Archive for April, 2008
Poetry: I like to consider myself something of a poet. So, whenever I detect signs of life in the sadly moribund genre, I’m happy. Case in point: Rockland High’s Gabrielle Guarracino, who reached the finals of this year’s Poetry Out Loud contest, reciting Robert Browning’s “My Last Duchess” and Anne Sexton’s “Unknown Girl in the Maternity Ward”. Thank you, Gabrielle, for keeping the lyrical flame lit.
A solution in search of a problem: The U.S. Supreme Court recently upheld Indiana’s new voter ID law. Now, I’m not opposed to the idea of requiring voters to present valid identification at the polls. I’m familiar with the legends - how many dead people vote in Boston’s elections every two years, the voters Mayor White’s campaign supposedly bussed from polling station to polling station during the ‘75 election.
My problem is with the majority opinion Justice Stephens wrote. As Marty Lederman correctly points out on Slate (which I seem to be reading quite a lot of recently), Justice Stephens rhetorically bends over backwards to prove a need for the law, which doesn’t appear to exist. According to Lederman, anyway, there hasn’t been a single case of voter ID fraud perpetuated in the manner addressed by the law documented in Indiana.
But I’ll let you decide for yourselves (though, I suppose it’s presumptuous of me to assume I have more than one reader). To consider both sides of the issue, take a look at today’s Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Berkshire Eagle, which ran editorials on it - the former in support, the latter opposed.
April 30th, 2008
Maybe this is just news to me, but I was interested to read Dan Bosley (Chair of the House Economic Development Committee) sharp comments on the Department of Revenue. It’s a long quote, but he makes a number of criticisms that are worth hearing:
I am very leery of [DOR's] numbers for good reason. In this bill, their revenue figure for the administration’s proposal was tens of millions greater than their figure for House generated revenues even though the language of the bill was identical coming out of committee! This is not the first time this has happened, raising, I think, legitimate questions about their numbers. In the Life Science bill, my committee asked for an analysis of extending the Governor’s tax breaks without the yearly limitations included in his bill. We asked several times and were told they could not answer the question nor should they as the Governor’s bill limited tax credits to $25 million per year. Not only is it not their role to refuse a request based on policy, but it calls into question the honesty in delivering numbers in a timely and accurate manner. After being requested again by House Ways and Means, a report was sent to us on the effect of the administration’s suggested tax credits. In looking at the numbers, it was immediately apparent that the numbers were suspect. One company had given us a figure, based on their tax liability that was larger than the DOR number for every life science company eligible for this credit. The second set of numbers we received were just as bad. I believe that the Department of Revenue based on their responses, is more interested in setting policy than enforcing it. It is the responsibility of the Governor and the Legislature to set tax policy. The Department of Revenue should provide revenue analysis that is not tainted by politics or policy.
And his remedy is intriguing:
I believe we need an independent budget office to give us honest estimates without political pressure from any side. We need an office like the Congressional Budget Office – bipartisan and independent to study all our fiscal and revenue proposals for their cost and financial impact. This is the only way we can get numbers that are beyond question.
April 30th, 2008
The Executive Order creating the Readiness Project called on it to provide recommendations on how to implement a number of new initiatives and to “[f]und the education system adequately, equitably and reliably”, which presumably includes funding the new initiatives. Additionally, the use of the verb “implement” suggests a 10 year timetable with funding streams attached, not just a laundry lists of nice things to have.
But a quote in yesterday’s State House News (sub. req.) suggests that important implementation issues like costs and funding won’t be addressed:
[Governor Patrick] said his administration would take the Readiness Project’s recommendations, “cost that out, and go from there.
If that’s the case, that’s a real disappointment.
April 30th, 2008
The Commonwealth has a bunch of pots of money lying around in various public and quasi-public entities that are supposed to ‘invest’ in various type of companies — technology start-ups, struggling manufacturers, etc.
No one has ever demonstrated that they make anything more than a tiny marginal impact on our economy and no one, absolutely no one, asks the “but for” question– if the money was spent elsewhere or, g-d forbid, returned to taxpayers, would it have a greater impact.
WBZ’s I-Team reports on the Emerging Technology Fund, a $50 million fund, and finds that it has created very few jobs, is overcounting the few jobs it actually creates, and now claims not to be all that interested in new jobs.
Its not unlike the Mass Technology Development Corporation, a state-backed venture fund , that has made some money (but declined to return its profits to the state). But it makes very few investments — 3 new investments in the last fiscal year — and usually invests with other VCs, which prompts me to ask — why are state funds needed for this purpose?
But they are spending their money on something — lavish parties and massive ‘retention’ bonuses for long-term employees.
April 29th, 2008
Obama is now the only major party candidate still standing who is against the kooky notion of a summer gas tax holiday. He correctly questions how much of the savings would revert to consumers and notes how it would deplete federal highway funds.
