CLT
UPDATE
Saturday, March 22,
2003
What a week it's been
House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers, emerging from a private budget caucus with lawmakers, said that if left alone, inflation will pile an extra $900 million onto the $6.5 billion program, which provides health care to nearly 1 million residents....
With the state facing a $3 billion deficit, lawmakers have no choice but to target programs previously considered "untouchable" - Medicaid, local aid and education funding, Rogers said.
"We clearly have to pare back on some of the expansions we've accommodated throughout the 1990s, since we can no longer afford the Medicaid program as is," Rogers (D-Norwood) said.
The Boston Herald
Mar. 20, 2003
Deficit woes may force scaling back of Medicaid
Frank Anzalotti, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Store Association, says "this is all about getting more revenue for the state to help solve its fiscal crisis."
The state netted about $35 million last year by claiming the unrefunded deposits on drink containers and hopes to net another $15 million by expanding the deposit law, Anzalotti says.
"There's no intent for this to improve recycling levels. More than 85 percent of the communities in the state already have curbside pickup of no-deposit containers," he says.
The Boston Herald
Mar. 20, 2003
Bottle-deposit plan called pain in the glass
In a bid to win over students and their families and shift attention from University of Massachusetts president William M. Bulger's job, which Governor Mitt Romney has targeted for elimination, administration officials said they want to make "fee abuse" a central issue in the political and public debate over the plan.
The Boston Globe
Mar. 20, 2003
Romney hits 'fee abuse' by state schools
The gasoline tax is meant to raise funds for highway and bridge construction with the premise being that the more driving you do, and the more wear and tear you put on the roads, the more you should pay. But Scaccia's bill would put the extra revenue right into the state's general fund where it would be used for who knows what.
Rather than look for new ways to tax themselves out of their current predicament, legislators should be working with Gov. Mitt Romney on a comprehensive and long-term fix for what ails the Bay State budget. We suspect wiser heads will prevail and this idea will be consigned to the round file where it belongs.
An Eagle-Tribune editorial
Mar. 21, 2003
Gas tax hike a bad idea
Massachusetts taxpayers shoulder one of the highest per capita debt loads in the nation, and that borrowing feeds a disconnected system of capital projects with no clear monitoring or tracking and little communication between managers at the various levels of government.
In this fiscal year alone, state government's $3 billion of the $23 billion Massachusetts budget will go to pay borrowing costs relating to capital projects. The state carries $15 billion worth of outstanding debt from prior years. And projects worth billions of dollars more await even more state bond money.
State House News Service
Mar. 19, 2003
Disconnected & expensive state capital & debt accounts to be reviewed
The problem is that we don't have a representative democracy now. We have "Animal Farm," in which our elected leaders serve only themselves. George Orwell's 1945 masterpiece ends with a description of how the worker animals sent to deal with the humans inside the farmhouse became just like them, leaving their fellow workers behind:
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
A Brockton Enterprise editorial
Mar. 20, 2003
The trough is always full at the Statehouse
After almost five hours of debate, the Massachusetts House voted as expected yesterday to install Democrat Matthew C. Patrick as representative of a Cape Cod district, disregarding a Barnstable Superior Court ruling that a new election should be called....
In December, Superior Court Judge Richard Connon ordered a new election because of the voting irregularities. But House leaders said the courts have no authority over the matter; a House panel found Tuesday that Patrick was duly elected and recommended the full House vote to seat him. Republicans decried the committee's action as a "bag job."
The Boston Globe
Mar. 21, 2003
House seats disputed Cape victor
But that is not how things are done in Massachusetts. Speaker Finneran is a law unto himself and judges are just minor obstructions in his path to glory. He has helped to cripple the court system by capricious control over its budget and he thumbed his nose at the Supreme Judicial Court by ignoring rulings during his jihad to get rid of the Clean Elections Law.
Now Finneran has decided who will sit in the Legislature — judges and voters be damned.
