CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Government train wreck ahead
A six-month review by the Globe found
that municipal health plans, which cover employees, retirees, and
elected officials, provide benefit levels largely unheard of in the
private sector. Copays are much lower. Some communities do not force
retirees onto Medicare at age 65. Many citizens on elected boards - some
after serving as few as six years - receive coverage for life, too.
As medical costs across the board rose over the past decade, municipal
health care expenses exploded, draining local budgets and forcing major
cuts in services, higher property tax bills, and billions in new
debt....
The cost of municipal health care more than doubled from fiscal 2001 to
2008, adding more than $1 billion in all to city and town budgets,
according to state Department of Revenue data. A Globe survey of 25
communities found that they now devote, on average, 14 percent of their
budgets to health care, up from 8 percent a decade ago....
With health costs soaring year after year, communities must ask
taxpayers for more money even while providing fewer services. Indeed,
local officials say, Proposition 2½ overrides - loathed at kitchen
tables - are often attributable, at least in part, to skyrocketing
health expenses.
Voters in Weston passed a $1.1 million override in 2006, primarily
because of health care costs, which had risen by more than 80 percent in
four years....
Beyond the immediate costs, huge liabilities loom. Communities have
promised current and future retirees billions in health care subsidies,
a burden taxpayers will bear long into the future....
Taxpayers now underwrite as much as 89 percent of active employees’
premiums in some of the state’s largest cities, while private-sector
employers often cover less than 70 percent, local and state data show.
As health care expenses have climbed for everyone, taxpayers - already
paying a generous share of municipal benefits - have been hit especially
hard as those benefits have grown more costly.
The insurance plans many cities and towns offer to employees, retirees,
and elected officials also require minimal out-of-pocket expenses, with
copayments for office appointments as low as $5. Most have copays for
emergency room visits of $25 or less.
By comparison, private-sector copays for office visits are typically at
least $20, sometimes more, with $75 copays standard for emergency room
visits, according to a survey of Massachusetts employers by the state
Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Unlike most municipal plans,
private-sector plans also often force subscribers to pay thousands
annually in deductibles before insurers pay anything....
Under state law, any municipal employee with 10 years service is
eligible, in retirement, to get health care benefits for life from age
55, a benefit typically worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per
person....
The generous terms of municipal plans compound the problem, because they
create incentives for higher use: Low out-of-pocket costs - particularly
the minimal copays - encourage subscribers to use more medical services,
thus driving up the overall expense to communities.
Most municipalities also grant spouses generous health care benefits.
In some cases, retirees and spouses live decades beyond the date of
retirement, the Globe found in a review of thousands of pages of
municipal retirement records....
Less than one-quarter of private-sector retirees nationally receive any
health care benefits from their former employers ...
The insurance plans many cities and towns offer to employees, retirees,
and elected officials also require minimal out-of-pocket expenses, with
copayments for office appointments as low as $5. Most have copays for
emergency room visits of $25 or less.
By comparison, private-sector copays for office visits are typically at
least $20, sometimes more, with $75 copays standard for emergency room
visits ... Unlike most municipal plans, private-sector plans also often
force subscribers to pay thousands annually in deductibles before
insurers pay anything.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, February 28, 2010
SPECIAL REPORT - Part 1
Runaway health costs are rocking municipal budgets
Mayors, city and town leaders, and state officials, including
Governor Deval Patrick, have launched repeated efforts to rein in the expense of
providing health care to municipal workers, retirees, and elected officials.
But organized labor, fiercely protective of its members, has largely refused to
budge, resisting local efforts to transfer more health care costs to workers and
move communities onto the state’s health care plan. State lawmakers have shown
little appetite for forcing an overhaul of the system....
The Legislature decades ago also linked health care and pension benefits. Anyone
who qualifies for a pension qualifies for health care coverage. But there is one
key difference: With pensions, employees have to work decades to earn full
retirement benefits; with health care, municipal employees, the moment they
reach 10 years of service, are entitled under state law to full benefits when
they retire, from age 55.
This has made even relatively low-paying jobs, such as teachers’ aides and
school cafeteria workers, highly coveted....
The Legislature responded by crafting a bill to allow cities and towns to shift
their employees and retirees from locally managed health care plans to the
state’s much larger, more flexible one, called the Group Insurance Commission.
Consolidating all municipal plans into the state GIC would save more than $1
billion a year by 2018, according to estimates by the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation and the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, two nonpartisan
business-backed watchdog groups....
But the bill allowing local communities into the state plan contained a major
catch. It required a 70 percent vote of a committee of local union
representatives before a municipality could join, effectively giving teachers
unions, typically the largest, a veto.
After some early interest, unions have shut the door, and the initiative has
fallen far short of expectations....
There are two bills pending on Beacon Hill that would give cities and towns the
authority to reduce health care benefits without union approval....
Both bills remain in committee, and proponents are not optimistic they will move
forward. A separate measure on Beacon Hill originally included a provision to
give communities greater flexibility in setting health care benefits, but it was
deemed “too controversial’’ and removed, said state Representative Paul J.
Donato, Democrat of Medford, the bill’s lead sponsor.
Meanwhile, even with greater attention in Massachusetts and nationally toward
reining in the expense of medical care, no one expects health care costs to stop
their rapid rise anytime soon.
“It’s a cataclysmic situation,’’ said Marc Waldman, Wellesley’s treasurer.
“Something has to happen.’’
The Boston Globe
Monday, March 1, 2010
SPECIAL REPORT - Part 2
Unions safeguard health benefits
Municipal health care costs in Massachusetts are unjustified
and unsustainable. Curbing their excesses is an essential mission for the
governor and Legislature....
Cities and towns have been happy to take state aid but have proven incapable of
using it wisely by cracking down on abuses in their own payrolls....
There are reasons why such sensible reforms have failed in the past. Workers and
retirees represent a disproportionate political constituency in places where
other citizens participate only sporadically in local politics, and they refuse
to give up such overly generous benefits as doctor visits with copayments of $5
or less. The rest of the taxpayers who are footing the bill should demand
changes....
More than money is at stake. Public confidence is eroded when taxpayers feel
that the government is being run primarily for the benefit of its workers....
The state’s ability to answer these challenges is directly related to its
ability to quell the perception that its workers and officials are gaming the
system....
Now the perception that nothing can be done carries the day on Beacon Hill. And
yet those same representatives profess to be shocked when voter anger surges
against the system, as if they were victims of a natural disaster rather than
their own failure to grapple with the state’s problems.
The deficiencies in the municipal health system are real. The solutions are
clear enough. Now something must be done.
A Boston Globe editorial
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Soaring municipal health costs cry out for a state overhaul
The [local meals] tax has generated big bucks for some
communities - namely Boston. In October, the most recent month for which figures
are available, the tax produced nearly $1.5 million in new revenue for the Hub
(far less for a community like Winthrop, which collected just under $8,000).
But frankly those sums pale in comparison to the savings that could be generated
by bolder municipal reforms, including a plan that would give local officials
broader authority to design health insurance plans for municipal workers. In a
“municipal relief” bill unveiled last week state lawmakers, who approved the
local meals tax championed by Gov. Deval Patrick, conspicuously left that reform
out.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, March 1, 2010
Tax leaves a bad taste
Almost 200 high-paid clerk magistrates and their assistants
are padding their pockets with thousands of dollars in bail fees, a little-known
perk payment that fiscal watchdogs say should go to the cash-strapped
commonwealth.
The $40 fees are incurred by suspects who pay bail set by clerk magistrates and
assistants after hours, when courts are closed. The fee goes straight to the
judicial staffers - on top of their salaries of $84,000 to $110,000.
“This is a striking amount of money these fees are generating for these clerks,”
said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “They
are paid well. This should be part of their responsibilities.” ...
191 clerk magistrates and assistants collected more than $2.5 million in fees in
2009.... 87 bail commissioners, about a third of whom also have state jobs,
collected an additional $734,000.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Hacks pocketing $2.5M in get-out-of-jail fees
Patrick’s much-touted effort to curb police detail expenses
paved the way for legal changes two years ago that allowed the state to use
civilian flaggers in some cases.
Before the regulations, the cost of traffic control made up about 4.4 percent of
the average costs of a roadside construction project. Last year, after the
regulations, the average cost fell to 3.1 percent, according to the state....
Police unions say that hiring civilians to do the job can cost as much as $20
more on an hourly basis than police details....
State officials, even as they generally favor shifting more work to civilian
flaggers, acknowledge their hourly rate, which varies by job, is usually higher.
On the BU Bridge project, the cost for officers was $40 per hour, compared with
$48 an hour for civilians ...
The Boston Globe
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Bridge work adds hefty detail bill
Motorists could be paying more to drive their cars under a
legislative plan that would hike auto inspection fees by $6 to pay for local and
state police training.
The proposal, which would raise auto inspection fees more than 20 percent - from
$29 to $35 - is part of a municipal relief bill sent to the House Ways and Means
Committee on Tuesday for review.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 28, 2010
House mulls hiking car inspection fee
Gov. Deval Patrick is quietly whacking beleaguered Bay State
motorists with a $5 fee to use Registry of Motor Vehicle branches to renew their
licenses and registrations, outraging critics who say the “back-door tax” hits
poor and elderly drivers the hardest.
The fee, which goes into effect today, comes on the heels of a $10 license
renewal increase last year....