April 29th, 2008
1) In response to her comment on my post yesterday, I defer to my learned colleague, Amy Dain. I had not considered that, as public ways, sidewalks can’t be blocked. However, I might argue that, rather than attempt to regulate sidewalk dining, the New Bedford City Council and Mayor Lang could simply pass an ordinance that allows businesses permitted to serve food and/or drink to place tables on sidewalks, within the frame of the storefront, extending from the storefront to the curb and providing for a path through the tables so many feet wide to accommodate passing pedestrians.
I suppose it is the underlying mindset I question, the assumption that if something is unregulated it is therefore prohibited. I believe we should start from the opposite assumption, that, if we wish to prohibit something, then, and only then, do we regulate it.
2) In other news, after weeks of trying to get Hillary Clinton in a clinch so as to better absorb the body blows she’s delivering, Barack Obama has returned to some of the rhetoric that attracted me to him in the first place. Once again, Mr. Obama demonstrated that he is willing to challenge Democratic orthodoxy. This from Slate:
McCain will have trouble beating the Obama who showed up on Fox News Sunday, giving a highly effective interview to Chris Wallace. It included this bait for Hillary:
“I think there are a whole host of areas where Republicans in some cases may have a better idea.”
Obama cited not just “merit pay” but also “experimenting with charter schools,” which he said has gotten him “in trouble with the teachers union.”
April 29th, 2008
A couple of items caught my attention this weekend and I thought I’d share them with you.
1) From Friday on South Coast Today: New Bedford’s mayor and city council are considering legislation to regulate sidewalk dining. They consider sidewalk dining an effective way to increase foot traffic downtown. Of course, they’re right, which is why some downtown merchants already offer sidewalk dining options. Unwilling to allow small business owners get too far out ahead of them, the city’s leaders now feel the need to regulate the practice - for a small fee, of course. I suppose it falls under the heading: if someone, somewhere is doing something, then it must need to be regulated.
2) From Saturday’s Boston Herald: Casey Ross’ report on the 12% hike in speeding tickets state troopers have so far handed out this year on the Pike. Now, Casey Ross is someone I have come to respect as both a reporter and a writer, but I found this report to be somewhat superfluous. Whatever motives the Pike has for clamping down on speeders, the fact remains that, when they speed, drivers break the law.
I don’t mind when other drivers speed and, if you want to debate raising the speed limit yet again or abolishing it altogether, I am more than willing to have that discussion. But, until then, if you speed, take your citation without complaint, please.
April 27th, 2008
Though I taught public school for four years and spent another as an administrator, I only attended public school three years - a year of kindergarten at the Joyce Kilmer School in West Roxbury and 7th and 8th grades at Boston Latin School. The rest of my primary and secondary education I received at Catholic schools - Mount Alvernia and Catholic Memorial.
My memories of CM and Mount Alvernia are for the most part fond ones. There was the time in 2nd grade when Sister Cheryl threw my entire baseball card collection in the trash because, rather than pay attention in class, I was studying player statistics on the backs of the cards, but I don’t really like to talk about that.
Therefore, I read with a touch of dismay a recent report from the Fordham Institute in Washington D.C. that found that more than 1,300 Catholic schools across the country have closed in just the last two decades. Nostalgia and a certain wistfulness account for some of this feeling, but it is more that when we lose Catholic schools we lose a viable educational choice for kids and their parents.
I have argued that Boston has the perfect infrastructure already in place for a bold, universal system of school choice. Within the city’s geographic boundaries are located some of the best public high schools in the country, the best charter schools in the country, the best private schools in the country, as well as a declining, but still significant parochial school system. If we were to allow parents to choose any of these educational options for their children and school funding to follow those children to whichever school their parents choose for them, Boston’s children would get better educations and the city’s public schools would be forced to improve at a faster rate than the incremental pace at which they’ve improved over the last decade. Unfortunately, as we lose more and more Catholic schools, we lose one of the four legs on which a system of true school choice in Boston might stand.
Please join us Tuesday, April 29, 2008, at 5:00 pm at the Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston for an event at which we ask the question: Who Will Save America’s Urban Catholic Schools?
April 25th, 2008
There is a saying in business that what can’t be measured can’t be managed. When it comes to the public sector, not all societal issues in the purview of government oversight are easy to measure. But some things do lend themselves to measurement – and better management.
I’ve written in this blog before about leaders like Somerville’s Mayor Curtatone who have implemented programs for using data to drive strategic decionmaking. Mayor Curtatone has implemented SomerStat, under the able supervision of Stephanie Hirsch. Amesbury Mayor Thatcher Kezer also runs a stat program, and Springfield is launching a program.
Join us (and 150 people who have registered from across the state) this Friday at our conference on Middle Cities to learn more. Curtatone, Hirsch, Kezer, and Lisauskas (Springfield Finance Control Board) will discuss the challenges and benefits of CitiStat programs. (Don’t forget to register by emailing jfenton@pioneerinstitute.org)
April 21st, 2008
Its a House-Administration lovefest over at Blue Mass Group. David Guarino (from the Speaker’s Office) and Doug Rubin (GOV’s Chief of Staff) get all lovey-dovey in the comments section of a post by Guarino on the House Ways & Means budget.
April 18th, 2008
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