A Brockton Enterprise editorial
Mar. 22, 2003
Legislature has no respect for the courts
The problem with the current system is that every year, the powers that be on Beacon Hill spend virtually all of their time fighting over how to spend this year's pot of tax dollars. Which programs get funding, and which ones don't, makes for a never-ending battle.
The pattern is all too familiar to anyone who watches Massachusetts politicians, interest groups and lobbyists in the ritualistic fight over what to do with our money....
A two-year budget wouldn't make spending choices any easier, but it would add stability to the state's spending patterns, and gives us all a break from the never-ending budget wars on Beacon Hill.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, D-Mattapan, has spoken repeatedly in the past about wanting to switch to a two-year budget. Maybe he's just too busy with budget matters to help make it happen.
A Patriot Ledger
Mar. 22, 2003
A two-year budget
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
It's been quite a week, with the United States of America
moving in to liberate Iraq and all American eyes focused on our nation's foreign
mission. But on Beacon Hill, it's business-as-usual while understandably few are
paying attention to state politics.
On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center [formerly known as TEAM; Tax Everything And More]
issued -- or is it re-issued? -- its report claiming that the fiscal crisis was
caused not by too much spending, but by too many tax cuts.
That was shot down -- intentionally or otherwise -- by House
Ways and Means Committee Chairman John Rodgers, who on Wednesday stated:
"We clearly have to pare back on some of the expansions we've accommodated throughout the 1990s, since we can no longer afford the Medicaid program as
is."
So much for the TEAM-alleged "revenue crisis."
As Governor Romney pushes illegitimate "fee"
creations and increases, his administration is simultaneously calling the kettle
black, charging that public college student fees are "fee abuses."
While that may well be, where is his administration's
moral credibility to be casting stones? We have fees on prescription drugs and
nursing home beds for those paying for their own care, intended only to fill the
state's treasury. We now have county deed fees that far exceed the cost of
providing the service (at least a service is provided!). The administration is
also proposing an expansion of the bottle bill, intended only to raise more
revenue for the state coffers. And if it has its way, tolls collected on the
Mass. Pike will soon be filling the state's general fund to be spent at their
pleasure.
"Fee abuses"? Not since Michael Dukakis was
governor has the climate for such abuse been so ripe.
"In this fiscal year alone, state government's $3 billion of the $23 billion Massachusetts budget will go to pay borrowing costs relating to capital projects. The state carries $15 billion worth of outstanding debt from prior years. And projects worth billions of dollars more await even more state bond
money," the State House News Service reported this week.
Does anyone wonder why Michael "Mickey W." Widmer
of the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation reluctantly
recommends more state borrowing instead of more spending cuts, considering that
many of his Fat Cat MTF members are bankers?
How about those House Democrats? Their majority just isn't
big enough; they still have to steal an election just because they think they
can, just to keep their hand in Tammany Hall politics and to defy a Judicial
Branch which had the audacity to defend the will of the voters in the Clean
Elections case, and now the disenfranchised voters of Barnstable County.
Wouldn't it be nice if the concept of revolt that's awakening
in Iraq could return to Massachusetts ... and here, France wouldn't have a veto.
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Chip
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Deficit woes may force scaling back of Medicaid
by Elisabeth J. Beardsley
House leaders are readying deep cuts to the budget-busting Medicaid program - including a possible repeat of last year's move to yank health care from 50,000 of the state's poorest people.
House Ways and Means Chairman John Rogers, emerging from a private budget caucus with lawmakers, said that if left alone, inflation will pile an extra $900 million onto the $6.5 billion program, which provides health care to nearly 1 million residents.
With the state facing a $3 billion deficit, lawmakers have no choice but to target programs previously considered "untouchable" - Medicaid, local aid and education funding, Rogers said.
"We clearly have to pare back on some of the expansions we've accommodated throughout the 1990s, since we can no longer afford the Medicaid program as is," Rogers (D-Norwood) said.