The RMV has done little to raise awareness of the fee. It was mentioned on an
obscure RMV blog posting on Saturday. An internal memo obtained by the Herald
says there will not be a promotion of the fee.
[Ann Dufresne, a spokeswoman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles] said the fee
hike wasn’t a secret. It has been in the works since it was proposed in April
2009 as part of a series of new fees aimed at raising $75 million. The
Legislature approved the package in August, she said.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 1, 2010
Gov. Deval Patrick keeps driving up RMV fees
Outraged state senators on both sides of the aisle today will
push to overturn a “brutal” Registry of Motor Vehicles fee slapped on drivers
who conduct some business in person instead of online after a Herald report
revealed the cost hike....
Sen. Richard R. Tisei (R-Wakefield) is attaching an amendment to ban the fee to
a safe-driving bill under consideration in the Senate today....
“The governor is using the Registry as a cash cow. They’ve been cutting services
at the same time they hike the costs,” said Tisei, who is running for lieutenant
governor against Democratic incumbent Timothy Murray.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Blindsided pols take aim at RMV fee
About 30 seats in the Massachusetts Legislature could open up
this year as state lawmakers abandon posts they held for years, or even decades,
to run for other offices or retire.
As a result, the Legislature appears poised for one of its biggest overhauls in
years, amid the taint of a corruption probe, anti-incumbent voter sentiment, and
a Republican revolt fueled by the surprise election of Scott Brown to the US
Senate.
The Boston Globe
Friday, February 26, 2010
Many giving up seats in Legislature
According to a new bulletin from the non-partisan
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), whose board includes executives from
some of the state’s largest companies, the state budget gap for fiscal 2012,
which begins July 1, 2010, would be $5 billion if a pair of ballot questions
cutting the sales tax pass in November.
The ballot questions, which reduce the sales tax to 3 percent from 6.25 percent
and repeal last year’s application of the sales tax to retail alcohol sales,
would take effect on Jan. 1, 2011 if approved and would drain $1.2 billion in
revenues from the state’s budget base in the last six months of fiscal 2011
alone.
MTF President Michael Widmer told the News Service Monday the group does not
have a formal position on either ballot question but would “likely” oppose the
sales tax cut.
State House News Service
Monday, March 1, 2010
Report calls for bigger state spending cuts,
warns of $5 Billion budget cap
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or
401(k) to support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on
another vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now
Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking for
public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement
Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement savings
in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your retirement
years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury bonds.
But they will use your money immediately to pay for their unprecedented
trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back up their political
promises, just as they have raided the Social Security trust funds.
Investor's Business Daily
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings
By Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara
Chip Ford's CLT Commentary
Government in general is
collapsing fast all around us, the chickens are coming home to roost.
The piper must be paid as the debt is about to be called in.
We've been warning it seems
forever ["The
Ticking Time Bomb - Public Employee Benefits"] that this day was
steadily plodding toward us, the crisis inevitable if reforms weren't
made quickly.
Now that the footsteps are
thundering outside the door, more are coming to recognize that the
monster we've invited to dinner has arrived -- and we are its meal.
Government can't take
enough from us to satisfy this beast, even if it takes our all -- but
that doesn't mean government won't try. It is all government
knows.
On every level -- local,
state, and federal -- insatiable government is coming for more, trying
to stave off the inevitable, keep the gravy train chugging along until
the tracks run out. The end of the rails is in sight.
Municipal government has
squandered its "embarrassment
of riches" and still that wasn't enough. It continues to hike taxes
and fees to perpetuate the unsustainable: the untouchable lifestyles of
high-rolling public employees (in reality, our masters) at our expense.
Their care and maintenance of the style to which they are accustomed is
the primary if not sole reason today for government's existence.
To extend this
entitlement psychosis a bit
longer, more and more cities and towns are adopting a new meals tax, on
top of the state's increased 5.65 percent take, raising the total meals tax to 7
percent. Fortunately for us taxpayers (though not for small businesses
and family restaurants), at least for now this is still avoidable with a
little research:
http://www.mass.gov/Ador/docs/dls/mdmstuf/LocalOptions/LOMeals.xls
The Boston Globe reported:
"On the BU Bridge project, the cost for officers was
$40 per hour, compared with $48 an hour for civilians ..."
Forty-eight dollars an hour for a flagman?!? I definitely took the
wrong career path! After 14 years with CLT I don't earn anywhere
near even half that salary, and don't get a pension or health
insurance for life.
The Boston Herald reported
today that Beacon Hill senators of both parties are "outraged" over the
stealth Registry of Motor Vehicles entrance fee hike, but the newspaper
yesterday reported: "[RMV spokeswoman]
Dufresne said the fee hike wasn’t a secret. It has been in the works
since it was proposed in April 2009 as part of a series of new fees
aimed at raising $75 million. The Legislature approved the package in
August, she said."
If the Legislature approved
it -- knowingly or unknowingly -- last August, shame on them. If
the governor imposed it unilaterally without legislative approval then
this is an important distinction. If he did so, it is likely
unconstitutional under the Massachusetts Constitution, Part the First -
A Declaration of the Rights of the Inhabitants of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts, which in part states:
Article XXIII: "No subsidy, charge, tax, impost, or duties, ought to be
established, fixed, laid, or levied, under any pretext whatsoever,
without the consent of the people, or their representatives in the
legislature."
No doubt in recognition of
the looming crises, a most unusual number of professional pols are
opting out of standing for re-election; instead getting out while the
getting is still good. On Beacon Hill, as well as Capitol Hill,
it's like rats abandoning a sinking ship. This behavior might be
recognized as the "canary in the coal mine" syndrome. Between these
numerous resignations and the public's overall disgust with them and
their self-serving ilk, revolution is clearly in the air -- and they
smell it coming.
If the nation and our state
is to survive, turn things around if there's still time, a major
turnover is required this year, an abrupt and immediate change in
direction. We're so close to the edge today that we might not be able to
survive until another election.
Aw geez, there goes Michael
Widmer, president of the so-called
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, as usual opposing tax cuts for
average taxpayers.
"Widmer said the two tax
cuts would remove $2.5 billion a year from the tax base and the sales
tax cut would lead to 'massive cuts' in local aid and an 'utter
disaster' on the budget front," the State House News Service reported.
"'We’ve got this huge structural deficit in fiscal 2012 even if the
ballot questions aren’t approved by the voters,' Widmer said. 'If they
are, it’s a $5 billion hole.'”
Mikey One-Note again fails
to identify how the hole got there, who dug it -- and who enabled the
diggers. If his number is accurate and not just another of his scare
tactics, that $5 billion came entirely from us -- and all the tax hikes
on average citizens he and his deceptively named organization have
supported over the years. Mikey's hole was excavated by endlessly
increased taxes, hungry borrowing, and spending more than could be
justified or afforded.
Widmer and his big-business
fat-cats at MTF have yet to support any control of spending by the only
means possible: denying the state its insatiable diet of our
money.
While we're going broke
paying for generations of public employee golden-parachute pensions and
health insurance for life, the federal government's now lusting over our
private pensions, our 401(k) retirement funds, with possible plans to
expropriate them, take them from us.
Willy Sutton, the famous
Great Depression-era bank robber, was asked why he robbed banks. He
responded, "Because that's where the money is."
With China, Saudi Arabia,
and other nations which fund our nation's massive and growing debt
squeamish about loaning the USA any more, Washington needs to find
another money source, a large one. Like Sutton, the U.S. Congress has
apparently chosen its next target source -- our 401(k) retirement
savings accounts. It didn't nationalize failed and failing banks and
crony investment houses -- it bailed them out with our
money. But now,
nationalizing our private pension funds is now under consideration by
the Capitol Hill robber-barons -- replacing them with another
promise like Social Security, which itself will soon be bankrupt.
The federal government would like to take our money and replace it with
a "guaranteed annuity." They'll probably even promise to deposit it into
another one of those "lock-boxes" all our Social Security payroll taxes
supposedly went into over
our lifetimes.
Do the Fools on the Hill
really want to create the run on banks that even the whiff of such
monstrous theft would produce?
Revolution 2010
must
succeed. We cannot wait until 2012 and expect to have anything -- money,
liberty, or any sort of future -- left to ourselves. Even if every bum
is thrown out in November, turning around this mess they've created
won't be easy or painless or quick. But it's our only hope.
Honest "hope and change"
must come in November -- and we must help deliver it.
Or the opportunity will be lost forever, and generations to
come will never forgive us.
|
 |
|
Chip Ford |
The Boston
Globe
Sunday, February 28, 2010
SPECIAL REPORT - Part 1
Runaway health costs are rocking municipal budgets
But there’s no will or willingness to roll back benefits granted in
palmier times
By Sean P. Murphy
First of two parts
Elizabeth Debski spent eight years as Everett’s city planner, before
losing her job in 2006 when a newly elected mayor installed his own
team.
But Debski did not leave City Hall empty-handed. In addition to her
pension, Debski, at 42, walked away with city-subsidized health care
insurance for life. If she lives into her 80s, as actuarial charts
predict, taxpayers could pay more than $1 million in all for her
family’s health care benefits.
That’s not to say Debski manipulated the system. She simply took what
she was owed under a municipal health care system whose generous
benefits and colossal inefficiencies are crippling cities and towns
across Massachusetts.
A six-month review by the Globe found that municipal health plans, which
cover employees, retirees, and elected officials, provide benefit levels
largely unheard of in the private sector. Copays are much lower. Some
communities do not force retirees onto Medicare at age 65. Many citizens
on elected boards - some after serving as few as six years - receive
coverage for life, too.
