CLT
UPDATE
Friday, December 26, 2003
Politics takes no holiday respite
Hitch up Dancer. Put the reins on Dasher. It's time for Pol Santa to dispense his usual Christmas gifts to the men and women of politics, whether they've been good, bad or good at being bad.
Here's what Pol Santa, with assistance from elves Todd Domke, Michael Goldman and Dan Payne, has for our newsmakers to unwrap this morning: ...
BARBARA ANDERSON: A new trumpet that the state's leading anti-tax guru can blare louder than ever the next time any of the governor's minions even breathes the phrase "tax hike."
The Boston Herald
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Take stock in these stocking stuffers
By Wayne Woodlief
Gov. Mitt Romney says he won't budge on his anti-tax pledge despite pressure from a Democratic rival to back a gas-tax hike to fund billions of dollars in highway and rail projects, creating thousands of jobs in Massachusetts.
Romney is opposing a 5-cent hike in the federal gas tax to fund the transportation bill, while favoring issuance of bonds that will be repaid out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund.
"I don't think in this election year you will see from Washington an increase in the gas tax," Romney said. "It's hard enough for me to battle battles in Massachusetts to make sure I'm not raising taxes, so I'm not going to weigh in on doing so elsewhere."
The Boston Herald
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Romney stands by vow not to hike taxes
Indeed, public confidence in issues surrounding legislative compensation has been shaken repeatedly. The Legislature responded to voter protests about lawmakers’ self-voted raises by making the raises automatic. Lawmakers doubled their per-diem rates and office expenses in 2000, purportedly to help them adjust to the Clean Elections Law, and retained the higher reimbursement rates after torpedoing Clean Elections.
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Monday, December 22, 2003
Padded expenses
Ethics panel sends message to per-diem cheats
As is always the case in public education, if you're worried about your job, benefits or raise, make sure you tell the public it's "all about the children."
And, of course, feel free to use some of those public funds you're so afraid of losing to produce propaganda. Feel free to use the children as pawns to distribute your distorted message to their parents -- hey, that's saving the cost of mailing, right? -- and then defend it with high-sounding rhetoric about a "duty to inform." ...
Because the recent flier, printed at public expense and sent home with students, brings the debate over charter schools to a new low. It is, as a state Department of Education spokeswoman put it, "propaganda." ...
The real threat that has officials so worried is that local families now have a choice about education. They want to force all local families, except those rich enough to opt out to private schools, to use the district schools.
This is about preserving a monopoly, not about what is best for the children.
The Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, December 21, 2003
If you can't compete with charter schools, lie about them
By Taylor Armerding
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
While few are paying attention to Beacon Hill,
politics, tax hikes or the underhanded teachers union, the mice continue
to play behind the holiday backdrop. There's been little
earth-shattering news over the past week as most rank-and-file
politicians have their minds on things other than politics -- but that's
not to say that nothing is happening, quietly, behind the festive
curtain.
For example, Eagle-Tribune columnist Taylor Armerding
reported ("If you can't compete with charter schools, lie about them,"
Dec. 21):
Apparently it wasn't enough for Superintendent Herbert Levine to rail against Salem Academy, as he did last year, that competition in public education is "inappropriate" and "doesn't work." Apparently, his inaccurate contention that a charter school would "drain resources from the public school system ..." didn't throw the local natives into the required panic. Apparently, local residents know better than their own superintendent that charter schools are, in fact, public schools.
Because the recent flier, printed at public expense and sent home with students, brings the debate over charter schools to a new low. It is, as a state Department of Education spokeswoman put it, "propaganda."
You might recall Superintendent Herbert Levine from a
few years back, the last time he came off his medications or
overdosed. On Aug. 28, 1998 Salem Evening News reporter Alan Burke
wrote in his column, "Reporter's
Notebook":
Drawing and quartering is too good for her!
The new Salem school superintendent, Herbert Levine, told the Evening News that Proposition 2˝ has had "a tremendously negative impact." He cited all the teachers discouraged from entering the profession, the ruinous cut-backs and general damage to education.
Finally, he placed a black cloth on his head, figuratively, and aimed his guns on the mother of it all, saying, "Barbara Anderson should be tried for murder -- the murder of the minds of a generation of kids."