The state has aggressively expanded health insurance to the poor over the past seven years, using a 1996 cigarette tax increase and federal money to add 300,000 people to the Medicaid rolls.
Advocates, who are gearing up for a massive State House protest on April 1 - the day 50,000 people will lose their MassHealth Basic coverage - reeled at the prospect of fresh cuts of that magnitude. The House budget plan, slated for release in late April, is likely to include most of Gov. Mitt Romney's proposals for squeezing Medicaid costs, Rogers said.
Romney spokeswoman Shawn Feddeman said lawmakers should consider Romney's $80 million plan to make state workers pay more for their insurance, before resorting to drastic steps.
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Bottle-deposit plan called pain in the glass
by Cromwell Schubarth
William Burliss last week surveyed the crowded storage room of his small North Andover liquor store, Den Rock Wine & Spirits.
Then he called Gov. Mitt Romney's office to complain about the his proposal to require 15-cent deposits on wine and hard-liquor containers larger than 16 ounces.
"Where the heck am I going to put all those bottles?" Burliss says he asked the woman who took his call. "I just can't believe it. Why is the governor of Massachusetts trying to send my customers to New Hampshire?"
Burliss hopes such angry phone calls and questions grow louder as Bay Staters learn about Romney's proposal, which would also require 5-cent deposits on juices, bottled waters and other beverages now exempt from Massachusetts' 19-year-old deposit laws.
State and federal taxes account for 44 percent of the cost of the alcoholic beverages he sells, Burliss says. "How much more do they need to make off of us?"
Frank Anzalotti, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Store Association, says "this is all about getting more revenue for the state to help solve its fiscal crisis."
The state netted about $35 million last year by claiming the unrefunded deposits on drink containers and hopes to net another $15 million by expanding the deposit law, Anzalotti says.
"There's no intent for this to improve recycling levels. More than 85 percent of the communities in the state already have curbside pickup of no-deposit containers," he says.
State environmental officials don't dispute that getting more money into state coffers is a goal of Romney's proposal. But they say it will also increase recycling.
"Materials covered by the current bottle bill are recycled twice as much as those not covered by the law," says Greg Cooper, deputy director of community programs at the Department of Environmental Protection.
Most containers turning up as litter are no-deposit bottles, he says.
"Most of what doesn't get recycled is bought away from the home," he says. "Putting a deposit on these containers will add an incentive to return them instead of just throwing them away."
But some warn that Romney's plan may backfire. They point to Maine, which in the early 1990s was the first state to expand deposit laws beyond sodas and carbonated drinks.
More bottles started being returned than were sold, suspected to be the work of fraudsters redeeming out-of-state bottles, so Maine cancelled the part of the law that allowed it to claim unrefunded deposits. That's because it also required the state to pay out when refunds exceeded deposits.
Even owners whose redemption operations are bigger than Burliss' Den Rock are opposing the change.
"I'd rather have two mothers-in-law," says Mitch Hurley, owner of Warren Liquors in Roxbury.
Hurley's store has a set of bottle machines similar to those found at supermarkets.
"I have a person on those machines all the time that we're open and I ship out a tractor-trailer load of crushed glass every week," Hurley says. "I get between 1 and 2 cents per container, but it's still a money-losing proposition."
Hurley says none of his current machines will handle the odd shapes and sizes of some liquor bottles that the new law will require him to accept.
"As far as I'm concerned, they can keep their change," he says.
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The Boston Globe
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Romney hits 'fee abuse' by state schools
Soaring charges cited in pitch for reform plan
By Patrick Healy, Globe Staff
Massachusetts public colleges raised student fees by 453 percent between 1989 and 2003, according to a new state budget analysis that the Romney administration released yesterday to build support for the governor's higher education reform plan.
