CLT UPDATE
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Here we go again, another MTF-backed
spending splurge
In the most sweeping policy announcement of his new
administration, Governor Deval Patrick proposed yesterday $1 billion in
funding for scientific research, a package designed to cement the
state's reputation as a global powerhouse of medicine and biotechnology.
The 10-year initiative, which has won the endorsement of legislative
leaders, would fund academic research and start-up companies, as well as
create a stem cell bank at the University of Massachusetts for newly
created lines of embryonic stem cells, a controversial arena of research
currently barred from federal funding....
Despite its already high debt level, Massachusetts should be able to
foot the bill for this 10-year investment, according to Michael Widmer,
president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation, a government
watchdog group.
"At $100 million a year, it's not a huge amount of money," Widmer said.
"But that's $100 million that can't be spent elsewhere. It's a question
of priorities. From my perspective, this is an economic bet. The jury is
still out."
Some said that Patrick's plan interferes with the free market.
"This is a completely inappropriate direction to be taking," said David
Tuerck, director of the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think
tank. "It's an industrial policy where the governor gets in the business
of picking winners and losers and trying to do what private capital
markets are . . . already doing quite well."
House minority leader Bradley Jones, Republican of North Reading,
wondered why Patrick would propose such an expensive plan at the same
time he is grappling with a budget that is out of balance.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Patrick offers $1b biotech program
Working with all sectors of the industry, we have developed
the Massachusetts Life Science Initiative. This 10-year, $1 billion investment
marks a new partnership between state government, industry, academic medical
centers, and public and private higher education, and will accelerate statewide
life sciences growth into high gear. We want to support this industry on the
path from inspiration to commercialization, from ideas to cures.
That begins with support for new ideas and innovation.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The promise of biotech
By Deval L. Patrick and Therese Murray
We couldn’t help but notice an odd juxtaposition of
stories in yesterday’s news cycle.
First, photos on the front page of the quite-literally crumbling Storrow
Drive tunnel, with details of long-delayed repairs and the horrifying
conditions of the Bay State’s roads and bridges.
Then by afternoon, an announcement from Gov. Deval Patrick of plans to
invest $1 billion over the next 10 years . . . largely in the private
life sciences sector.
Might Patrick have the role of government just slightly reversed? ...
But many of the taxpayer dollars that Patrick has in mind would go out
in the form of grants to private or academic researchers. The
administration, with the support of top lawmakers, insists that is
crucial to compete with other states.
We would remind them that countless private entities, with access to
capital and a keen eye for a good investment, might be willing to do the
very same thing.
But there is no equivalent private outfit that is going to step up and
write a $200 million check to fix Storrow Drive.
A Boston Herald editorial
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
First the potholes, then the Petri dish
Senate President Therese Murray wants to divert a portion of
the state's surplus each year to pay for life science research, new technology
projects, and housing in an effort to help create and keep jobs in
Massachusetts.
In the Senate budget plan, to be unveiled Wednesday, Murray will propose
changing a state law that sends all excess cash to reserves so that it reroutes
up to $75 million each year to four state funds that invest in technology and
housing....
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a
business-funded watchdog group, called the plan a creative way to invest in key
areas.
"The positive, and it's an important positive, is that the money would be
earmarked only if the state were running a surplus. That is in contrast to the
budgets making their way through the State House . . . which are drawing on
reserves -- spending money in essence that we don't have," he said. "There's a
good balance between earmarking some funds, but only when they're available, and
doing it in a measured way so you're not taking all the potential reserves and
ignoring the obligation to build up money for an inevitable recession."
The Boston Globe
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Murray wants to invest surplus
“Let me just say, it’s so nice to finally have a partner in
the Corner Office who really gets it,” [Senate President Therese Murray] said,
prompting applause and broad grins from the luminaries crowded around her, Gov.
Deval Patrick, and House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, former Romney business
development aide Ranch Kimball nearby.
The occasion for Murray’s enthusiasm was the week’s headline news, Patrick
leading the state in devoting $1 billion, half of it borrowed, to cranking up
the local biotechnology industry....
At the same time, the $1 billion, 10-year scope of Patrick’s announcement left
causes that have gone without funding asking: Where’s ours?
And, with all corners of government pleading that the state’s fisc – as Patrick
is fond of terming the financial state of affairs – is stretched between
insufficient revenues and urgent spending demands, even supporters of the
biotech proposal wonder where the money will come from in a state with a
groaning operating budget and a bond cap that various interests think should be
raised. The latest spending request led insiders to wonder, how much more?