Someone in authority in the Salem school system ought
to at least demand a drug test of Superintendent Levine, then let
drug-sniffing canines loose on his office locker and car out in the
parking lot. "Zero-Tolerance" clearly isn't working in Salem
if this city embarrassment can slip through the cracks for so long.
"Intervention" now has become critical.
*
*
*
Barbara got her "new trumpet that the state's leading anti-tax guru can blare louder than ever the next time any of the governor's minions even breathes the phrase
'tax hike.'" It arrived thanks to the generous response from so
many CLT members to our end-of-the-year fund-raising letter.
But it's not the governor proposing tax hikes that
concerns us: he made his own No New Taxes promise and has never
wavered. Barbara needs her shiny new trumpet for when the Legislature,
enabled by the so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, and its
fellow travelers strike up the band in the months ahead as the FY'05
budget war gets underway and tax hikes are again promoted as the
longstanding "solution" to a self-inflicted
"crisis" of overspending.
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Chip
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The Boston Herald
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Take stock in these stocking stuffers
By Wayne Woodlief
Hitch up Dancer. Put the reins on Dasher. It's time for Pol Santa to dispense his usual Christmas gifts to the men and women of politics, whether they've been good, bad or good at being bad.
Here's what Pol Santa, with assistance from elves Todd Domke, Michael Goldman and Dan Payne, has for our newsmakers to unwrap this morning:
JOHN F. KERRY: A gold-leafed box with all his "g's" back, so Long Jawn can stop going all over Iowa
droppin' his g's and tryin' to sound like a regular guy. It works for Boston Mayor Tom Menino, but that's because it's Tommy being Tommy, old lovable Mumbles. It won't work for Sen. Kerry because, once more, he's trying to be somebody other than who he really is.
TOM MENINO: A fortified bunker in case the mayor really proceeds with that cockamamie scheme to crack down on residents who stake out parking spaces after snowfalls.
Menino would have a Boston Tea Party style rebellion on his hands, especially if he and Public Works Commissioner Joe (Wake Me When It's Over) Casazza lowball another blizzard - and then Menino sends out the trucks to crush people's chairs and trash cans beside the
snowbanks. How would "Mayor Maura" (Hennigan) sound to Hizzoner?
GEORGE W. BUSH: Osama bin Laden captured in a cave decorated with "Dean for President" campaign posters.
MATT AMORELLO: For the maestro of the Big Dig, a CD of Arthur Fiedler's greatest hits to remind him of what he missed by cancelling the Boston Pops for that ill-fated artery extravaganza.
DICK CHENEY: Halliburton Co., the vice president's old get-rich-quick-in-Iraq firm, becoming a nonprofit corporation.
TED KENNEDY: Accidental inclusion in a Democratic presidential preference poll with him winding up ahead of John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, John Edwards and Dick Gephardt. But not Al
Sharpton.
RALPH NADER: A life, so he can stop bugging the Democrats and giving an edge to the Republican Party every four years.
JOE LIEBERMAN: A gold-plated, GOP-paid credit card that gives Lieberman 1,000 frequent flier miles every time he trashes Howard Dean.
HOWARD DEAN: A court decision allowing him to redact his name from any letters in those gubernatorial records that might show he sought to have the Confederete flag on ads to lure Southern tourists to Vermont.
W. MITT ROMNEY: A finder's fee if the gov can turn up even half of that $2 billion in waste and fraud he claimed he'd uncover in his first budget. Or maybe he'd prefer that that controversial Big Dig tunnel be named neither "Liberty Tunnel" nor after Tip O'Neill - but Willard's Way instead?
HILLARY CLINTON: Howard Dean picking Al Gore for vice president, and them both going down to defeat in November.
EDWARD A. FLYNN: A tiny musical mute with which Flynn, Romney's public secretary, might silence all those whistleblowers who are ratting Flynn out for being slow on the draw in probing federal grant-abuses under his predecessors. Or maybe a third police chief opening that he might jump at now that he's back in the gov's doghouse.
TOM FINNERAN: As the House speaker recuperates from hip surgery, give him Robert Caro's first Pulitzer Prize-winner, "The Power Broker." It's a lesson in how immense political power - in this case that of New York City's late highway czar Robert Moses - is gained, and then lost by a man who didn't know when to leave.