In a bid to win over students and their families and shift attention from University of Massachusetts president William M. Bulger's job, which Governor Mitt Romney has targeted for elimination, administration officials said they want to make "fee abuse" a central issue in the political and public debate over the plan.
Romney aides also disclosed new details about the governor's proposed $102 million cut to higher education spending. About $68 million would be taken from state and community colleges, aides said, including $8.5 million from academic administration, $4 million from public and alumni relations, $3.4 million from student activities and athletics, and $3.2 million from campus libraries.
The Romney plan would strip individual schools of the power to set fees, giving control to the state Board of Higher Education, which is appointed by the governor. State officials said that colleges would not be allowed to receive more revenue from higher student fees until they make these cuts, called "savings targets" by the governor.
"The state colleges have abused students and the fee system for years, putting higher charges on the backs of students instead of cutting their own costs," said one Romney administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It's an abuse that must end."
State college leaders yesterday called the fee analysis unfair and misleading. Fees skyrocketed during the early 1990s and again in the last two years, they said, when the state cut college budgets deeply. Massachusetts currently ranks 49th in the nation in per capita spending on public higher education.
"There has been absolutely no abuse -- the Commonwealth has failed in its responsibility to properly fund higher education," said Dana
Mohler-Faria, president of Bridgewater State College. "Fees were the only source of revenue that we could depend on."
According to Romney aides, the governor's plan seeks to simplify student charges and make it far harder for campuses to hike fees.
Currently, students and families receive a bill with one tuition rate -- set by the Board of Higher Education -- and a variety of curricular, technology,
activites, and other fees, which are set campus by campus. Fees now account for more than two-thirds of student charges at the five UMass campuses, nine state colleges, and 15 community colleges, compared with about one third in 1989.
Romney has said he wants to "roll up" the tuition and fee rates into one single charge for students, so that colleges could not brag about cutting tuition -- as they did in the late 1990s -- while raising fees at the same time. Students may receive financial aid to help pay both tuition and fees.
UMass spokesman Robert Connolly said yesterday that, according to a UMass analysis, tuition and fees increased by an average annual rate of 4.7 percent between 1996 and 2003 -- about twice the rate of inflation, but not significantly different from cost increases at public universities in other states.
"We've tried to keep fees under control, and there has always been a direct relationship between budget cuts and fee increases," Connolly said.
The public colleges generally increase fees instead of tuition because the fee revenue stays with the campuses, while tuition is returned to the state. Romney has also proposed allowing campuses to keep both tuition and fee revenue.
Other areas slated for cuts at the state and community colleges include $4.9 million for student services administration; $4.3 million for public safety; and $3 million for secretarial support. The new campus "savings targets" do not include a breakdown of cuts by campus, but the administration is expected to release that data today.
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The Lawrence Eagle-Tribune
Friday, March 21, 2003
Editorial
Gas tax hike a bad idea
Normally, when gasoline prices spike, there's a clamor for a cent or two reduction in the state and/or federal take on every gallon sold. Except this is Massachusetts, and record gasoline prices -- which may or may not moderate depending on how the war goes -- are no impediment to talk of a tax increase.
Veteran lawmaker Angelo Scaccia, D-Boston, has filed a bill that would hike the state gas tax from the current 21 cents per gallon to 31 cents. Add a few pennies, and we could join California in topping the $2-per-gallon mark for regular unleaded.
Scaccia's fellow legislator, Rep. Paul Casey, D- Winchester, likes it, and that's cause for concern given Casey's position as co-chairman of the Taxation Committee. They view it as an easy way to raise $200 million toward a state budget deficit that's expected to exceed $2 billion next year.
Easy? Not for the unemployed factory worker struggling to keep enough gas in the tank to get to the next job interview. Not for the trucker who's just barely keeping his head above water.
The gasoline tax is meant to raise funds for highway and bridge construction with the premise being that the more driving you do, and the more wear and tear you put on the roads, the more you should pay. But Scaccia's bill would put the extra revenue right into the state's general fund where it would be used for who knows what.