The first question was answered in part Thursday, for some folks anyway, when
the Big Three lined up again, this time to discuss Patrick’s agreement that the
Shannon Grant, $11 million in anti-gang grants hugely popular among urban
activists, would be included in an $88.9 million “supp” budget – “They moved
me,” he said of the elected officials who had lobbied him for the program....
State House News Service
Weekly Roundup -- Week of May 7, 2007
Even a committed liberal had to laugh at a recent Globe
headline: "Patrick campaigns for new income sources for towns."
As everyone knows, "new income sources" are new taxes. Camouflaging the T-word
doesn't change the truth....
It is what it is: a new tax. Some people will oppose it, period. But some people
will consider the option, if it is honestly portrayed.
So, don't jerk the voters around with euphemisms. People are smart enough to see
through them. Build the case with facts. Sell it with candor....
"He is the first governor in over a decade who has the courage and the vision to
advocate for revenues," said Newton Mayor David Cohen, also choosing a word
other than "tax" to describe Patrick's proposal.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Governor, there's no need to disguise the T-word
By Joan Vennochi
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
It's amazing how predictable the future sometimes is,
isn't it -- from the perspective of a taxpayer-serf?
"Time will heal all wounds," the saying goes, to
which our elected pols mostly all subscribe. And for the most
part, they're right. Too many voters forget the pols' past
promises.
We've watched this week as "Deval Without Details"
continues with his carpet-bombing with promises without substance.
The masses for the most part are swooning, as has come to be expected of
moonbats and too many others. A billion here, a few hundred
million there -- hey, it's only money: It's only promises!
But some of his incredibly expensive spending ideas
are gaining traction.
While we're still awaiting his campaign promise to be
kept for "property tax relief," as Proposition 2½
overrides reach record levels across the state with no relief in sight
but his plan for more "local option" taxes, he's running up the state
budget and liabilities by billions more of our dollars. Nice of
him, isn't it? A grand gesture. What a guy!
Remember the "promise" of
1989/90 that the income tax hike from 5 to 6.25 percent would only be
only "temporary, for but 18 months" -- the tax hike voters in 2000
mandated be restored to 5 percent by 2003? It was "frozen" by the
Legislature in 2002, if you recall, at 5.3 percent -- until certain
triggers it established were met. Even Michael Widmer and his
so-called Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, at that time championed that
slap in the face of voters. He favored triggers -- but is now also
energetically moving the goal post.
Still, then-Senate President Tom
Birmingham's income tax personal exemption increase, reduced in 1999
hopefully to head-off our 2000 ballot rollback but then also frozen in
2002, would have to take effect first, before our tax rollback would
kick back in. If you recall, back then Birmingham was the state
senate president, before Robert Travaglini -- who was senate president
before current Therese Murray -- and so it goes.
Since then too, iron-fisted House Speaker Tom
Finneran has been deposed, convicted as a felon in federal court, and is
now a radio talk-show host. It was Speaker Finneran's House which
added the caveat that, before we saw the remainder of the voters'
mandated tax rollback to 5 percent -- or any tax relief -- first we had
to choke the state's "rainy day fund" to capacity with our cash.
Each time that fund reached close to gagging, the goal would be moved
further downfield. It now holds over $2 billion of our tax
surplus, and that is being spent-down here and there at the whims of the
Legislature, but is still filling up more. Nice little billion
dollar slush fund, no?
See CLT Update: May 25, 2006, "State
Senate unanimously backhands taxpayers, voters"
Now comes another billion of our bucks to spend on
Patrick's "biotech" spending proposal -- which Fat-Cat Big-Business
lobbyist Michael Widmer is of course all in favor of. Think
that'll fill the "rainy-day" slush fund any sooner so us average
taxpayers will ever "trigger" our rollback?
Will we mere voters, citizens, taxpayers, ever see
our ballot mandate honored, will the income tax rate ever return to its
historic 5 percent -- or will we see the rate climb again, heh, heh
"temporarily"?
It now depends on whether the voters wake up and make
a difference.
In the meantime, Beacon Hill -- all of its parts --
is picking up inertia, steadily racing to spend us into the next fiscal
crisis -- as fast as they can get away with it, tripping over each
other. And obviously All-Democrat-All-The-Time makes it much
easier.