PATRICIA WHITE: The chairmanship of the Steve Murphy for Suffolk County Sheriff Committee. White finished fifth, just out of the money for an at-large seat in the last Boston City Council race. If council incumbent Murphy runs for the county job and topples Sheriff Andrea Cabral, White gets to fill Murph's seat.
ROBERT TRAVAGLINI: The Supreme Judicial Court compelling the Senate to set a new date for that special election on March 2 in departing Sen. Cheryl Jacques' district. Trav may not think so, but he'd seem so much more a leader if his Dems held that seat fair and square, instead of winning it with a stacked deck on primary day.
BARBARA ANDERSON: A new trumpet that the state's leading anti-tax guru can blare louder than ever the next time any of the governor's minions even breathes the phrase "tax hike."
DENNIS KUCINICH: His fantasy girlfriend, the mysterious but enchanting "Hillary from Chappaqua," who called in while the presidential longshot was on a talk show.
And to all Pol Santa's readers, may you have a wondrous holiday, filled with good cheer, tasty food and loving families, and a Happy New Year.
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The Boston Herald
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Romney stands by vow not to hike taxes
By Steve Marantz
Sunday, December 21, 2003
Gov. Mitt Romney says he won't budge on his anti-tax pledge despite pressure from a Democratic rival to back a gas-tax hike to fund billions of dollars in highway and rail projects, creating thousands of jobs in Massachusetts.
Romney is opposing a 5-cent hike in the federal gas tax to fund the transportation bill, while favoring issuance of bonds that will be repaid out of the Federal Highway Trust Fund.
"I don't think in this election year you will see from Washington an increase in the gas tax," Romney said. "It's hard enough for me to battle battles in Massachusetts to make sure I'm not raising taxes, so I'm not going to weigh in on doing so elsewhere."
But U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano of Somerville, a member of the House transportation committee and a rumored potential challenger to Romney in 2006, is supporting the gas-tax hike and opposing the issuance of bonds.
Responded Capuano: "Election year, please. Either support it or don't. If you don't, don't complain when you don't have enough money to fix your roads. It's very shortsighted and nothing more than political cover."
Capuano is part of a bipartisan coalition pushing a $375 billion House bill to be funded by hiking the gas tax from 18.4 cents to 23.7 cents and be indexed to inflation.
The coalition has tried to enlist Romney's support to lobby the Bush administration, which opposes a hike in the tax and is proposing a $247 billion transportation bill.
Capuano says the House bill would produce $6.3 billion and 47,800 jobs for Massachusetts over the next six years, compared to $4.6 billion and 36,000 jobs under the White House proposal.
"We have asked the governor to be a player in this because he is relatively close to the White House and Republican leadership," said Capuano. "We want the governor to help us make sure Massachusetts doesn't get hurt."
But Romney said he favors pumping up the White House bill through a bonding proposal put forth by New Jersey's Democratic Governor, James
McGreevey.
McGreevey is calling for creation of a private nonprofit entity to issue $80 billion in federal tax credit bonds - $60 billion for the Federal Highway Trust Fund and $20 billion for a "sinking" fund to repay the principal. The Highway Trust Fund will reimburse the U.S. Treasury for lost revenues equal to the tax credits.
"It's the most complex financing structure I've ever seen," Romney said. "It doesn't add to the federal deficit, believe it or not. I believe the bonds are structured such that they do not cost anything over a 10-year period."
Capuano argues vehemently that the bonding proposal is an attempt to shift the burden of payment to posterity.
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The Worcester Telegram & Gazette
Monday, December 22, 2003
A Telegram & Gazette editorial
Padded expenses
Ethics panel sends message to per-diem cheats
First the good news: The state Ethics Commission has cracked down on a case of abuse of legislative travel stipends, exacting full restitution and the maximum $2,000 fine for the violation.
The bad news is that, although revelations of expense cheating roil the Statehouse with depressing regularity, this is the first time ever that the commission has taken such action against an official for requesting and obtaining undeserved “per-diem ” payments.
Further muddying the anti-corruption message, the target was not a sitting lawmaker but David C. Bunker, the former Rutland state representative — and one of the rare incumbents to be unseated, to boot.
The commission noted, correctly, that abusing the per-diem system does double harm, misdirecting scarce public funds and undermining public confidence in the integrity of government.