Rather than look for new ways to tax themselves out of their current predicament, legislators should be working with Gov. Mitt Romney on a comprehensive and long-term fix for what ails the Bay State budget. We suspect wiser heads will prevail and this idea will be consigned to the round file where it belongs.
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State House News Service
Wednesday, March 19, 2003
Disconnected & expensive state capital & debt accounts to be reviewed
By Michael P. Norton
Massachusetts taxpayers shoulder one of the highest per capita debt loads in the nation, and that borrowing feeds a disconnected system of capital projects with no clear monitoring or tracking and little communication between managers at the various levels of government.
In this fiscal year alone, state government's $3 billion of the $23 billion Massachusetts budget will go to pay borrowing costs relating to capital projects. The state carries $15 billion worth of outstanding debt from prior years. And projects worth billions of dollars more await even more state bond money.
Calling the way government in Massachusetts plans, funds and manages debt and capital projects "disconnected," Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss announced Wednesday that the Romney administration is launching a comprehensive review of the problem. Solutions will be recommended in June, he said.
The debt dilemma is accentuated by two other areas that are placing major stress on the state budget. The state has racked up $12 billion in liabilities relating to an explosion in school building projects, and stock market losses combined with annual funding cuts have pushed the state unfunded pension liability up from $8 billion two years ago to at least $12 billion, and possibly much more, according to Kriss.
Kriss says there are many serious problems associated with capital spending and state debt. State and local officials often do not thoughtfully coordinate new road projects or repair efforts. There are no criteria to prioritize projects and decide which ones advance and when. Education, housing, transportation and environmental projects compete against one another for limited funds in a system with few standards.
And there are more problems. There's little consideration of the new operating costs associated with capital projects, such as new prisons. Once projects begin, there's no easy way to track spending or to monitor completion dates and progress. And the state borrows untold amounts to pay salaries normally covered by operating budgets, including 1,300 of roughly 1,800 MassHighway Department employees.
Kriss said it's been between 10 and 12 years - about the duration of the Republican control of the Corner Office, which manages debt - since the system has been reviewed. "The task at hand is quite significant," he told members of the House Committee on Long-Term Debt and Capital Expenditures.
Kriss also informed committee members of new bond bills that Romney intends to file soon. He described the first as a mini-transportation bond bill that would replenish the state's $400 million statewide road and bridge repair program, which he said is due to run out of funding "shortly." A more comprehensive, post-Big Dig transportation bond bill is also in the works, Kriss said.
And the administration, as part of its plan to roll the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority into the MassHighway Department, will file legislation soon to transfer $290 million in turnpike debt onto the Commonwealth's books, along with the revenue generated by turnpike tolls.
Committee chairwoman Rep. Marie Parente (D-Milford) questioned why only $13,000 had been spent of the $40 million in fiscal 2003 bond funding for public safety initiatives, "especially now."
Administration officials said most of that money is tied to purchases of State Police cruisers that are still in the works, and to a homeland security grant program that is still accepting applications. Parente said the administration ought to quickly release bond money to pay for life-saving defibrillators for local public safety departments.
Parente urged Kriss to communicate often with the Legislature as it conducts its comprehensive review. "We're not your enemy, Mr. Kriss," Parente said. "We need to talk. We're here to work with you. We want to reduce that debt. We really want to slow it down."
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The Brockton Enterprise
Thursday, March 20, 2003
Editorial
The trough is always full at the Statehouse
We have to commend state Sen. Brian Joyce, D-Milton, for refusing to accept the travel pay that most of his more ethically challenged comrades in the Legislature grabbed, costing taxpayers more than $700,000 last year. But then Joyce had to ruin it by saying something as dumb as, "Legislators do not make a lot of money."