Maybe call the real estate broker and tell them to
stand by, perhaps prepare for the moving van before the rush?
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Patrick offers $1b biotech program
Plan would boost research, industry
By Andrea Estes and Stephen Heuser
In the most sweeping policy announcement of his new administration,
Governor Deval Patrick proposed yesterday $1 billion in funding for
scientific research, a package designed to cement the state's reputation
as a global powerhouse of medicine and biotechnology.
The 10-year initiative, which has won the endorsement of legislative
leaders, would fund academic research and start-up companies, as well as
create a stem cell bank at the University of Massachusetts for newly
created lines of embryonic stem cells, a controversial arena of research
currently barred from federal funding.
"We want Massachusetts to provide the global platform for bringing your
innovations from the drawing board to the market, from inspiration to
commercialization, from ideas to cures," said Patrick, who unveiled the
package at an international biotech conference in Boston. "Researchers
all over the world will be using stem cells that are truly made in
Massachusetts."
The policy represents a marked shift in philosophy from the Romney
administration, which injected language into a 2005 stem cell bill that
would have barred scientists from using embryonic stem cells cloned for
research purposes. The Legislature rebuffed Romney and passed a bill
endors ing stem cell research, but provided no direct funding.
Patrick was joined on the platform by Senate President Therese Murray,
who wore a yellow bracelet in memory of family members who have died of
cancer, and House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi. Both pledged support for
the proposal.
Aides said the administration will file legislation to begin laying
groundwork for financing and administering the new program later this
year. Over 10 years, the state would issue $500 million in bonds to pay
for capital investments at public institutions and other facilities. It
would also spend $25 million a year on direct research grants and offer
$25 million annually in tax credits to biotech companies that promise to
create jobs in Massachusetts.
The administration, however, has not determined how much money would be
dedicated to different areas of research or how much would be available
to the private sector.
According to Jay Gonzales, the state's assistant secretary for capital
finance, the money would be funneled through a reconstituted version of
the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, which was set up last year to
distribute $10 million in life-science funding. Under Patrick's plan,
the center's five-member board would be enlarged to handle its increased
responsibilities. It was unclear last night whether any of the $10
million has yet been distributed.
The University of Massachusetts stands to collect more than $100 million
from the Patrick plan. Jack Wilson, UMass president, said he expects the
stem cell bank, which would be housed at the UMass Medical School in
Worcester, to cost $66 million. The first of its kind in the country, it
would allow researchers from across the country to work on each others'
stem cell lines. Eight hospitals and universities, including Harvard,
have agreed to send their stem cell lines there.
"It's almost a lending library," said Wilson, referring to the stem cell
bank. "This is a triumph for the governor to have gotten all these
proprietary players to the table -- industry, private universities,
public universities -- where we put aside our differences. . . . This is
what really distinguishes this proposal from anything else in the United
States."
Another $38 million would go toward a research center to make useful
drugs from RNA interference, or RNAi, a new laboratory technique that
scientists can use to turn off specific genes. UMass professor Craig
Mello shared a Nobel Prize in medicine last year for helping to discover
RNAi in 1998. Less than a decade later, drugs based on this technology
are being tested in humans.
In recent years, other states have invested significant taxpayer money
in drawing medical research, including California's $3 billion stem cell
bond issue and Florida's $1 billion campaign to persuade prestigious
research institutes to locate campuses there.
While Patrick's overall package is smaller than California $3 billion
voter initiative, the California experience may contain a lesson. The
plan was attacked by opponents, and the money was long held up in court
and only recently began to be distributed.
The Massachusetts plan has a broader approach, focusing on RNAi as well
as stem cell research and other new technologies, although Patrick's
plan did not enumerate which ones.
Despite its already high debt level, Massachusetts should be able to
foot the bill for this 10-year investment, according to Michael
Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation, a
government watchdog group.
"At $100 million a year, it's not a huge amount of money,"
Widmer said. "But that's $100 million that can't be spent elsewhere.
It's a question of priorities. From my perspective, this is an economic
bet. The jury is still out."
Some said that Patrick's plan interferes with the free market.
"This is a completely inappropriate direction to be taking," said David
Tuerck, director of the Beacon Hill Institute, a conservative think
tank. "It's an industrial policy where the governor gets in the business
of picking winners and losers and trying to do what private capital
markets are . . . already doing quite well."