Indeed, public confidence in issues surrounding legislative compensation has been shaken repeatedly. The Legislature responded to voter protests about lawmakers’ self-voted raises by making the raises automatic. Lawmakers doubled their per-diem rates and office expenses in 2000, purportedly to help them adjust to the Clean Elections Law, and retained the higher reimbursement rates after torpedoing Clean Elections.
Lawmakers’ pay — a $50,000-plus base with the large majority receiving thousands more for holding “leadership” posts — is not lavish. However, it is substantially more than most of their constituents earn. Moreover, few of their constituents collect thousands of dollars a year for their daily commute.
Nonetheless, the Ethics Commission action was a welcome step. We hope any of Mr. Bunker’s former colleagues who might be tempted to pad their expenses take note.
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The Eagle-Tribune
Sunday, December 21, 2003
If you can't compete with charter schools, lie about them
By Taylor Armerding, Staff Writer
Pay attention, Salem, Mass. public school students. The real education isn't in your classrooms. It is coming from your school officials, in response to the impending opening of a local charter school. The real education went home with you in your backpacks a few weeks ago.
You students who might be interested in developing your debating skills, take note. If your argument is weak, don't spend time and effort trying to make it stronger. Just bend the truth. Exaggerate. Even better, tell outright lies.
As is always the case in public education, if you're worried about your job, benefits or raise, make sure you tell the public it's "all about the children."
And, of course, feel free to use some of those public funds you're so afraid of losing to produce propaganda. Feel free to use the children as pawns to distribute your distorted message to their parents -- hey, that's saving the cost of mailing, right? -- and then defend it with high-sounding rhetoric about a "duty to inform."
Yes, it is "Through the Looking Glass" time once again in Salem, where the leaders of the mainstream or "district" public schools are so terrified of a little start-up charter school with a capacity of 88 students that they have launched a campaign against it that is about as in touch with reality as the daily briefings from Baghdad Bob.
Apparently it wasn't enough for Superintendent Herbert Levine to rail against Salem Academy, as he did last year, that competition in public education is "inappropriate" and "doesn't work." Apparently, his inaccurate contention that a charter school would "drain resources from the public school system ..." didn't throw the local natives into the required panic. Apparently, local residents know better than their own superintendent that charter schools are, in fact, public schools.
Because the recent flier, printed at public expense and sent home with students, brings the debate over charter schools to a new low. It is, as a state Department of Education spokeswoman put it, "propaganda."
It claims that the "district schools" automatically lose the money that follows a student who attends a charter school, if that student's parents do so much as sign the child up. Of course, that is not true. The money only goes if the kid actually goes. Simply signing up doesn't move any money.
It contends that the net "cost paid by taxpayers or your children ..." for every student who signs up for a charter school is more than $6,000, because of a "grossly unfair" funding formula. Really? What is really unfair is that school officials think all the taxpayer money spent to educate a child should go to them, even if somebody else educates the kid. What a concept: Get paid for providing a service, even if you don't provide the service. Apply that to the private sector and the economy would really take off, right?
Levine contends that state education officials' declaration that the flier was inappropriate and amounts to propaganda can't be trusted, because they are advocates of charter schools. If that is the case, Levine's view on it can't be trusted either, since he is an outspoken opponent of charter schools.
Finally, Levine paints the district schools as helpless victims in a battle against an alleged giant monolith. "We're fighting for our lives here," he said.
That is laughable. Can Levine point to one district public school that has been shut down for failure to perform? He can't. As he knows, and as has been demonstrated around the state, district schools that don't perform just get more money. They are rewarded for failure. It is charter schools that get shut down if they don't perform, as occurred in Lynn just recently.
If Levine wants to fight, he ought to do it fairly, by trumpeting the excellence of his schools, not by playing the victim.
If parents reading this flier want to know whose opinion they can trust, perhaps they should ask why it is the people collecting the salaries, not the people paying the salaries, who are in a lather over this. If a charter school is truly a threat to local public education, why aren't these parents simply boycotting it? Nobody forced them to sign up those 72 local children as of last week.
The real threat that has officials so worried is that local families now have a choice about education. They want to force all local families, except those rich enough to opt out to private schools, to use the district schools.
This is about preserving a monopoly, not about what is best for the children.
Taylor Armerding is associate editorial page editor of The Eagle-Tribune.
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