As medical costs across the board rose over the past decade, municipal
health care expenses exploded, draining local budgets and forcing major
cuts in services, higher property tax bills, and billions in new debt.
“It has got to be dealt with,’’ said Richard Fortucci , the chief
financial officer in Lynn. “Or we will all go bankrupt.’’
The cost of municipal health care more than doubled from fiscal 2001 to
2008, adding more than $1 billion in all to city and town budgets,
according to state Department of Revenue data. A Globe survey of 25
communities found that they now devote, on average, 14 percent of their
budgets to health care, up from 8 percent a decade ago. Somerville, for
one, spends $20 million more annually than it did 10 years ago, now
devoting almost 20 percent of its budget to health care.
So far, with powerful labor unions resistant to giving away hard-won
benefits and a lack of political will in the state Legislature to force
changes, efforts to overhaul the system have fallen short.
To be sure, many municipal employees, elected officials, and retirees
are paying a greater percentage of their health premiums than ever.
Still, almost all of the increase in municipal health care costs in the
past 10 years has been shouldered by taxpayers, who are subsidizing
plans that are often superior to their own.
“It’s a nice deal,’’ said Debski, now a part-time planner in Malden.
She could get insurance through her husband’s employer but doesn’t, for
a simple reason: The municipal plan is far more generous and costs less.
“The system was there,’’ she said. “I find it hard to believe that
anyone wouldn’t take what the system offered.’’
A crippling cost
The consequences of failing to face this crisis are on display in many
cities and towns, nowhere more vividly than in Lawrence.
In that city, on Feb. 1, children were momentarily trapped in a burning
apartment building, down the street from a fire station. But the city
had recently shuttered the station, to help close a $24 million budget
gap, and firefighters had to race from another location. The children
escaped, but the fire chief warned the city it may not be so lucky next
time.
Meanwhile, Lawrence, one of the poorest municipalities in Massachusetts,
continues to pay among the highest rates in the state for health care
benefits. The city’s health care kitty, which it uses to pay for
coverage, is currently $4 million in the red.
Health care costs are not the only budget-buster for cities and towns,
of course, but their rise has led not just to fewer firefighters in
Lawrence but diminished services across the state.
Library hours have been cut in Wayland and Hull. Wakefield has deferred
road and sidewalk repairs. Malden has introduced fees for trash pickup.
Class sizes have increased in Chelsea. Major layoffs have hit, among
others, Boston, New Bedford, Worcester, and Brockton - with officials in
all those communities citing rising health care costs as a major factor.
Revere last year closed City Hall on Fridays, to save cash.
“What am I going to do next, put a padlock on the police station and
tell people to call the State Police instead?’’ asked Mayor Thomas G.
Ambrosino of Revere, who, like other mayors, is covered by municipal
insurance.
Communities, under a 30-year-old initiative known as Proposition 2½, can
raise their tax levy each year by no more than 2.5 percent. In Revere,
health care costs are rising at close to 10 percent a year. This fiscal
year, the rise in health care expenses alone is projected to consume all
of Revere’s $1.5 million allowable tax increase - and then some.
With health costs soaring year after year, communities must ask
taxpayers for more money even while providing fewer services. Indeed,
local officials say, Proposition 2½ overrides - loathed at kitchen
tables - are often attributable, at least in part, to skyrocketing
health expenses.
Voters in Weston passed a $1.1 million override in 2006, primarily
because of health care costs, which had risen by more than 80 percent in
four years.
It proved to be a temporary fix. By 2009 Weston needed more money to
cover health care increases, said Donna S. VanderClock, town manager.
The town avoided another override after unionized employees agreed to
join the state’s health care system, saving about $1.7 million in the
first year, VanderClock said.
Beyond the immediate costs, huge liabilities loom. Communities have
promised current and future retirees billions in health care subsidies,
a burden taxpayers will bear long into the future.
Lynn owes current and future retirees an estimated $450 million in
benefits over the course of their lives - five times as much as it takes
in annually in taxes, according to estimates by city actuaries.
Brookline’s unfunded liability for health care is $320 million; Boston’s
is $5.7 billion.
Though some communities, such as Wellesley, Needham, and Boston, have
begun putting aside interest-earning money every year to help meet those
obligations, the vast majority of municipalities have not. Local
officials say they can barely afford to pay today’s health care bills,
let alone tomorrow’s.
“We have an unfunded liability of more than $600 million and with no
plan to address it,’’ said John Condon, Brockton’s chief financial
officer. “Even if we wanted to address it, we don’t have the money for
it.’’
‘Very, very rich plans’
Jane Teal said she only wanted to help her hometown when she ran
successfully for Lynn City Council in 1995. She served for six years,
then stepped down, eventually moving to Florida with her husband. Today,
Lynn taxpayers are paying $22,600 a year for the couple’s health care.
“It never crossed my mind that I would get insurance when I ran for
office,’’ she said. “But I am glad to have it.’’
Six former city councilors are insured by Everett, plus 12 current ones.
In Kingston, 10 part-time elected officials receive town-subsidized
health coverage, including four Planning Board members, three Health
Board members, and a sewer commissioner, all of whom typically attend
two meetings a month.
“That’s the way it’s been done for a long time in Kingston,’’ said
Dennis Randall, vice chairman of the Board of Selectmen. “But in tough
times, everything should be under review.’’
The extension of benefits to local elected officials is one vivid
example of how generous many municipal health care plans are. In fact,
national data show that state and local government pay significantly
more for health benefits than private employers.
Municipal health care plans were once deemed affordable and have helped
cities and towns attract workers to the public sector, where salaries
have often been lower. Today, however, they stand out for their
comparatively low cost to subscribers and favorable terms.
Taxpayers now underwrite as much as 89 percent of active employees’
premiums in some of the state’s largest cities, while private-sector
employers often cover less than 70 percent, local and state data show.
As health care expenses have climbed for everyone, taxpayers - already
paying a generous share of municipal benefits - have been hit especially
hard as those benefits have grown more costly.
The insurance plans many cities and towns offer to employees, retirees,
and elected officials also require minimal out-of-pocket expenses, with
copayments for office appointments as low as $5. Most have copays for
emergency room visits of $25 or less.
By comparison, private-sector copays for office visits are typically at
least $20, sometimes more, with $75 copays standard for emergency room
visits, according to a survey of Massachusetts employers by the state
Division of Health Care Finance and Policy. Unlike most municipal plans,
private-sector plans also often force subscribers to pay thousands
annually in deductibles before insurers pay anything.
In addition, cities and towns are among the last employers to offer
costly indemnity plans, which provide virtually unrestricted medical
care. Though phased out in much of the private sector, indemnity plans
live on in about a third of Bay State municipalities, according to a
2008 survey by the Massachusetts Municipal Association.
Even with family HMO plans, which typically limit access within a
defined network of providers, municipal premiums are, in some cases, 30
percent higher than in the private sector, according to a Globe survey
of communities and state data.
Though cities and towns have some control over what benefits they
provide, they are limited by state law: Not only does the law subject
health benefits to local collective bargaining, the state also imposes
certain mandates on municipalities. Communities that offer health care
to active workers, for example, must also offer coverage to retirees.
The generous terms of municipal plans compound the problem, because they
create incentives for higher use: Low out-of-pocket costs - particularly
the minimal copays - encourage subscribers to use more medical services,
thus driving up the overall expense to communities.
“When a group uses a high number of services, high premiums result,’’
said Brian Pagliaro, senior vice president of Tufts Health Plan.
Among the communities that pay the highest family premiums are
Framingham, which spends $34,075 per family; Waltham, at $30,100; and
Everett, at $26,000.
“The municipal plans are rich plans,’’ said Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone of
Somerville. “They are very, very rich plans.’’
A boon for retirees
For taxpayers, there is no relief in sight, and for one simple reason:
Municipal health benefits are especially good in retirement, and the
number of retirees has grown by a steady 2.5 percent per year since
2001, in part because of longer life expectancies.
Under state law, any municipal employee with 10 years service is
eligible, in retirement, to get health care benefits for life from age
55, a benefit typically worth hundreds of thousands of dollars per
person. (People such as Debski, who have 20 years public service - she
worked 12 years in Salem before going to Everett - can immediately
qualify if they are terminated, regardless of their age.)
Most municipalities also grant spouses generous health care benefits.
In some cases, retirees and spouses live decades beyond the date of
retirement, the Globe found in a review of thousands of pages of
municipal retirement records. The widow of a Lynn police officer who
retired on disability in his 30s in 1953 is still receiving
city-subsidized insurance - 57 years later.
Less than one-quarter of private-sector retirees nationally receive any
health care benefits from their former employers, said Roland McDevitt,
director of health care research for the consulting firm Towers Watson.
Some cities and towns do not even compel retirees to use Medicare for
nonemergency care once they reach 65, in effect leaving millions of
dollars in federal subsidies on the table. Instead, retirees choose to
stick with the more generous, and more costly, municipal plans.
Communities, under a state law passed in 1991, can force employees to
enroll with Medicare, but only if the change is approved by the city
council or town meeting. In some places, that has proven politically
difficult, given the clout of active and retired municipal workers.
Boston, Lowell, and Lawrence are among those that have yet to adopt the
provision. In Boston alone, there are more than 1,500 retirees who are
eligible for Medicare but do not take it, costing the city almost $5
million, according to city estimates.
