhall.com:

A COUPLE OF THINGS NEED TO BE CLEARED UP in regards to Patrick. First, other than John Edwards of course, I can’t name such a transparent phony currently dancing across our political stage. Obviously some people bought his act during the election season. For the life of me, I still can’t understand why.

The next thing that needs to be addressed is a comparison that is gaining traction in the Bay State between Deval Patrick and the still locally-loathed Michael S. Dukakis. This comparison only makes sense on the most superficial level. Both men are short. Both men are super-liberal. Dukakis left office with an approval rating of negative 6% which means 100% of the electorate didn’t like him, and of those 100%, 6% made a point of calling the pollsters back to emphasize how much they didn’t like him. A similar fate awaits Patrick. Both men are preternaturally irritating, seemingly blessed with an uncanny ability to foment hostility in even the most placid and uninvolved citizens.

But there the similarities end. Dukakis was so annoying because he was so painfully earnest. Say what you will about him, but the man had no artifice, no pretense and I don’t think an ounce of bulls**t in him. He talked about fiscal austerity and rode the T to work. He was a notorious tightwad, so when he urged the Bay State citizenry to go without, he at least had the moral standing to do so. Dukakis’ variety of “wear your galoshes and button your trench coat ” politics was endlessly irritating, but at least it was sincere.

Patrick, on the other hand, is a snake oil salesman. He talks about fiscal austerity and yet aggressively exploits the perks of his office. Until he searched his soul yesterday, he thought he was above public scrutiny. He defended his choice to go with the Cadillac first with a lie, and then with outrage that anyone would have the audacity to question him on such a minor matter.

Michael Dukakis was (and is) a wealthy man who lives like a pauper. For goodness sakes, he buys those dreadful “no-name” products at the market insisting that they’re every bit as good as the name-brands. Deval Patrick is just the opposite, surrounding himself with damask drapes and ornate settees on the taxpayer’s nickel.

In short, I knew Michael Stanley Dukakis – You, Deval Patrick, are no Michael Dukakis. For most politicians, that would be a relief. It is a measure of Patrick’s maladroit ways that he should be concerned that he’s not sufficiently Dukakis-like.

You can read the whole thing here.

From Matt Lewis at the Townhall blog:
Erick Erickson, CEO of RedState.com, has jumped off the Romney bandwagon:

“First there was abortion. He was for it, then really for it, then really, really for it, then indifferent to it, and now against it. Some of his supporters and people on his campaign have called Sam Brownback pro-choice. At least Sam has never been multiple choice. And when Sam became pro-life, he actually fought the pro-life fight. I’m not aware of Mitt Romney ever passionately fighting the fight for life. He has, at best, been luke warm — playing it safe, but not actually advocating. And he’s played it so safe, that on stem cell research, he’s been willing to split the baby with parental consent.”

Former Governor Jane Swift must be loving this story. Governor Deval Patrick is taking major heat for his privileged lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense. Not only does he get free rides in the State Police helicopter because he’s too busy and too important to use a more affordable alternative, but now we’re paying nearly $1200 per month for his car. This from the Boston Herald,

Already facing heat for flying to events in a state police helicopter, Gov. Deval Patrick is now cruising in a pricey, tricked-out Cadillac DeVille at taxpayer expense.

The governor’s new luxury Cadillac DTS sedan is a lease that puts a $1,166-a-month strain on the state budget and replaces the much more modest Crown Victoria that former Gov. Mitt Romney was driven around in.

“Maybe it would be cheaper if he kept using the helicopter,” state Republican Party chairman Peter Torkildsen said last night of Patrick.

Patrick came under fire this week after the Herald reported that he has already taken two taxpayer-funded chopper rides to public events and plans to continue to use the helicopter as he sees fit. Republicans have said he is getting a pass on his helicopter use while former Acting Gov. Jane Swift was lambasted for her infamous 2000 chopper commute.

So let me get this right. Patrick campaigns on a promise to reduce local property taxes. But he’s spending more than the previous Governor on transporation AND he’s now proposing that the way to reduce property taxes is to raise meal and hotel taxes?!?!? So we’re going to screw our out of town visitors in order to lower our property taxes? And we’re going to pay more when we ourselves go out to eat in order to get the same or less money back in property tax relief?

And if you think the towns are ever going to actually give us property tax relief, I’ve got a bridge to nowhere to sell you!

A tip of the hat to Peter Lukes for this tidbit. Blogger John Mullaney posted an analysis of the recent CNN poll in New Hampshire.

One indication that Senator McCain is in trouble is a recent poll of New Hampshire voters. McCain is ahead of Giuliani 28% to 27%. The problem for McCain is that he carries the moderates in this poll 41% to 22%. The surprise to me is that the conservative voters pick Giuliani 31% to 20%. Giuliani is telling the conservative block that we must stick to the Republican core values (whatever they are).

How is he pulling off the tough issues?

Well, he abhors abortion but believes in a woman’s right to choose. When it comes to judges, he wants strict constructionists. Now, we are talking. This is another way of saying that I will put your guys in there and there is no way they will support Roe vs. Wade. Who would his appointments be like? They would be like Alito, Roberts, and Scalia. Can you see why the conservatives are getting excited by this man?

Frankly, yes. Now if only I can really believe Rudy. He is a politician, after all. But he did do one heck of a job cleaning up New York City. And he was there for New York after 9-11…which cannot be said for the state’s junior senator, Hillary Clinton.