Most people would disagree with Joyce. The average teacher in Massachusetts receives a starting salary of $31,115. The average salary of all workers in the state is $44,326. And what do legislators have to get by on? A minimum of $53,381 — for a part-time job. Most of them get a lot more, close to $70,000, with phony "leadership" and committee chair bonuses.
You also can add to that the travel pay, which averaged more than $3,000 per person last year. The rate was doubled a few years ago because legislators said they needed more travel pay to make up for the handicap of having to contend with the new Clean Elections Law. But that law has been gutted, so it might seem reasonable to think legislators would give back the travel pay raises.
Guess again
"I don't think it should be reduced," said Rep. Christine Canavan, D-Brockton. "It hasn't been an issue."
Not to her, maybe. But it sure is an issue to Vivian Deutsch, who at 70 should be enjoying her retirement, but is forced to look for a job because money is tight. "I think the legislators are being very self-serving," she said.
That's hard to believe — our legislators being self-serving? Don't you know, Vivian, these hard-working men and women earn every penny of their salaries. If not for them, who would destroy laws approved by public referendum? Who would hold a drunken toga party to pass the state budget? Who would raise their own salaries without fail, through good times and bad?
You know the answers.
Sen. Joyce pointed out for us that, "If people are not fairly compensated for serving, we will have mainly the wealthy in office and we will not have a representative democracy."
The problem is that we don't have a representative democracy now. We have "Animal Farm," in which our elected leaders serve only themselves. George Orwell's 1945 masterpiece ends with a description of how the worker animals sent to deal with the humans inside the farmhouse became just like them, leaving their fellow workers behind:
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
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The Boston Globe
Friday, March 21, 2003
House seats disputed Cape victor
By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff
After almost five hours of debate, the Massachusetts House voted as expected yesterday to install Democrat Matthew C. Patrick as representative of a Cape Cod district, disregarding a Barnstable Superior Court ruling that a new election should be called.
"It is clear, according to the case law in Massachusetts, that we have the authority to make the decision as to who should sit and who is elected in the 3d Barnstable District," said majority leader Salvatore F.
DiMasi. "It is clear Mr. Patrick won that election."
The controversy began in November, when Patrick won the seat by 17 votes, after a recount, over Republican Larry Wheatley, in an election in which some voters were given the wrong ballots, and one polling station closed for 35 minutes.
In December, Superior Court Judge Richard Connon ordered a new election because of the voting irregularities. But House leaders said the courts have no authority over the matter; a House panel found Tuesday that Patrick was duly elected and recommended the full House vote to seat him. Republicans decried the committee's action as a "bag job."
The vote yesterday reflected the Democrats' lopsided majority in the House, with 116 Democrats voting to install Patrick and just 21 Republicans voting against it.
Political observers see the House decision as court-baiting, the latest example in a continuing feud between the two branches of government. Wheatley has vowed to appeal the House decision in court.
But yesterday, Democrats and Republicans went at each other in the House chamber. Republicans accused Democrats of disregarding legal precedent. Democrats accused them of disregarding the state constitution.
"You don't have to be a lawyer to figure this out, you just have to be able to read," said Charles A. Murphy, a Burlington Democrat who noted he is no friend of House leaders but agreed with them on this issue. "[The constitution] states that we as a House have the jurisdiction [to say] when the election is certified."
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The Brockton Enterprise
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Editorial
Legislature has no respect for the courts
The Legislature may well have the authority to ignore a call for a special election to fill a disputed seat for state representative. It also may have the constitutional authority to give an opinion on the winner of that disputed seat. But that does not mean House Speaker Thomas Finneran and his small circle of friends on Beacon Hill are the final word on the matter.
Last November, Democrat Matthew Patrick appeared to win the election in the Third Barnstable District by 12 votes over Larry Wheatley. A recount gave Patrick a 17-vote margin, until voting irregularities surfaced. They were serious enough — including a polling place shut down for a while and the wrong ballots being distributed to some voters — that a Superior Court judge ordered a new election.