“Getting into Medicare is a tough vote,’’ said Condon, of Brockton.
“People don’t like change. And in Brockton, we have more than 700
retirees on the voting rolls.’’
Other municipal retirees don’t sign up for Medicare simply because they
are not eligible. Most police, firefighters, and teachers retire before
age 65, and are thus too young to be covered by the federal system. That
means cities and towns pay as much to insure them - at least until they
reach 65 - as they do to insure active employees.
Even when retirees are on Medicare, it is still expensive for
municipalities, because state mandates require communities to help cover
drug costs and other expenses not paid by the program. By contrast,
private-sector retirees are typically on their own.
“In the private sector, when you turn 65, most employers say, ‘Good luck
on Medicare,’ ’’ said McDevitt, the national health care consultant.
“And that’s it.’’
The Boston
Globe
Monday, March 1, 2010
SPECIAL REPORT - Part 2
Unions safeguard health benefits
Strapped towns seek law change
By Sean P. Murphy
Second of two parts
It was the spring of 2009, and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, staring at a $1
million shortfall for her city, had an idea: What if she could get
employees to pay more for their health care?
Salem had already trimmed 18 positions since 2008, partly to help offset
rising municipal health care costs, and Driscoll offered the city’s
eight unions a deal: No further layoffs if they agreed to raise, from $5
to $15, certain copayments. She even pledged to pay the first five
higher copayments for every worker.
“To my mind, it was a no-brainer,’’ Driscoll said. “But we got turned
down by all eight unions. One of them, the police, wouldn’t even discuss
it.’’
It is a familiar lament. Mayors, city and town leaders, and state
officials, including Governor Deval Patrick, have launched repeated
efforts to rein in the expense of providing health care to municipal
workers, retirees, and elected officials.
But organized labor, fiercely protective of its members, has largely
refused to budge, resisting local efforts to transfer more health care
costs to workers and move communities onto the state’s health care plan.
State lawmakers have shown little appetite for forcing an overhaul of
the system.
The state forbids cities and towns from shifting health care costs to
employees without bargaining with unions. It is this aspect of state law
that municipal officials say the Legislature must rewrite to address the
crisis.
Municipal unions and retiree groups, however, have for decades
cultivated close ties on Beacon Hill - spending generously in campaign
contributions - and have so far successfully fought major changes.
Nancy O’Donnell, president of the Salem Police Patrolmen’s Association,
which represents about 50 patrol officers, said police rejected
Driscoll’s proposal for higher copayments because just a year earlier
they had reluctantly agreed to her demand that officers pay an
additional 5 percent in premiums.
“We didn’t feel it was right to come back for more,’’ she said.
“Basically, we had to stand our ground.’’
O’Donnell bristled at the suggestion that employees should bear a
greater burden of health care costs. She said it was up to the mayor and
other City Hall officials to come up with “creative solutions’’ to the
budget crisis, including possible tax increases and better management.
Still, she said, “I really don’t know what the answer is.’’
In recent months, cities and towns from Braintree to North Reading have
tried to win similar health care concessions from unions. In Arlington,
town officials spent a year at the bargaining table before all unions
finally agreed in November to join the state’s health care plan, a move
the town said would save as much as $2.5 million annually. But at the
last moment, the teachers union backed out, killing the deal.
“It was terribly disappointing and discouraging,’’ said Brian F.
Sullivan, town manager. “Without the deal, we’re back to facing a
substantial budget deficit.’’
Robert McCarthy, president of the Professional Fire Fighters of
Massachusetts, an umbrella group for municipal firefighters, said unions
are not about to just give away health care benefits won in tough
negotiations over many years.
“It’s not like we’re just sucking this thing dry,’’ he said. “We go by
the law. We go by collective bargaining. That’s the system. What are we
supposed to do? Give them everything? They have to negotiate. That’s the
system.’’
Benchmarks set early
So how did we get to this impasse?
The Legislature first gave cities and towns the authority to provide
coverage in the 1950s, but only if approved by the local city council or
by town voters.
Many communities initially decided against providing benefits. Those
that did give them were limited by law to paying no more than 50 percent
of premiums. Across the state, about 10 percent of municipalities -
mostly towns - still adhere to that original 50 percent rate, including
Hingham, Barnstable, and Hudson, according to a 2008 Massachusetts
Municipal Association survey.
Lawmakers gradually gave cities and towns wider discretion in setting
the proportion of premiums they could pay. With health insurance
historically not a huge budget driver, some municipalities offered,
during contract negotiations, to pay a higher percentage in exchange for
lesser pay raises.
In 1989, the Legislature established a cap of 90 percent on municipal
contributions to HMO premiums. But that cap became a benchmark as many
unions fought to increase their benefits.
“Since that time, municipal unions have been aggressively resisting
municipal efforts to increase employees’ share of premium cost,’’ said
Paul Mulkern, an attorney who specializes in municipal health care law.
The Legislature decades ago also linked health care and pension
benefits. Anyone who qualifies for a pension qualifies for health care
coverage. But there is one key difference: With pensions, employees have
to work decades to earn full retirement benefits; with health care,
municipal employees, the moment they reach 10 years of service, are
entitled under state law to full benefits when they retire, from age 55.
This has made even relatively low-paying jobs, such as teachers’ aides
and school cafeteria workers, highly coveted.
“People understand the value of health care benefits, and there’s great
competition to get any job because of the benefits,’’ said Frank J.
Zecha, director of the Brookline retirement system.
Push for changes falling short
With great fanfare, Patrick in his 2007 inaugural address invited
municipalities into “a new partnership with state government,’’ one that
promised to bring long-sought relief from persistent increases in local
property taxes.
The Legislature responded by crafting a bill to allow cities and towns
to shift their employees and retirees from locally managed health care
plans to the state’s much larger, more flexible one, called the Group
Insurance Commission. Consolidating all municipal plans into the state
GIC would save more than $1 billion a year by 2018, according to
estimates by the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation and the Boston
Municipal Research Bureau, two nonpartisan business-backed watchdog
groups.
The GIC saves taxpayers money in two ways, including by requiring
employees, retirees, and elected officials to pay more out of pocket.
In contrast to cities and towns, the GIC is free by law to make changes
in the health care plans for its 265,000 subscribers without union
bargaining. As recently as Feb. 1, the GIC imposed higher copayments to
meet a funding shortfall. The GIC, in some cases, requires a $250 copay
for hospitalizations; in Boston, subscribers pay nothing.
The GIC also uses its market clout, as the state’s largest purchaser of
health care insurance, to get better rates, said Dolores L. Mitchell,
the GIC executive director. “We get better service because we are a
bigger customer,’’ she said.
But the bill allowing local communities into the state plan contained a
major catch. It required a 70 percent vote of a committee of local union
representatives before a municipality could join, effectively giving
teachers unions, typically the largest, a veto.
After some early interest, unions have shut the door, and the initiative
has fallen far short of expectations. In the first year the GIC was
offered, 10 municipalities, school districts, and charter schools
joined; the second year, there were 15. But then the exodus from local
plans ground almost to a halt; only Brookline and Hopedale have signed
up to join, as of July 1 of this year.
“The City of Boston would save more than $18 million a year if its
employees paid the same copays and deductibles as the state GIC,’’ said
Lisa Calise Signori, director of administration and budget for the city.
“That’s the entire budget for the Parks Department.’’
Leaders of communities that have joined the GIC say it has made a huge
difference. Springfield officials credit the GIC as a major factor in
the city’s recent financial turnaround. With Springfield’s finances
still shaky, the city’s unions agreed in 2007 to become the first
municipality in the GIC. The move lowered annual health care costs by
about $7 million.
“The city has definitely saved money,’’ said Linda Parent, Springfield’s
city insurance director. “Every study that’s been done shows it.’’
One study, conducted in 2009 by the University of Massachusetts-Boston
and Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, confirmed
Springfield’s savings.
There are two bills pending on Beacon Hill that would give cities and
towns the authority to reduce health care benefits without union
approval. One was filed by Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, the other by
the municipal association.
“It’s simple: Health insurance costs are unsustainable over the long
term,’’ Menino said. “The more we pay for health insurance, the less we
have for city programs.’’
Both bills remain in committee, and proponents are not optimistic they
will move forward. A separate measure on Beacon Hill originally included
a provision to give communities greater flexibility in setting health
care benefits, but it was deemed “too controversial’’ and removed, said
state Representative Paul J. Donato, Democrat of Medford, the bill’s
lead sponsor.
Meanwhile, even with greater attention in Massachusetts and nationally
toward reining in the expense of medical care, no one expects health
care costs to stop their rapid rise anytime soon.
“It’s a cataclysmic situation,’’ said Marc Waldman, Wellesley’s
treasurer. “Something has to happen.’’
The Boston
Globe
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
A Boston Globe editorial
Soaring municipal health costs cry out for a state overhaul
Municipal health care costs in Massachusetts are unjustified and
unsustainable. Curbing their excesses is an essential mission for the
governor and Legislature.
From 1999 to 2009, the cost of insuring municipal employees and retirees
surged from 8 percent of the budgets of Massachusetts cities and towns
to 14 percent, according to a Globe survey of 25 communities. That’s
hundreds of millions of dollars that are not going to property-tax
relief, schools, parks, law enforcement, or any other legitimate
government purpose. These costs are a yoke around Massachusetts, hurting
the state’s economic prospects.