House minority leader Bradley Jones, Republican of North Reading,
wondered why Patrick would propose such an expensive plan at the same
time he is grappling with a budget that is out of balance.
The Boston Globe
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
The promise of biotech
By Deval L. Patrick and Therese Murray
For decades Massachusetts has been fertile ground for the life sciences.
Our unique concentration of extraordinary universities, teaching
hospitals, research facilities, venture capital, and talent, spurred by
a tradition of entrepreneurialism, provides a strong foundation for the
growth in the biotech industry. These strengths have brought thousands
of jobs and billions of dollars in life science investments to
Massachusetts.
For us, that success is more than a commercial matter. Each family can
speak poignantly about a family member or friend with a disease or
debilitating illness. You cannot be in the company of someone you love,
powerless to help them, without appreciating the vital importance of
stem cell research and other biomedical breakthroughs. In many ways, the
health of this industry and the health of our society are closely
linked.
But we cannot afford to rest on our laurels. Competitor states and
foreign nations are investing billions to attract our researchers,
institutions, and industries. The University of Wisconsin-Madison
outspends both Harvard and MIT in research and development. India and
China, to say nothing of states such as California, are actively working
to attract signature companies away from Massachusetts. At the same
time, federal funding through the National Institutes of Health, of
which Massachusetts typically receives a large share, is flat and likely
to diminish. Politics, especially around stem cell research, impaired
the innovation and calculated risk-taking that make breakthroughs
possible. It is essential that the Commonwealth step up to maintain and
extend our global leadership in the life sciences.
We are doing just that. Working with all sectors of the industry, we
have developed the Massachusetts Life Science Initiative. This 10-year,
$1 billion investment marks a new partnership between state government,
industry, academic medical centers, and public and private higher
education, and will accelerate statewide life sciences growth into high
gear. We want to support this industry on the path from inspiration to
commercialization, from ideas to cures.
That begins with support for new ideas and innovation. The rate of
innovation in Massachusetts in recent years has been triple that of the
national average and we have no intention of letting it slip. So, we
will close gaps left by depleted NIH funding, and invest in promising
developments like the nanotechnology center at UMass-Lowell and a new
RNAi facility at UMass Medical in Worcester. To bring the best and
brightest to those facilities and others, we will offer life science
grants to young, promising researchers who may not yet have drawn the
notice of federal funders.
Playing to our world leadership in stem cell research, we will also
create a Massachusetts Stem Cell Bank to be housed at the University of
Massachusetts. Once completed, the bank will hold the largest collection
of stem cell lines in the world and make our rapidly growing catalog
widely available to researchers. Already a group of competitive
institutions have agreed to contribute to the Stem Cell Bank,
underscoring the spirit of collaboration so distinctive about our
biotech supercluster.
The state will also develop Innovation Centers to provide industry and
the academic community access to cutting-edge facilities and technology.
These centers will serve as regional economic engines throughout the
Commonwealth, as new companies and jobs open up in the cities and towns
around them.
We will supply Innovation Centers and private facilities alike with the
equipment necessary to advance research without unnecessary
restrictions. Today millions of dollars of equipment sits idle in labs
because the federal government has prohibited its use on stem cell
research. We want our researchers focused on innovation and cures, not
ideology and politics.
Finally, when an idea is ready to become reality, we will help guide it
to the marketplace. Breakthroughs are often lost in investment gaps
typical of the movement from early academic research to industry
development. We will designate grants to translate discoveries into
applications and support partnerships to move new ideas along. We will
also work to help life science projects in Massachusetts win federal
assistance. Job growth here in the industry is fueled, in part, by
federal support, and our companies lead the nation in these awards per
capita. Every new job created in the life sciences results in two
additional jobs in support services for suppliers, vendors, and
construction. What's good for the life sciences and biotech is good for
Massachusetts.
Our Massachusetts Life Science Initiative will strengthen our
competitiveness, not just in the United States, but in the world. State
government has the opportunity to be an active partner in helping grow
ideas into cures, bring new jobs to Massachusetts, and secure our global
leadership in this important industry.
Deval L. Patrick is governor of Massachusetts. Therese Murray is
president of the Massachusetts Senate.
The Boston Herald
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
A Boston Herald editorial
First the potholes, then the Petri dish
We couldn’t help but notice an odd juxtaposition of stories in
yesterday’s news cycle.
First, photos on the front page of the quite-literally crumbling Storrow
Drive tunnel, with details of long-delayed repairs and the horrifying
conditions of the Bay State’s roads and bridges.
