Today's Globe reports that Deval Patrick's far-reaching plan to front-load the repair of Massachusetts' decaying bridges (411 of them) has quickly picked up essential legislative support:
[T]he proposal picked up key backers immediately, including House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi, Senate President Therese Murray, and organized labor. Legislative support is crucial because it will require passage of a special bond bill....
DiMasi applauded the plan yesterday, and when asked whether the state could afford the bonding, said, "Yes, I think we can." ... "This is the kind of focus that I thought we should [have been] taking in the last three or four months instead of other issues that were dominating the landscape at the time," DiMasi said.
Murray left the speech without addressing reporters, but later put out a statement saying "by taking action now, we can start to make up for decades of neglect." Her spokesman said she supports the governor's proposed price tag of $3.8 billion.
Are there naysayers? Sure. Treasurer Tim Cahill thinks it's too much to borrow, and prefers his own plan to borrow $700 million to fix 10 bridges. One wonders if Cahill isn't a tad miffed about his more modest plan being upstaged, though surely such considerations never enter into policy discussions on Beacon Hill. And Michael "No we can't" Widmer predictably thinks it's too expensive, presumably preferring to wait for the jobs fairy to help out the folks looking for work.
We have to fix the bridges sometime, and the longer we wait the more it will cost and the worse condition they'll be in. And one of the best ways to stave off recession is to put a lot of people to work at jobs that pay pretty well, doing work that will provide economic benefits for years to come. The Gov, the Speaker, and the Senate President are right on this one. Just do it.
And in other encouraging news, the legislature on Tuesday postponed debate until today on the various tax measures. Why is the postponement good? Because of this:
The House was expected to begin debate this afternoon on legislation that would allow about $356 million in tax increases for smokers and the state's largest corporations.
But about 20 to 30 Democratic legislators were challenging DiMasi's plan for not being aggressive enough.
That's our progressive caucus right there (thanks Jamie!) -- the folks who, along with the Governor, recognize that the Speaker's plan doesn't make sense as currently drafted. He needs to move toward what the Governor has proposed: close the loopholes, and cut the corporate excise tax in a responsible way.
Could it be -- could it possibly be -- that by the end of this legislative session we're going to see the beginnings of a genuine progressive vision of government taking shape on Beacon Hill? |