Cities and towns have been happy to take state aid but have proven
incapable of using it wisely by cracking down on abuses in their own
payrolls. Lawmakers must enact a thorough overhaul of the system. Their
guiding principles should be to sharply reduce costs to taxpayers while
providing reasonable health-care coverage to all municipal employees and
retirees. People who worked for the government and expected to be
covered for life should remain covered. But no one should be exempt from
reasonable changes in coverage to bring municipal health costs more in
line with the private sector.
The problem to be overcome is twofold: Lifetime benefits promised to
workers for too-few years of public service, and a stubborn resistance
by the state’s Balkanized municipalities to seek savings in larger group
plans or by shifting eligible seniors onto Medicare.
Three reforms that should be enacted as soon as possible are:
• Cities and towns should be compelled to reassess such totally
unjustified practices as granting lifelong health benefits to people who
serve on local boards for as few as 10 years. In exchange for attending
as little as two meetings a month for that period, the officials get
lifetime coverage costing taxpayers as much as $30,000 per year. While
no current beneficiaries should lose coverage, such boondoggles must end
now.
• All beneficiaries over age 65 should be compelled to join Medicare.
The shift to the federally subsidized program would reap major savings -
$5 million per year in Boston alone. Under current law, cities and towns
have the option of moving eligible recipients to Medicare, but local
opposition has proved to be insurmountable in some places. The
Legislature should require all communities to make the switch.
• Cities and towns should be given the same ability to design their
health plans, without municipal worker union approvals, as the state now
employs for its own workers. The inefficiency is costing taxpayers as
much as $100 million a year, according to the Massachusetts Municipal
Association. A bill in the House offers a solution that is fair to both
employees and the people who pay their salaries. It would give
municipalities the authority to design their own health plans, including
raising copays and deductibles, provided that recipients get coverage on
par with state workers. Another good reform would be to allow city and
town officials to enroll their workers in the state Group Insurance
Commission plan without first getting union approval.
There are reasons why such sensible reforms have failed in the past.
Workers and retirees represent a disproportionate political constituency
in places where other citizens participate only sporadically in local
politics, and they refuse to give up such overly generous benefits as
doctor visits with copayments of $5 or less. The rest of the taxpayers
who are footing the bill should demand changes.
Rather than legislate for the greater good, the forces on Beacon Hill
tend to defer to local control. While the system of micromanagement, in
which each town operates its own services, has its appeals, it also has
weaknesses. And it is incumbent on the state to recognize those
weaknesses rather than submit to them.
More than money is at stake. Public confidence is eroded when taxpayers
feel that the government is being run primarily for the benefit of its
workers. Massachusetts lacks crucial infrastructure, and budget cuts are
eating away at such important civic services as libraries and summer
jobs for teenagers. The state’s ability to answer these challenges is
directly related to its ability to quell the perception that its workers
and officials are gaming the system.
Generations of reformers of both parties have failed to curb these and
similar excesses, or backed away in favor of more glamorous pursuits.
Now the perception that nothing can be done carries the day on Beacon
Hill. And yet those same representatives profess to be shocked when
voter anger surges against the system, as if they were victims of a
natural disaster rather than their own failure to grapple with the
state’s problems.
The deficiencies in the municipal health system are real. The solutions
are clear enough. Now something must be done.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 1, 2010
A Boston Herald editorial
Tax leaves a bad taste
Abington gets it.
Last week the Abington Board of Selectmen decided to take no action on a
proposal to impose a local tax of .75 percent on restaurant meals, which
would have brought the total state and local levy to 7 percent.
Like a number of their South Shore neighbors, selectmen in Abington
decided the amount of revenue the tax would generate - an estimated
$114,000 a year - wasn’t worth labeling Abington a tax-happy haven.
The local tax “may not seem like a lot, but what it says is Abington has
a meals tax,” board chairman Thomas Corbett told the Patriot Ledger.
And if you’re Joe Sub Shop deciding between Abington and nearby Hanover
or Rockland for your new location, well, wouldn’t that be part of the
equation?
The tax has generated big bucks for some communities - namely Boston. In
October, the most recent month for which figures are available, the tax
produced nearly $1.5 million in new revenue for the Hub (far less for a
community like Winthrop, which collected just under $8,000).
But frankly those sums pale in comparison to the savings that could be
generated by bolder municipal reforms, including a plan that would give
local officials broader authority to design health insurance plans for
municipal workers. In a “municipal relief” bill unveiled last week state
lawmakers, who approved the local meals tax championed by Gov. Deval
Patrick, conspicuously left that reform out.
About 70 communities have adopted the local meals tax, but we would ask
them the same thing the selectmen in Abington asked: Was it really worth
it?
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Hacks pocketing $2.5M in get-out-of-jail fees
Conflict of interest alleged,
but defenders say current system is ‘best we can do’
By Jessica Fargen
Almost 200 high-paid clerk magistrates and their assistants are padding
their pockets with thousands of dollars in bail fees, a little-known
perk payment that fiscal watchdogs say should go to the cash-strapped
commonwealth.
The $40 fees are incurred by suspects who pay bail set by clerk
magistrates and assistants after hours, when courts are closed. The fee
goes straight to the judicial staffers - on top of their salaries of
$84,000 to $110,000.
“This is a striking amount of money these fees are generating for these
clerks,” said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers
Foundation. “They are paid well. This should be part of their
responsibilities.”
Critics also warn of a possible built-in conflict of interest in the
system: Rather than receive a flat fee for every suspect, magistrates
collect the fee only if they set bail for a suspect and the bail is
paid, potentially creating an incentive to set low bail.
“It’s clearly a temptation. Clearly from the point of view of a purer
justice system, you don’t want this question to arise,” Widmer said. “It
doesn’t engender trust in the judicial system to have this inherent
conflict there.”
The fees are set by statute and can be changed only by the Legislature.
State Bail Administrator Michael J. McEneaney defends the system, saying
the fees were instituted to attract and retain employees who wouldn’t do
the after-hours work otherwise.
“Don’t trash it unless you have a better system you want to propose,” he
said.
Big bucks
Clerk magistrates and assistants - many of whom have lifetime
appointments - vastly boost their earnings with the fees compensating
them for the inconvenience of late-night and weekend trips to lockups.
At least one clerk nearly doubled his salary.
According to information provided by McEneaney:
• 191 clerk magistrates and assistants collected more than $2.5
million in fees in 2009.
• 77 of the 210 clerk magistrates and assistants, or 36 percent,
collected more than $15,000 each in fees in 2009; 24 collected more than
$25,000 each.
• 87 bail commissioners, about a third of whom also have state
jobs, collected an additional $734,000.
Clerks defend the system as just compensation for hard-working employees
doing overtime.
It’s “unrealistic to assume you should ask people to work beyond their
normal hours of employment without any sort of compensation,” said Keith
E. McDonough, clerk magistrate in Lawrence District Court and vice
president of the Association of Magistrates and Assistant Clerks.
McDonough earned $28,927 in fees last year.
The highest fee earner in 2009 was Worcester District Court First
Assistant Clerk Brendan T. Keenan, who made $54,990, bringing his
earnings to $147,024. From 2006 to 2009, he made $266,710 in fees. In
2007, he earned $76,170 in fees.
“It’s not easy work at all,” said Keenan, 58. “They can call me at 4 in
the morning and I’ll be there within half an hour.”
Keenan is on call one weekend a month and 11 weeknights a month, on
average about three times a week.
The second highest fee earner was Brockton District Clerk Magistrate
Kevin P. Creedon, who made $42,947 last year in fees, in addition to his
$110,221 salary, for $153,168. In four years, Creedon earned $203,078 in
fees.
Creedon didn’t return calls seeking comment over three days.
The bail fees aren’t the only instance of public employees pocketing
extra money for doing their jobs. The Herald reported this month that
Boston City Clerk Rosaria E. Salerno boosted her $100,000 salary with an
extra $68,000 from $60 fees for performing justice of the peace
weddings.
‘The best we can do’
The system has its genesis in part in court rulings: The Supreme
Judicial Court has said bail hearings must be held promptly, generally
within about six hours of an arrest, or constitutional issues could
arise, according to McEneaney. He notes that magistrates are not
required to do after-hours work, and warns the system would collapse
without the $40 incentive.
“None of this is perfect,” said McEneaney, who has been bail
administrator since 1979. “I think it’s the best we can do and the
fairest.”
Experts point out that the system mirrors that in the private sector.
Many private-sector employees, particularly those covered under union
contracts, receive extra pay for working overtime, said Fred Foulkes,
director of Boston University’s Human Resources Policy Institute.
And although the state may be missing out on millions in fees, at least
the suspect-funded system does not strain the Massachusetts coffers, he
noted.
“From a taxpayer perspective, I think it’s a very good deal,” he said.
“It’s not coming from the state’s budget.”
Years of controversy
The fees have been scrutinized in the past - most recently by a 2003
trial court commission that urged that the fees go to the state coffers
- but the issue has special urgency amid the grinding recession. The
court system has been hit by cutbacks and reductions as tax revenues
have declined.
Many courts have several assistant clerks on staff. Widmer suggested
that if after-hours duty were mandatory but rotated, the generously
salaried clerks’ on-call time could be spread around without the
necessity of extra compensation.
“One can distribute the burden of weekend work or evening work,” Widmer
said.
Eliminating the fee also could address ethical concerns. The 2003
commission, which examined state court management and reported to Chief
Justice Margaret Marshall, advised that the fee be taken away from
clerks to “eliminate the conflict of interest magistrates face when
making a judicial decision that can impact their personal finances.”