Patrick ignored the deadline to appeal that ruling, no doubt confident in Finneran's ability to run roughshod over the judiciary — and probably with the promise to seat him. That happened Thursday when the Democrat-dominated House welcomed Patrick to the chamber.
But the court's ruling, unchallenged, still stands, and a special election should be held. You can be sure that if the results were reversed, another vote would have been held as quick as you can say "bag job."
Several Finneran lieutenants said the courts have no jurisdiction in the matter. Secretary of State William Galvin echoed that sentiment. They may have their opinions, but they cannot simply ignore the order of a judge. If they disagreed with the ruling, they should have prompted Patrick to appeal it to a higher court.
But that is not how things are done in Massachusetts. Speaker Finneran is a law unto himself and judges are just minor obstructions in his path to glory. He has helped to cripple the court system by capricious control over its budget and he thumbed his nose at the Supreme Judicial Court by ignoring rulings during his jihad to get rid of the Clean Elections Law.
Now Finneran has decided who will sit in the Legislature — judges and voters be damned.
If a politician elected by a few thousands people in Mattapan appoints himself chief judge and jury in all matters, then Massachusetts is no better than a tin horn dictatorship.
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The Patriot Ledger
Saturday, March 22, 2003
Editorial
A two-year budget
The loud and sometimes confused debate over Gov. Mitt Romney's sweeping budget proposal - one that seeks to reform and restructure many, many facets of state government - is just one more reminder that the state would be better served by switching to a two-year budget cycle.
The problem with the current system is that every year, the powers that be on Beacon Hill spend virtually all of their time fighting over how to spend this year's pot of tax dollars. Which programs get funding, and which ones don't, makes for a never-ending battle.
The pattern is all too familiar to anyone who watches Massachusetts politicians, interest groups and lobbyists in the ritualistic fight over what to do with our money.
Every January, the governor releases his or her budget proposal (a first-time governor, like Romney, has until February). And the entire state gets riled up over the governor's spending suggestions.
Public hearings are held. Protests are called. Citizens contact their elected representatives. Advocates and opponents of myriad causes buttonhole legislators in the halls of the State House and at town meetings.
Then, in early spring, the House of Representatives releases its own version of the budget. Some of the governor's proposals are kept in the budget plan; many others are dropped.
And a whole new round of grumbling ensues.
Closer to summer, the Senate rewrites the House version of the budget. Frequently, the House and Senate fight over the budget plan far past the July 1 beginning of the new fiscal year. Some years, it is Thanksgiving or later before the two houses of the Legislature have agreed on a budget plan, and sent it to the governor - who gets to amend it and veto line items before signing it into law.
By now it's coming on Christmas, and a brand new budget cycle is just a few weeks ago.
The trouble is that way too many important legislative matters are neglected because of the all-consuming budget process. Sure, deciding how the state allocates its resources is the chief task facing the governor and the Legislature. But many other important matters never get voted on. Fix the affordable housing crisis? Do something about the daily gridlock on Route 3 and the Southeast Expressway? Debate the Quinn Bill and the police detail law? Who has time for that?
A two-year budget cycle would makes sense because it would require more thoughtful and long-term decision-making. In addition, a two-year budget would correspond with the Legislature's two-year sessions. Formal legislative sessions are limited to 19 months over a two-year period, with all formal business drawing to a close by Aug. 1 of the second year.
A two-year budget would allow agency and department heads to spend less time in budget meetings, and it would free up legislators to tackle other issues in the off-year, when only technical changes to the budget would have to be made.
A two-year budget wouldn't make spending choices any easier, but it would add stability to the state's spending patterns, and gives us all a break from the never-ending budget wars on Beacon Hill.
House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran, D-Mattapan, has spoken repeatedly in the past about wanting to switch to a two-year budget. Maybe he's just too busy with budget matters to help make it happen.
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