Then by afternoon, an announcement from Gov. Deval Patrick of plans to
invest $1 billion over the next 10 years . . . largely in the private
life sciences sector.
Might Patrick have the role of government just slightly reversed?
This is not to say that government has no role to play in the
high-stakes game of wooing the biotech industry to our shores. On the
contrary, we’re delighted he is playing the role of salesman during this
week’s BIO conference, laying out what we have to offer by way of, say,
tax incentives or streamlined permitting.
And a chunk of the proposed $1 billion would go to our public higher
education system, where targeted investment in the life sciences is
indeed smart business.
But many of the taxpayer dollars that Patrick has in mind would go out
in the form of grants to private or academic researchers. The
administration, with the support of top lawmakers, insists that is
crucial to compete with other states.
We would remind them that countless private entities, with access to
capital and a keen eye for a good investment, might be willing to do the
very same thing.
But there is no equivalent private outfit that is going to step up and
write a $200 million check to fix Storrow Drive.
The role of state government here is not as venture capitalist. It is in
creating the best conditions for private investment, including such
seemingly mundane tasks as maintaining the infrastructure on which the
burgeoning biotech industry must build.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Murray wants to invest surplus
Looks to fund jobs, housing, research
By Andrea Estes
Senate President Therese Murray wants to divert a portion of the state's
surplus each year to pay for life science research, new technology
projects, and housing in an effort to help create and keep jobs in
Massachusetts.
In the Senate budget plan, to be unveiled Wednesday, Murray will propose
changing a state law that sends all excess cash to reserves so that it
reroutes up to $75 million each year to four state funds that invest in
technology and housing.
"We've heard over and over again that the obstacle to job growth in
Massachusetts is the lack of affordable housing, and we've also heard
about the need for investment in our biotech industry," Murray told the
Globe. "We're second in the nation with our state fund balance. Let's
take a portion and invest it in the economy rather than have it sit
there earning a small amount of interest."
The first batch of money could be distributed as early as November if
the state ends this fiscal year, June 30, with a large enough surplus,
Senate staff members said. It is unclear, based on revenues to date,
whether the year will end with a surplus, a Murray aide said.
Under the law, which Murray calls the "Senate Job Growth Initiative,"
the first $50 million of surplus each year would go into the state's
rainy-day fund, which currently has a $2.1 billion balance.
After that, up to $25 million would go to the Emerging Technology Fund,
which provides loans and guarantees to technology-based manufacturers ;
up to $25 million would go to the Life Sciences Investment Trust Fund,
which provides grants for research and commercialization of new biotech
products; and up to $12.5 million each would go to the Massachusetts
Affordable Housing Trust Fund, which helps communities develop
affordable housing, and the Smart Growth Housing Trust Fund, which
rewards communities that foster denser housing near transportation
facilities .
The law would expire in five years, unless the Legislature votes to
continue it.
The measure, Murray said, would pay for a portion of Governor Deval
Patrick's $1 billion life sciences initiative, which was unveiled last
week.
Patrick's 10-year initiative, which Murray and House Speaker Salvatore
F. DiMasi both endorsed, would fund research, start companies, and
create a Massachusetts stem cell bank -- a repository of newly created
lines of embryonic stem cells.
To finance the plan, state officials would have to borrow $500 million
over 10 years to cover capital investments and equipment costs. They
would also distribute $25 million in tax credits and invest $25 million
annually in the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center.
The Senate initiative would cover that last element, by channeling money
into the Life Sciences Investment Trust Fund, which the center oversees.
According to state officials, the state has run a surplus large enough
to fund the entire $75 million initiative in seven of the past 10 years.
If the state ends the year with more than $50 million, but less than
$125 million, the investments in the four funds would be pro rated.
Kyle Sullivan, Patrick spokesman, praised Murray, saying she was acting
"to fund the new life science initiative and other important programs
that will have a positive impact on our economy and help us achieve the
goal of 100,000 new jobs in the state over the next four years."
"We look forward to working with the Senate president and the speaker to
make this a reality," he said
Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation, a business-funded watchdog group, called the plan a
creative way to invest in key areas.
"The positive, and it's an important positive, is that the money would
be earmarked only if the state were running a surplus. That is in
contrast to the budgets making their way through the State House . . .
which are drawing on reserves -- spending money in essence that we don't
have," he said. "There's a good balance between earmarking some funds,
but only when they're available, and doing it in a measured way so
you're not taking all the potential reserves and ignoring the obligation
to build up money for an inevitable recession."