Requests made over three days to interview Marshall about bail fees were
denied.
McEneaney said magistrates and assistants are bound by the same
bail-setting guidelines as judges and don’t take the job lightly.
“Nobody here has a vested interest in doing anything other than the
best,” he said.
The Boston Globe
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Bridge work adds hefty detail bill
The BU Bridge has been narrowed to two lanes
By Noah Bierman
Police officers in reflective jackets and black ear flaps wave chatty
college students across the street with one hand and hold back lines of
Cambridge-bound cars with the other, part of a daily traffic control
army deployed to keep peace at one of the state’s most chaotic
intersections.
Since September, stationing six officers near the foot of the Boston
University Bridge for a pair of four-hour shifts has cost taxpayers more
than $200,000. Project managers overseeing the rehabilitation of the
82-year-old bridge had initially budgeted an eye-popping $2 million for
police details, but after questions from the Globe, they said the cost
would be closer to $850,000, and that they are launching a reassessment
of their traffic management plan in hope of further trimming the
spending.
“We are now evaluating the level of traffic control that is needed,’’
said Luisa Paiewonsky, administrator of the state’s highways. “We are
applying some fresh perspective.’’
Governor Deval Patrick has made curbing the expense of police details
one of his top political promises as he pledged a more accountable and
transparent system for rebuilding the state’s crumbling and neglected
bridges. But the BU Bridge continues to rely solely on sworn police
officers, a fact that transportation officials attribute to the
complexity of the traffic situation there. They say that not only are
they reevaluating the possible use of some civilian flaggers at the BU
Bridge, but they are also planning to use civilian flaggers in
combination with officers during upcoming work downriver on the
Longfellow Bridge.
Nearly all of the aging Charles River bridges connecting Boston with
Cambridge are scheduled for major renovations over the next five years,
part of a Patrick administration’s push to reduce the state’s roster of
dilap idated bridges, and a challenge to managing traffic between the
cities.
During construction, the BU Bridge has been narrowed from four lanes to
two. And this month, workers began two weeks of overnight work on the BU
Bridge that keeps it closed to most traffic from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. During
that period, four overnight police officers are assigned to escort
emergency vehicles and MBTA buses, which still have access.
The BU Bridge, built in 1928, is named for the Boston University campus
it abuts. The bridge is a key artery for the region’s research economy,
linking hundreds of thousands of workers, students, and residents with
major hospitals and universities in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline.
The bridge has been deteriorating for decades, and in need of
rehabilitation since at least 2001, when it was declared structurally
deficient. When the rehabilitation project is complete, the bridge will
have three lanes, instead of the current four, to create more room for
pedestrians and bicyclists.
On the Boston side, the intersection connects several major roads and
overpasses - including Commonwealth Avenue, a Storrow Drive ramp, and
Route 2 - along with thousands of pedestrians navigating Boston
University’s campus and bicyclists traveling to and from Cambridge. A
branch of the MBTA’s Green Line runs along Commonwealth Avenue at the
base of the bridge. When gridlock in the area begins, either because
pedestrians fail to yield the right-of-way or cars get stuck in an
intersection when the light changes, it reverberates through some of the
busiest roads in Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline.
“It’s a mess,’’ said Linda Beane, co-president of Cottage Farm
Neighborhood Association of Brookline. “It all just backs up into our
neighborhood, and specifically at my house.’’
Police officers and highway officials point out that the circumstances
around the bridge are highly unusual and say safety was the major factor
in assigning police.
“It’s an absolute traffic nightmare,’’ said Jim Carnell, a Boston Police
Patrolmen’s Association representative.
Patrick’s much-touted effort to curb police detail expenses paved the
way for legal changes two years ago that allowed the state to use
civilian flaggers in some cases.
Before the regulations, the cost of traffic control made up about 4.4
percent of the average costs of a roadside construction project. Last
year, after the regulations, the average cost fell to 3.1 percent,
according to the state. But the BU Bridge’s initial budget would have
put the police detail cost at more than 11 percent. Even at $850,000,
the costs would amount to 4.7 percent of the budget. (That does not
include $78,000 the state spent on police details for a sidewalk
reconstruction project on the bridge that was halted last spring, with
only one side complete.)
The legal changes affecting flaggers around construction sites left
engineers with discretion to use sworn police details, particularly in
high-volume, high-speed urban roadways. State transportation spokesman
Colin Durrant said the new rules were never intended to eliminate the
use of officers assisting with traffic control.
The new guidelines also required input from city officials and police
officers. Mayor Thomas M. Menino has been outspoken in his support of
using officers, and Boston police officers are receiving the bulk of the
assignments for the BU Bridge, with Brookline, Cambridge, and State
Police sharing the remainder.
“This is what was determined to be safe, and frankly, it appears to be
working,’’ said Boston’s transportation commissioner, Thomas J. Tinlin,
whose office helped draft the traffic control plan.
Police unions say that hiring civilians to do the job can cost as much
as $20 more on an hourly basis than police details. Carnell said the
conditions around the bridge demand officers, who have the right to
direct cars to disregard traffic lights to reduce congestion and enhance
safety.
State officials, even as they generally favor shifting more work to
civilian flaggers, acknowledge their hourly rate, which varies by job,
is usually higher. On the BU Bridge project, the cost for officers was
$40 per hour, compared with $48 an hour for civilians, at the time the
traffic plan was drawn up, according to Durrant.
But Durrant and other state officials say they save money using
civilians because they have greater control over the lengths of shifts
and the number of flaggers needed for each job.
The Massachusetts Department of Transportation took 16 days to respond
to a Globe request for a monthly accounting of police detail hours at
the BU Bridge. And even after responding this month, officials offered
conflicting information about the spending plan.
Paiewonsky attributed some of the confusion to a major reorganization
that merged highways from four different state agencies in November. The
BU Bridge reconstruction was initially planned by another state agency,
the Department of Conservation and Recreation, which oversaw the bridge
prior to the merger.
“We’re still experiencing some transitional issues,’’ she said.
Paiewonsky has ordered one of her deputies to review the use of all
police details and assess whether some of the shifts can be dropped or
replaced with civilian flaggers. She also wants the review to consider
changes in the traffic configuration, red light timing, and other
physical attributes around Commonwealth Avenue.
The contractors are behind by four months in the project’s initial
construction phase, though state officials say they believe contractors
can make up that time by the end of 2011, the official completion date
for the project.
The Boston Herald
Sunday, February 28, 2010
House mulls hiking car inspection fee
By Jessica Fargen
Motorists could be paying more to drive their cars under a legislative
plan that would hike auto inspection fees by $6 to pay for local and
state police training.
The proposal, which would raise auto inspection fees more than 20
percent - from $29 to $35 - is part of a municipal relief bill sent to
the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday for review.
The fee hike was one of dozens of recommendations in a 45-page report by
the Special Commission on Municipal Relief, which was created to come up
with ways to save cities and towns money amid steep state budget cuts.
State Rep. Paul Donato (D-Medford), who was co-chairman of the special
commission, defended raising inspection rates in a down economy, saying
it would save police money.
“It was something the commission felt would have a better impact on the
communities by allowing them to have the opportunity to have police
training,” he said.
The commission recommended the increase as a way to make up for the $27
million that was cut from the budget for training last year and this
year, Donato said.
Other measures in the bill would reduce the number of poll workers
required on Election Day and help communities with school
regionalization, police and fire mutual-aid agreements and e-billing for
municipal services.
The Boston Herald
Monday, March 1, 2010
Gov. Deval Patrick keeps driving up RMV fees
Critics slam new $5 fee for basic branch services
By Hillary Chabot and Edward Mason
Gov. Deval Patrick is quietly whacking beleaguered Bay State motorists
with a $5 fee to use Registry of Motor Vehicle branches to renew their
licenses and registrations, outraging critics who say the “back-door
tax” hits poor and elderly drivers the hardest.
The fee, which goes into effect today, comes on the heels of a $10
license renewal increase last year.
“In this economic climate we shouldn’t be nickel-and-diming people for
mandated services,” said state Sen. Steve Baddour (D-Methuen), who
co-chairs the Legislative Transportation Committee, and is planning to
look into repealing the fee.
Republicans said residents ought to be able to walk in and use their RMV
branches without penalty.
“This is a back-door tax that hits the poor and elderly the hardest,”
said Tarah Donoghue, spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Republican Party.
“They can’t afford or don’t have Internet access and computers. The
Patrick-Murray administration is burdening those people who can afford
it the least.”
Customers will incur the new $5 fee if they speak with an RMV
representative on the phone or go in to one of the 30 branches for the
following services:
• Renewing your driver’s license (except for the 10-year renewal
required in person);
• Getting a duplicate license or Massachusetts ID;
• Renewing your registration; or
• Requesting an attested driving record.
The fee won’t be charged for transactions completed online, by mail, or
over the RMV’s automated phone system.
“We want to discourage people from going to the branches,” said Ann
Dufresne, a spokeswoman for the Registry of Motor Vehicles.
The RMV recorded only 1.8 million online transactions last year for the
4.7 million licensed drivers and the 5.8 million vehicles on the road.
The RMV has done little to raise awareness of the fee. It was mentioned
on an obscure RMV blog posting on Saturday. An internal memo obtained by
the Herald says there will not be a promotion of the fee.
