[UPDATE: and here it is! Have at it, oh ye wonks!]
Well, for all the state budgetary wonks out there, this will be a banner year. Patrick’s administration has promised transparency in the budget process, and David says that includes comparisons with past spending, searchability, and the ability to download the spreadsheet. Very nice.
David also posts summary information from the Patrick administration, both on resolving the deficit, and why the deficit happened in the first place.
There’s one thing that seriously bugs the crap out of me. As David says, this budget is hardly a spending spree. He cites:
Interesting true fact: the Governor’s proposed budget is only 4% higher than last year’s General Appropriations Act (GAA) as enacted, and less than 1% above last year’s total spending (including supplementals). Not exactly a spending spree.
But according to the idiots on Channel 7 it is. That’s the phrase - “Spending Spree” they used to start their broadcast early this morning on the budget news item, completely with Patrick photo. Because we all know, pandering to stereotypes is easier than actually doing the thinking work and explaining the facts. Here’s my letter to Channel 7:
I was watching your channel news this morning (early AM, around 6:15) when I spotted a misleading and biased headline. It was on a story talking about the Patrick budget announcement.
A picture of Patrick, and underneath, the phrase “Spending Spree” accompanied the story.
You leave the impression that you wish to further the false impression that Democrats are just “tax and spend.” If it were a Romney budget proposal I doubt you would have used this pithy, untruthful, and rather damaging phrase. You should be more concerned with accuracy than cute headlines that appeal to stereotypes, for once. Maybe you’d stop losing viewers.
First, how misleading was the use of “spending spree”? Well, Patrick’s budget is just 4% of an increase in spending, barely more than inflation. After the severe cuts to local aid, universities, education, public parks, and numerous other services of the Commonwealth under 4 years of the absent Mitt Romney, it’s like we’ve taken three steps backward, and finally one step forward. And because of [those previous cuts], we’ve had increases in property taxes across the Commonwealth, we now rank nearly dead-last (behind Mississippi!) in spending on higher education, when so much of our economy depends on it.
You call that a “spending spree”? And you news people wonder why the decline in news viewer and readership, when you pass off frivolity as news on serious issues like the discussion we should be having on our budgetary priorities?
You can send them their own email if you like.
Tonight’s City Council meeting has only one City Council Motion but it is an extremely important one. CC Jim Milinazzo is requesting that the proposed State Senate legislation on “Cable Competition and Choice for Consumers” be discussed in a meeting of the Cable/Comcast Sub-Committee.
The legislation “would enable companies seeking to offer cable television to get approval from the state rather than cities and towns.” (more…)
This is my governor (video). There is no win-lose scenario here. Just economic opportunity, a better environment, mitigating global climate crisis, jobs, and the preservation of our way of life. Just and only that.
[Via Mass Revolution Now!.]
Did you every want to know what happened to all of those motions made by the City Councilors during Tuesday night meetings? Did you ever want to know what the responses from the City Manager were to those motions?
Guess what? You are now in the know. As we had previously discussed, the City web site is providing more and more information; such as agendas of the various regulatory boards and names and term expiration of members of these various commissions, committees and Boards.
But the best additions are on the relatively new City Manager’s page. The two links are Outstanding Motions and City Manager’s Responses.
Now, the citizens of Lowell have direct access to this information which in the past had extremely limited distribution; and when we heard or read about the details, they were often filtered through a slanted lens.
Thank-you to the City Councilors, CM Bernie Lynch and CIO Miran Fernandez.
Lots of people have already hashed over what’s been “leaked” on Governor Patrick’s budget, to be proposed in final form tonight at a public meeting in Melrose (also broadcast live at 7pm on NECN). (Question: is this normal form for proposing the budget for Mass governors, or a new thing? Either way, nifty keen!)
The general consensus is this: it’s a responsible budget, keeping level funding for many agencies for now but bringing local aid back up (an increase of more than 5%), spending on educational programs (targeted and aimed at bettering failing schools), and some increases in health care spending. And like my fellow liberal brethren, I think things are going in the right direction too.
Already, many (mostly non-Patrick-voters, but some who are) are criticizing Patrick for not coming through on his promises of a 1000 new police on the streets and any number of other campaign pledges. “See?” they say. “Typical politician!”
How typically short-minded of them.
One of the reasons we worked for Patrick was that we trusted that he would implement a thoughtful, fiscally sane budget policy. In all the chase on fake drapery outrage and perfectly justified helicopter rides, there has been a quiet revolution afoot that most of the media have missed. Many of Patrick’s proposals these last two months are nothing short of controversial and interesting, to say the least. A few have flopped, and have been quietly withdrawn. But some, like the local options tax or consolidating the unaccountable “independent” state agencies, Patrick is obviously willing to throw his political muster into making a reality.
We supporters all knew that these great changes would take more than two months, but that’s why we believe in Patrick. Because he is not about to forgo long term gain in order to make political hay, covering up the stark truth so he can keep his popularity. We knew the budget this year was going to be tough and disappointing. And Patrick told us that truth as soon as he knew it, asking us to work with him to get through the tough times ahead.
We also know better than to listen to the media on what is important. Looking at the news coverage thus far, they apparently think it’s how much Patrick spends on furniture, not on the very real effect Patrick’s very politics-shifting ideas might have on the Commonwealth. Yes, I know the Conventional Wisdom is that wonkery doesn’t sell papers, political hay does. But perhaps the media should examine why Patrick won by such a large margin last fall; if they really want to capture a new and growing audience, they might try actually appealing to the appetite of the state’s citizens for real and true information on the issues that face us.
Why doesn’t the budget discussion make the front pages six days in a row? I’m sure there will be plenty to discuss after the town hall meeting tonight.
Sy Hersh has gotten it right so many times before. This should be on the front cover of every newspaper in the country:
New Yorker columnist Sy Hersh says the “single most explosive” element of his latest article involves an effort by the Bush administration to stem the growth of Shiite influence in the Middle East (specifically the Iranian government and Hezbollah in Lebanon) by funding violent Sunni groups.
Hersh says the U.S. has been “pumping money, a great deal of money, without congressional authority, without any congressional oversight” for covert operations in the Middle East where it wants to “stop the Shiite spread or the Shiite influence.” Hersh says these funds have ended up in the hands of “three Sunni jihadist groups” who are “connected to al Qaeda” but “want to take on Hezbollah.”
This is chilling. And goes in the face of every moral and ethical reason Bush said he should stay in power, when running for reelection in 2004. If true, there can be no remedy other than impeachment. Will the Democrats investigate?
UPDATE: A reminder…remember, al Quada/bin Laden is primarily Sunni (bin Laden specifically follows a form of Sunni Wahhabism - fundamentalism). Bin Laden’s main goal was never the annihilation of the US on our own soil, but indeed, to throw out the infidels and effect a Sunni Caliphate rule on the entire oil-rich Middle East. The Shi’ia/Sunni battle has been waged for a thousand years, and its modern equivalent is the fight over oil. As the Shi’ia gain prominence in the region (Iran and Hezbollah, for instance), the Sunnis grow more desperate. Even the Saudis spend a lot of their energy to keeping their own small ShiR