Housing advocates also praised the initiative, but said the dollar
amounts represent only a fraction of what is needed to meet the state's
extraordinary demand for reasonably priced housing.
"It's a good start, " said Lawrence DiCara, one of four leaders of the
Commonwealth Housing Task Force. "The more assurance the state can give
that funding will be there, the more likely communities can construct
housing and get out of the horrible conundrum: Lots of people who bought
houses 20 or 25 years ago are effectively rich, but their kids have to
move to North Carolina or Texas because they can't afford to buy a
one-bedroom condo here."
Geoffrey Beckwith, executive director of the Massachusetts Municipal
Association, said many communities are afraid to move ahead with
so-called smart-growth developments because they are concerned that the
payments they get will not cover the additional expense of providing
education and other municipal services to the new residents.
The state is obligated to pay additional local aid to communities that
agree to create zoning districts that allow for the developments,
Beckwith said, but communities fear that funding from the Smart Growth
Housing Trust Fund, which pays for that aid, might dry up.
Barry Bluestone, executive director of Northeastern University's Center
for Urban and Regional Policy, said the extra local aid was originally
paid for through the sale of surplus public property, but a more
predictable revenue source is needed. "This is substantial enough for
the next year," he said, referring to the money contained in the Senate
proposal. "But we may need more later."
State House News Service
Weekly Roundup -- Week of May 7, 2007
By Jim O’Sullivan
There were several nudges and elbows exchanged smilingly Tuesday when
Senate President Therese Murray used praise for the current governor to
veil, thinly, a swipe at the recent past chief executive, former Gov.
Mitt Romney, for whom Murray’s distaste is not secret.
“Let me just say, it’s so nice to finally have a partner in the Corner
Office who really gets it,” Murray said, prompting applause and broad
grins from the luminaries crowded around her, Gov. Deval Patrick, and
House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi, former Romney business development aide
Ranch Kimball nearby.
The occasion for Murray’s enthusiasm was the week’s headline news,
Patrick leading the state in devoting $1 billion, half of it borrowed,
to cranking up the local biotechnology industry. With little vocal
in-state opposition to embryonic stem cell research, there was little
criticism for an initiative that pivoted around promises that
consistently poll at least as well as the sci-fi-loving former governor:
more jobs and more cures.
It was an upbeat week for Patrick, who used the well-covered BIO 2007
convention to hype his biotech hopes, and a related radio appearance to
zing the lawmakers he’d stood with the day before. “I think that the
pace of decision-making in the Legislature is a little slower than I
would like,” he said on WRKO Wednesday, acknowledging recent
accelerations.
At the same time, the $1 billion, 10-year scope of Patrick’s
announcement left causes that have gone without funding asking: Where’s
ours?
And, with all corners of government pleading that the state’s fisc – as
Patrick is fond of terming the financial state of affairs – is stretched
between insufficient revenues and urgent spending demands, even
supporters of the biotech proposal wonder where the money will come from
in a state with a groaning operating budget and a bond cap that various
interests think should be raised. The latest spending request led
insiders to wonder, how much more?
The first question was answered in part Thursday, for some folks anyway,
when the Big Three lined up again, this time to discuss Patrick’s
agreement that the Shannon Grant, $11 million in anti-gang grants hugely
popular among urban activists, would be included in an $88.9 million
“supp” budget – “They moved me,” he said of the elected officials who
had lobbied him for the program.
The answer to the second may prove more elusive in the short term.
Patrick steamed into office with a bundle of pricey campaign promises,
some of which have languished by the wayside as lawmakers wagged their
heads in opposition. At the same time, $1 billion for biotech was not
one of his campaign vows (it was Chris Gabrieli’s), and it garnered
effusive approval from his partners and friends in the Legislature.
Further, the governor seems more like the candidate who won 56 percent
of the vote when he’s talking about ways to spend money rather than ways
to raise money.
Which makes him, exactly, no different from other politicians.
The biotech wager – and Tuesday’s Convention Center press conference was
rich with gambling jargon – comes at the short-term expense of other
spending initiatives; whither the sweeteners, for instance, dangled
before the financial services or manufacturing industries?