“Customer advertising . . . will not include the administrative fee
separately, but rather the stated renewal or duplicate fee will be
listed as $5 greater,” wrote RMV officials in the memo.
Dufresne said the fee hike wasn’t a secret. It has been in the works
since it was proposed in April 2009 as part of a series of new fees
aimed at raising $75 million. The Legislature approved the package in
August, she said.
The fee isn’t a hardship to elderly or low-income Bay Staters, Dufresne
said, because they can perform the same tasks for free over the
telephone or through the mail if they don’t have Web access.
The Boston Herald
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Blindsided pols take aim at RMV fee
By Hillary Chabot and Ira Kantor
Outraged state senators on both sides of the aisle today will push to
overturn a “brutal” Registry of Motor Vehicles fee slapped on drivers
who conduct some business in person instead of online after a Herald
report revealed the cost hike.
“It doesn’t seem quite fair,” said Senate President Therese Murray
(D-Plymouth). “I assume the members might (vote to eliminate the $5
fee). We didn’t even know it had happened until we read it (in the
Herald).”
The $5 charge, which the RMV began charging yesterday, applies to
drivers who want to renew their registration or license with the help of
a Registry employee - either at an office or over the phone.
Rep. Joseph Wagner (D-Chicopee), co-chairman of the Legislative
Transportation Committee, slammed the administration for springing the
fee on the public.
“I think the element of surprise is what angered people, and rightly so.
I’m angry as well,” Wagner said. “Given the way this has been packaged,
I would take a serious look at supporting a rollback.”
Sen. Richard R. Tisei (R-Wakefield) is attaching an amendment to ban the
fee to a safe-driving bill under consideration in the Senate today.
The bill bans texting while driving and requires a vision test for
drivers over 70 years old.
“The governor is using the Registry as a cash cow. They’ve been cutting
services at the same time they hike the costs,” said Tisei, who is
running for lieutenant governor against Democratic incumbent Timothy
Murray.
Registry of Motor Vehicle spokeswoman Ann Dufresne said the charge is
part of a series of changes detailed by Gov. Deval Patrick last year and
is meant to encourage the use of online services.
Those who renew via mail, the Internet or an automated phone system
won’t face the charge, Dufresne said.
The revolt against the fee - which critics say unfairly targets the poor
and the elderly - came as grumpy Bay State drivers encountered the new
charges yesterday.
“The waiting is brutal as it is,” said Evelyn Cruiz, 45, of Dorchester.
She was hit with the new fee as she renewed her registration at the
Chinatown branch. “The fact that you stand here and get a $5 charge,
it’s very brutal.”
The Boston Globe
Friday, February 26, 2010
Many giving up seats in Legislature
30 could retire or seek new office
By Stephanie Ebbert
About 30 seats in the Massachusetts Legislature could open up this year
as state lawmakers abandon posts they held for years, or even decades,
to run for other offices or retire.
As a result, the Legislature appears poised for one of its biggest
overhauls in years, amid the taint of a corruption probe, anti-incumbent
voter sentiment, and a Republican revolt fueled by the surprise election
of Scott Brown to the US Senate.
Democrats hastened to note that most of the departing lawmakers are
running for other posts, including sheriff in numerous counties, and the
state Senate seat vacated by Brown.
Whatever the reasons for leaving, Republicans are hoping to capitalize
on Brown’s success to make inroads in the Democrat-dominated
Legislature, especially as the majority party loses some experienced
members. They include Representative Marie St. Fleur of Dorchester, who
had held onto her seat after tax and financial problems dragged her out
of the lieutenant governor race in 2006, and state Senator Joan M.
Menard, who was first elected to the Legislature in 1979, and who would
have faced a Democratic primary challenger.
The GOP will also lose incumbents. In addition to Brown, Senate minority
leader Richard R. Tisei is leaving to run for lieutenant governor. That
leaves just three GOP incumbents in the 40-member Senate. At least five
of 16 Republicans are also stepping down from the 160-member House.
A number of departing legislators yesterday said their decisions are
purely personal.
State Representative Denis E. Guyer, a 43-year-old Dalton Democrat, said
he wants to spend more time with his 6-year-old, instead of traveling
the 150 miles from his sprawling 22-town district to Beacon Hill. Yes,
his seat was previously held for years by a Republican, and, yes, a
Republican had announced a challenge. But, he said: “I’m in a very, very
solid Democratic district. I did not get the feeling they were ready to
throw me out.’’
Senator Marian Walsh, Democrat of West Roxbury, who nearly accepted
Governor Deval Patrick’s appointment to a $175,000 patronage job that
had been vacant for a dozen years, declined to speak about her decision
to leave this year but said in a statement: “I have loved serving the
public and being a legislator. I am very grateful to my constituents. It
is time now to love something else.’’
Some departing legislators have been tarred by scandal, including
Representative Robert P. Spellane, Democrat of Worcester, whom
Republican Party spokeswoman Tarah Donoghue dubbed the poster child for
all that is wrong on Beacon Hill. In recent years, Spellane was fined
for diverting money from his campaign account for personal use;
embroiled in a nasty divorce with his wife; and involved in a public
altercation with her and her brother at a Little League field, according
to the Worcester Telegram and Gazette.
Republicans are expected to seize on ethics scandals that have forced
several Democrats out of the Legislature in recent years. Former senator
Dianne Wilkerson is awaiting a federal trial on charges that she took
bribes, and former senator James Marzilli stepped down after being
accused of accosting several women. Salvatore F. DiMasi, the former
House speaker, was indicted in a federal corruption probe after his
resignation in January 2009, just three weeks after his Democratic
colleagues reelected him speaker during an ethics scandal.
DiMasi is accused of taking money from a software firm he helped to win
a state contract. Republicans were thrilled at news yesterday that
DiMasi’s trial is expected to begin in September, during the campaign.
“Any incumbent who voted for Sal DiMasi has a target on their back,’’
said Jason Kauppi, a Republican consultant. “Scandal was everywhere
around him. They still voted for this guy. Someone has to take
responsibility for condoning the culture of corruption.’’
Representative William G. Greene Jr. did not vote for DiMasi’s continued
leadership (voting for himself instead), but he is retiring anyway.
Greene, 69, said his wife has retired, and he wants to join her. Asked
whether he was influenced by the political climate, he said: “If I
hadn’t decided, that certainly would have helped me decide. But I had
decided a long time ago.’’
Twenty members of the House and Senate have already announced they are
not running again, according to Massachusetts Democratic Party chairman
John Walsh, and more are expected if other political opportunities arise
in coming weeks, for instance, if veterans like US Representative
William D. Delahunt step aside and create a domino effect of other
vacancies.
Three seats in the Legislature are already vacant, including the House
seat vacated by William Lantigua, a Democrat who is also the mayor of
Lawrence and who resigned under pressure as his city sought state help
with a $35 million loan.
Special elections are scheduled to replace the other two in the Senate:
Brown, who went to Washington, D.C., after he was elected to the US
Senate, and Anthony Galluccio, a Cambridge Democrat and repeat drunk
driver who was jailed for failing a breath alcohol test while on house
arrest.
The decisions seem to mirror a trend on the national level in which
congressmen - including US Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, US
Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, and US Senator Evan Bayh
of Indiana - have announced their intentions to step aside.
“It would seem that people are deciding that now is the time to get out,
better to bow out than to lose,’’ said Kauppi. “I think you’re probably
going to see more of that in the coming weeks because they need to get
out of the race and allow someone else to run and get the signatures.’’
But John Walsh, the Democratic Party chairman, is unwilling to cede any
ground to Republicans, pointing to history as his guide. In 2004,
Governor Mitt Romney introduced 131 Republican candidates and led a $3
million effort to boost Republican representation in the Legislature.
Instead, the GOP lost three seats that year. In 2008, Walsh noted,
Democrats reclaimed every one of the 15 open seats.
“Some people feel like the world changed on Jan. 19,’’ he said, pointing
to the date of Brown’s victory in the special election. “But last time
there were 15 open seats and when the dust settled, every single one of
them had been filled by a Democrat. And three of these had been filled
by a Republican the year before.’’
State House News
Service
Monday, March 1, 2010
Report calls for bigger state spending cuts,
warns of $5 Billion budget cap
By Michael Norton and Jim O’Sullivan
While Gov. Deval Patrick says his budget proposal features $800 million
in spending cuts, a business-backed group on Monday called for deeper
spending reductions, highlighting the governor’s inclusion of $2.1
billion in one-time funds and tax cuts headed for the November ballot
that threaten to open up a “huge” hole in the state budget for next
year, when the state could have a new governor.
According to a new bulletin from the non-partisan Massachusetts
Taxpayers Foundation (MTF), whose board includes executives from some of
the state’s largest companies, the state budget gap for fiscal 2012,
which begins July 1, 2010, would be $5 billion if a pair of ballot
questions cutting the sales tax pass in November.
The ballot questions, which reduce the sales tax to 3 percent from 6.25
percent and repeal last year’s application of the sales tax to retail
alcohol sales, would take effect on Jan. 1, 2011 if approved and would
drain $1.2 billion in revenues from the state’s budget base in the last
six months of fiscal 2011 alone.
MTF President Michael Widmer told the News Service Monday the group does
not have a formal position on either ballot question but would “likely”
oppose the sales tax cut.
Widmer said the two tax cuts would remove $2.5 billion a year from the
tax base and the sales tax cut would lead to “massive cuts” in local aid
and an “utter disaster” on the budget front.
