The Boston Herald
Sunday, October 27, 2002
The Buzz
Gone too far
Bone-headed bigot of the week award goes to the fledgling
anti-tax morons at Citizens for Limited Taxation, who apparently think that just being Italian means you're a crook.
To wit: CLT's coat-holder Chip Ford sent out a screed
railing on the expected election of East Boston state Sen. Robert Travaglini as Senate president. The missive accurately
points out that Trav's election, coupled with a victory by gubernatorial hopeful Shannon O'Brien,
would create a powerful troika of allies atop the state government.
Trav's brother, Michael, is O'Brien's top deputy and Shannon
is pretty tight with House Speaker Tom Finneran.
But that's not enough for Ford, who says the two Travs at
the top would be like "handing the keys to the State House to Tony Soprano."
Ford falls into the tired Massachusetts mistake of taking a
good whack just a little too far and, in the process, shows himself as just another hack with a megaphone.
Hey, Chip, take Barbara Anderson with you and get a real
job.
Elisabeth J. Beardsley, David R. Guarino, Howie Carr, Ellen J.
Silberman and Joe Battenfeld contributed to this column.
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The Boston Herald
Wednesday, October 23, 2002
Senate president deal loads hack trough to brim
by Howie Carr
Sen. Bob Travaglini - Bobby Trav - says he can't believe how
darned lucky Massachusetts is to have his brother, Mike, in such a potentially high office come January.
"Government is crying out," the next Senate president was
saying yesterday, "for such a talented individual. I'm just glad that my brother is such a very bright, personable and
articulate individual - and if he gets much more publicity, maybe people are gonna think I
went to Harvard and Georgetown, instead of where I did go, which was Boston State."
That college stuff is on Trav's Web site, by the way. What
doesn't seem to be there is how he made his bones in politics - as a precinct captain for then-Mayor Kevin White. Bobby
Trav, who was on the payroll as an "administrative assistant," ran Ward 1, Precinct 12 - the
Orient Heights library.
His boss in the mayor's East Boston crew was DeeDee
Coviello. His underboss was Sonny Buttiglieri. Sonny's dad was a state rep and his son has a $52,624-a-year job at Massport,
and his sister-in-law Karen worked in Trav's office, where she replaced a woman named
Paula whose husband has a $71,604-a-year Massport job....
The Travaglinis are into, ahem, public service. There's
Bobby Trav the new Senate president and Mike Travaglini, the $113,300-a-year top deputy to Treasurer Shannon O'Brien, who
may or may not be the next governor.
For some people, this is Trav overload. Yesterday, an
anti-tax group sent out an e-mail about the possible coming dominance of state government by the firm of O'Brien, Finneran,
Travaglini and Travaglini.
"It'd be like handing the keys to the State House," they
said, "to Tony Soprano."
Bobby Trav was asked to comment on the comparison.
"Hey, they're entitled to their opinion. It's a democracy. I
believe in democracy."
Funny thing about democracy around here. It's starting to
look a lot like Boston City Hall in 1979. Trav was with Kevin, obviously. The current mayor, Mumbles Menino, was a
coatholder for White's archrival, Jailbird Joe Timilty. The House Speaker,
Tommy Finneran, was with the Finnegan mob, and Kevin White had a contract out on him.
In 23 years, the only thing that has changed is that some of
them have walked up to the State House.
For the record, let's place all the other Travaglini
brothers in their current jobs. Al, the oldest, is at Boston College. Paul has worked at the post office his whole adult
life. As for Joe, I seem to remember him on the payroll of the Boston Water & Sewer Commission, but he's
gone legit, or at least semi-legit. He's at Merrill Lynch.
You know who else must be really excited about the ascension
of Bobby Trav? Gus Serra, the ex-state rep from Eastie and Trav's longtime pal. Gus lost his hack job at Massport after
9/11. He was just a little too high profile, with the SUV and the $130,000 salary and the aide
from the State House named Emilio making 100 large.
Moses wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, but Gus only
had to spend 13 months in purgatory. Gus is baaaack, and may I suggest a name for the lobbying firm that Gus will now
surely start.
There used to be a guy in Eastie named Goldberg who had an
outfit named Park 'n' Fly. Gus should call his firm Pay 'n' Fly.
While Bobby Trav's victory is obviously great news for the
Travaglinis, it's not quite such a plus for Mike Trav's boss, Shannon O'Brien, who seems to be wilting a bit in her tight
race against Mitt Romney.
First she had to answer for her father the governor's
councilor, and then for her husband the ex-rep and ex-lobbyist. Now it's her top aide's brother.
As for the Travaglinis, if Shannon wins, what a Thanksgiving
they'll have over in Eastie. Do you think they'll invite their cousin, Billy Martino? Remember Martino - the Big Dig's
"community liaison" for Eastie who retired after a hilarious photo-filled expose of his work
day in this newspaper.