The instant answer to that question offered by backers of the $1 billion
obligation – most vocally DiMasi – was that biotech, already accounting
for one in seven Bay State jobs, is a cure in and of itself, as much a
linchpin of the state’s economic future as, like Patrick himself pointed
out Wednesday on ’RKO, whaling, textiles, and shoe-making were of its
past. Just as harbors served as economic engines and rivers powered
mills in the past, so too will universities serve as anchors and
brainpower fuel labs, the thinking goes.
Biotech, then, has arrived among education and cops in the pantheon of
state priorities that nary a Beacon Hill voice opposes. On the stage
with Patrick Tuesday were not just the Democratic leadership, but Nobel
Prize winner Dr. Craig Mello and GOP state Sen. Bruce Tarr, co-chair of
the Republican policy conference.
STORY OF THE WEEK: A unified front behind a billion-dollar
biotechnology initiative.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Governor, there's no need to disguise the T-word
By Joan Vennochi
Even a committed liberal had to laugh at a recent Globe headline:
"Patrick campaigns for new income sources for towns."
As everyone knows, "new income sources" are new taxes. Camouflaging the
T-word doesn't change the truth.
Republican governors resort to their own word games; they call new
income sources "user fees."
But the tax-and-spend stereotype still haunts Democrats, so a higher
standard of skepticism is applied to their pleas for new tax revenue.
Patrick is Massachusetts's first Democratic governor in 16 years. He is
pushing legislation to allow communities to add a hotel tax of up to 5
percent and a restaurant tax of up to 2 percent. Communities that choose
to levy the hotel and meals taxes would be required to dedicate at least
a quarter of the revenue to reducing residential tax bills.
It is what it is: a new tax. Some people will oppose it, period. But
some people will consider the option, if it is honestly portrayed.
So, don't jerk the voters around with euphemisms. People are smart
enough to see through them. Build the case with facts. Sell it with
candor.
The Patrick administration got off to a slow start, due to the new
governor's well-documented political missteps. Derailed by the resulting
media furor, he never made a strong, public case for his budget
proposal. That made it easy for the House of Representatives to ignore
Patrick's plan and come forward with its own. A Senate budget proposal
is due out soon.
This past week, Patrick launched a belated campaign for key parts of his
tax plan, which is called the Municipal Partnership Act.
"There are all sorts of forces at work . . . on Beacon Hill," Patrick
said at a press conference in Framingham. "I want to make sure people
understand what's at stake."
Candidate Patrick spoke eloquently about exactly what is at stake: "your
broken roads . . . your broken schools." But as governor, he has yet to
connect the campaign rhetoric to a plan the public is clamoring to
embrace.
He is trying to do so now, by firing up the grassroots that helped elect
him. But even with true believers, Patrick is cautious about coming
right out and saying his plan will raise some taxes.
A Friday press release announced his effort "to reduce communities'
reliance on property tax" by promoting his own plan on his website,
devalpatrick.com. The website defines the Municipal Partnership Act as
"relief for homeowners through innovative solutions." It discusses the
need for "Local Meals and Hotel Revenue Legislation to provide new
resources to our cities and towns." The obvious intention is to discuss
the proposed local-option tax, minus the T-word.
Patrick faces a tough sales job on Beacon Hill, where House Speaker
Salvatore F. DiMasi came out strongly against his tax proposals. At the
same time, the measure has broad support from mayors and local officials
across the state. They should be strong, visible, and brave allies on
Beacon Hill.
"He is the first governor in over a decade who has the courage and the
vision to advocate for revenues," said Newton Mayor David Cohen, also
choosing a word other than "tax" to describe Patrick's proposal. "He is
the first governor to publicly link the need for revenues for the kind
of services that have wide popular support -- good education,
well-maintained roads, enough policy and firefighters to protect public
safety."
If Cohen is correct and those are services his constituents truly want,
they should be willing to consider local-option taxes to pay for them.
"It is about taxes," said Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone, who also
serves as president of the Massachusetts Mayors Association. "It's about
how to redistribute taxes. It's about relieving the burden on the
property tax."
However, this represents a small step toward the long-range goal of
shifting the tax burden from homeowners. Patrick and his supporters need
to be honest about that, too.
Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said he still believes that the local option
tax proposal "can fly."
"I think you have to respect Speaker DiMasi and his opinion," Menino
said. "You have to work with him and give him the information we have."
In that case, playing straight instead of cute is Patrick's best hope.
After all, DiMasi already knows a shorter way to spell "new income
source": T-A-X.
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