“We’ve got this huge structural deficit in fiscal 2012 even if the
ballot questions aren’t approved by the voters,” Widmer said. “If they
are, it’s a $5 billion hole.”
House budget chief Charles Murphy said passage of the two proposals
would leave the state budget “in a world of hurt.”
“I get the sense that this is something that people are just starting to
think about,” he said.
Patrick aides say his spending plan features a blended approach to
budget-balancing, including some new revenues from taxes – on candy and
soda, for instance, and through the scaling back of film and life
sciences industry tax breaks - spending cuts and the use of federal
stimulus law and rainy day reserve funds.
But the foundation is recommending an additional $700 million in
spending cuts next fiscal year, to reduce the use of one-time revenues
to $1.4 billion, Widmer said. The report says one-time revenues account
for 75 percent of the governor’s fiscal 2011 budget fixes and calls that
“the major concern” with his spending plans.
In addition to more spending cuts, the foundation, claiming Patrick’s
$175 million rainy day fund draw could trigger a downgrade in the
state’s credit rating, is calling on the Legislature to build up the
rainy day account but not making that withdrawal and by directing to the
account $160 million in anticipated Medicare reimbursements and $300
million from debt restructuring. The changes could build the account up
to more than $1 billion.
The foundation predicts that next year “there will be virtually no
reserves to count on” and “no possibility that the economic recovery
will produce sufficient revenues” to close the state’s persistent
structural budget gap – a chasm measured in billions rather than
millions in recent years.
While lamenting the alleged delaying of spending cuts until fiscal 2012,
the MTF describes the level funding of most accounts in Patrick’s budget
for fiscal 2011 as “good news.” In an interview, Widmer explained the
dueling sentiments, “The bad news trumps the good news, is another way
of saying it,” he said.
Both the House and Senate budget chiefs said they intended to make use
of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds.
Sen. Steven Panagiotakos said, “The problem with ARRA is: is the federal
government going to wean us off it, or is it just going to be cold
turkey because if it is, just on the [federal medical assistance], that
would be a $1.3 billion problem in FY ’12.”
Murphy said the plan that emerges from his committee would contain more
severe spending reductions than Patrick’s blueprint. “We are going to
have deeper cuts,” the Burlington Democrat said.
“We’ve got to do the math. We’re not doing revenue [increases],” Murphy
said.
Murphy said legislative leaders were working to agree on a figure for
the level of aid the Legislature will set aside for municipalities, and
hoped to reach a compromise before local budget deliberations.
“Obviously, you want one in place before that season kicks off in
earnest,” Murphy said.
Panagiotakos agreed that the Legislature would need to trim more
aggressively than Patrick. Asked how much, he replied, “I’m not sure
yet, we’re doing that analysis now. It’s about building a sustainable
budget.”
The Lowell Democrat said he expected revenues to grow at a “much lower
level” than they did in the years leading up to the current recession.
The foundation says it’s “striking” that Patrick proposes as much
spending next year as the state approved for spending in fiscal 2009,
yet is based on forecasted tax revenues of $19.05 billion, or $2.35
billion less than the $21.4 billion projection used to build the fiscal
2009 spending bill.
Patrick has described his bill as a $28.2 billion spending plan; MTF
says the bottom line, after taking into account spending rendered
“off-budget,” totals $31.7 billion. Widmer did not quarrel with the
administration’s bottom line and said the foundation’s tabulation
offered a fuller accounting of spending.
Administration officials have defended heavy usage of one-time federal
stimulus funds and monies from the state’s rainy day account, saying
both sources of revenue are intended to preserve essential services and
to help the state deal with budget emergencies.
The foundation hasn’t taken a position on expanded gambling, which is
expected to consume legislative attention soon on Beacon Hill, and
doesn’t plan to, Widmer said. The issue features potential major
budgetary ramifications and Widmer said his group planned to conduct an
analysis of revenue claims made by casino proponents.
“It would be nice if the numbers were realistic. What happened last time
during debate the proponent sit became so exuberant that the revenues
were basically going to solve all of the state’s fiscal ills
forevermore. There wasn’t’ a part of the budget that wasn’t going to be
solved. I hope the debate has some realism about what can be expected in
terms of real revenues.”
House Speaker Robert DeLeo said Monday that a bill sanctioning expanded
gambling in Massachusetts is likely to be released in a "two- or
three-week period" and that the House would likely debate it in late
March or early April.
Other observations included in the MTF bulletin:
• Medicaid and health insurance for state employees and retirees
account for $1.14 billion in proposed spending increases in Patrick’s
fiscal 2011 budget, with the “vast majority” of other programs funded at
fiscal 2010 levels. Despite $265 million in cost savings, Medicaid would
still increases by $909 million, or nearly 10 percent.
• Enrollment in the state health plan run by the Group Insurance
Commission is nearing 198,000, growing by 20,000 this fiscal year with
7,800 more workers scheduled to join in July, including 4,000 from
municipalities, nearly 1,400 from the former Massachusetts Turnpike
Authority, nearly 1,600 from the MBTA, and about 600 from county sheriff
offices.
Senate President Therese Murray said Monday that the state Group
Insurance Commission “can’t handle” taking on the employees of every
city and town in the state, even as state officials have sought to
induce more municipalities to sign up. “It’s not possible to bring them
all in,” she said, pointing to the administrative costs of adding
thousands of enrollees.
• Commonwealth Care, the subsidized insurance program created by
the state’s 2006 health care law, receives a $115 million increase under
Patrick’s budget, to $838 million, to address an increase in enrollment
of 20,000.
• The bulletin says Patrick’s budget includes $220 million in
spending cuts, but Widmer said cuts and other efforts to mine
efficiencies total $600 million in savings, with another $200 million
more tied to debt restructuring.
Investor's Business Daily
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Class Warfare's Next Target: 401(k) Savings
By Newt Gingrich and Peter Ferrara
You did the responsible thing. You saved in your IRA or 401(k) to
support your retirement, when you could have spent that money on another
vacation, or an upscale car, or fancier clothes and jewelry. But now
Washington is developing plans for your retirement savings.
BusinessWeek reports that the Treasury and Labor departments are asking
for public comment on "the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual
Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams."
In plain English, the idea is for the government to take your retirement
savings in return for a promise to pay you some monthly benefit in your
retirement years.
They will tell you that you are "investing" your money in U.S. Treasury
bonds. But they will use your money immediately to pay for their
unprecedented trillion-dollar budget deficits, leaving nothing to back
up their political promises, just as they have raided the Social
Security trust funds.
This "conversion" may start out as an optional choice, though you are
already free to buy Treasury bonds whenever you want. But as Karl
Denninger of the Market Ticker Web site reports: "'Choices' have a funny
way of turning into mandates, and this looks to me like a raw admission
that Treasury knows it will not be able to sell its debt in the open
market — so they will effectively tax you by forcing your 'retirement'
money to buy them."
Moreover, benefits based on Treasury bond interest rates may be woefully
inadequate compensation for your years of savings. As Denninger adds,
"What's even worse is that the government has intentionally suppressed
Treasury yields during this crisis (and will keep doing so by various
means, including manipulating the CPI inflation index) so as to
guarantee that you lose over time compared to actual purchasing power."
This proposal follows hearings held last fall by House Education and
Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim
McDermott, D-Wash., of the Ways and Means Committee focusing on
"redirecting (IRA and 401k) tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed
retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to
contribute," as reported by InvestmentNews.com.
The hearings examined a proposal from professor Teresa Ghilarducci of
the New School for Social Research in New York to give all workers "a
$600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government" in
return for requiring workers "to invest 5% of their pay into a
guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security
Administration."
Argentina provided a precedent in 2008, taking over that country's
private retirement accounts for forced investment in government bonds to
cover spiraling deficits. Ambrose Evans-Pritchard editorialized at the
time in Britain's Daily Telegraph that this may be "a foretaste of what
may happen across the world as governments discover .. . that the bond
markets are unwilling to plug the (deficit) gap. . .. My fear is that
governments in the U.S., Britain and Europe will display similar
reflexes."
This is just the latest chapter in what is developing into a war by the
left on America's seniors. All that class-war rhetoric about "the rich"
ends up targeting seniors, who tend to have accumulated the most in
savings and investment on average because they have been around the
longest.
President Obama, House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid
targeted seniors for hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts to finance
expanded Medicaid for the poor and other new entitlements in the
ObamaCare health care takeover legislation. If you liked your health
insurance, you were supposed to be able to keep it, except for the 25%
of seniors who had chosen Medicare Advantage private health plans for
their Medicare coverage.
Even the Medicare actuaries estimated that most of those seniors would
lose their Medicare Advantage coverage because of all the ObamaCare cuts
for those plans. Obama has even begun rationing for seniors under
Medicare by slashing payments to heart and cancer specialists serving
seniors under that program.
All of this reflects a fundamental problem underlying socialist economic
policies. If the government keeps punishing responsibility and rewarding
failure, society ends up with a lot less responsibility and a lot more
failure, destroying prosperity in the process.
As former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said, "The trouble
with socialism is you run out of other people's money to spend." And now
they want to spend our retirement savings.
Congressional Republicans should introduce legislation to block the
government from ever proceeding with anything like this. Call it the
"Keep Your Hands Off My 401(k) Act of 2010."
Gingrich is former speaker of the House. Ferrara is director of
entitlement and budget policy for the Institute for Policy Innovation.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation
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▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
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