I asked Bobby Trav, is Billy Martino still on a public
payroll?
"Oh no, he's back at the pipefitters' union."
Temporarily anyway. Come January, Gus may need a couple of
associates over at Pay 'n' Fly, and Billy Martino's got the right bloodlines. Now, if his cousins the Travaglinis could
just do something about his work ethic.
Howie Carr's radio show can be heard every weekday afternoon on
WRKO AM 680, WHYN AM 560, WGAN AM 560, WEIM AM 1280, WXTK 95.1 FM or online at
howiecarr.org.
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The Boston Globe
Sunday, October 27, 2002
Making the case for Question 1
By Jeff Jacoby
Question 1 on the Massachusetts ballot would abolish the
state income tax. If enacted it will eliminate as much as $9 billion in government revenue and force a radical downsizing of
the state's budget and operations. That is exactly the purpose for which its authors designed it: to
make state government small. Libertarian Party candidate Carla Howell has been the
public face of Question 1, and has campaigned for it largely on the grounds that it will spur
tremendous economic growth and that "small government is beautiful."
But other than Howell's, no public voice supports Question
1. It is opposed by more or less the whole of the Massachusetts establishment: by Democrat Shannon O'Brien, who warns
that it "goes too far;" by Republican Mitt Romney, who labels it "too extreme;" by the
Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation (a business lobby, despite its name), which calls it "the
most potentially destructive ... initiative ever;" by the Boston Herald, which
says "it would be a catastrophe;" by The Boston Globe, which dismisses it as "pernicious;" and by every
elected official on Beacon Hill.
But the establishment is wrong. Massachusetts can thrive
without an income tax, just as nine other states, including Florida and Washington, do. Repealing the income tax would be a
revolutionary change, and revolutions are by definition unsettling. They alarm people who
cannot conceive of anything but the status quo, and are resisted by those with a vested
interest in keeping things as they are. So naturally the establishment candidates predict
disaster if Question 1 passes.
"I don't think we could possibly have schools, care for our
elderly, or care for the poor if we cut our budget by more than a billion dollars," Romney said during the first five-way
debate On Oct. 9. When Howell pointed out that Question 1 would increase the average taxpayer's
take-home pay by $3,000, O'Brien was derisive.
"If you give someone back $3,000," she snorted, "they can't
build a road. They can't build a school. Three thousand dollars is not enough money to educate your child, to send your
parent to a nursing home, to make sure we build good roads and bridges.... All these things
are supported by our government."
That's emotion talking, not reason. Claiming that there
would be no schools if the government didn't build them is as silly as claiming that there would be no homes or churches if
the government didn't build them. We don't depend on the government for the food we eat, the
cars we drive, or the clothes we wear. We would laugh at anyone who claimed that only
the state can provide us with access to the Internet, consumer credit, daily newspapers, or dental
hygiene. It is equally laughable to claim that the state is indispensable to
nursing-home care for the elderly or education for the young.
Some years back, worried that its federal subsidies were
about to be cut, PBS launched an ad campaign to bolster support for them. Its theme was "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?"
Who will provide high-quality TV programming, that is, without government funding? The
obvious answer was: The private sector will - and does. Amid the vast wasteland of
lowbrow TV are many oases, from C-SPAN to Arts & Entertainment to The Learning
Channel. Good programming doesn't depend on the government. Neither do most things.
Enacting Question 1 would not wipe out state government. It
would cut a $23 billion budget to $14 billion, or roughly where it was in 1993 - not exactly the Dark Ages. In so doing, it
would administer a badly needed rebuke to a Legislature that routinely treats the public with
contempt and thinks the best answer to every question is new taxes. It would occasion a
far-reaching debate on the state's real priorities: $14 billion will buy a lot, but it won't buy
everything. It will remove $9 billion from the clammy grip of the bureaucracy and plow it
back into the Bay State economy - with spectacular results.
Romney, O'Brien, and the rest of the establishment make the
PBS argument: If state government doesn't do it, who will? The answer is that we will - and we will generally do it
more efficiently, more intelligently, and more flexibly than the state.
And this is where Carla Howell is wrong. Small government
isn't beautiful. What is beautiful is what small government makes possible: a flourishing civil society.
Shrink state government and a hive of creative private
activity will take its place. Individuals and organizations will form what Edmund Burke called the "little platoons" of a
free society - the voluntary associations that have been the wellspring of so much that is useful and humane
in American life. From feeding the poor to paying for medicine to promoting
the arts, countless functions that the government does badly, private societies can do well. Question 1
would give them the chance to blossom and grow, and Massachusetts would become for
all of us a happier, healthier place.
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