public structures

The Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation issued its latest report on the state of municipal budgets [Full Article: The Boston Globe].  There are no real surprises...that is if you have been paying attention to the economy, discussions in the State House regarding revenues and budget cuts, and watching your own city or town lose employees.  The surprises may be the magnitude of the unfunded pension and health funds that were measurable and promised as part of employment...that's unconscionable.

Our families and our communities need investments in the services, schools, and infrastructure that make Massachusetts a great place to live and work.  How will this happen?  In order to make the necessary investments, we need to raise significant revenues.  Governor Cuomo in New York has taken the lead, as has Governor Brown in California...That revenue should come primarily from the highest income earners.

“The numbers demonstrate just how difficult this recession and fiscal crisis have been for cities and towns,’’ said Michael J. Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. “Their revenues have been virtually flat, while their costs have grown, which has meant cuts in schools, public safety, and other basic services for most cities and towns.’’

“These are challenging times,’’ said Michael V. O’Brien, the Worcester city manager. “The global economy, the national economy, and the regional economy have all suffered in the downturn, so the revenues aren’t there for the state to distribute.’’

Merchants are already banking on the hope that a new station will bring them more customers and an economic bridge to the rest of the city. ...The MBTA said that adding stations is aimed at providing better transportation to low-income people who are overwhelmingly dependent on public transit.   [Full Article: The Boston Globe]

Civic engagement is definitely needed to get Congress back on track.  As Abraham Lincoln said...It's government of the people, by the people, and for the people... Therefore, it is not for some small group of ideologues to govern and control the purse strings...

A political battle ... is threatening to slow money to the government’s main disaster aid account, which is so low that new rebuilding projects have been put on hold to help victims of Hurricane Irene and future disasters.  [Full Article:  The Boston Globe]

When natural disasters strike, such as Hurricane Irene,  it's our government that protects families and property, shelters the homeless, and revives communities adversely affected by the subsequent destruction.  It's up to all of us to continue to invest in our government so that it can continue to do this work, and carry out the other programs and services we rely upon every day.

...the National Guard was assisting evacuations in the towns of Charlemont, Ashford and North Adams. 200 National Guard troops were deployed to Greenfield in order to assist with evacuations in Franklin County and the Berkshires.  [Full Article: MassLive.com]

It should not have been a surprise to anyone that the federal stimulus dollars provided to MA were going to be fully spent during the fiscal year 2012 budget cycle, if  not already spent in the previous year.  We were riding a temporary wave of economic recovery euphoria when for a couple of months tax revenues had been higher than last year.  Now that the stock market has declined dramatically, our current tax revenues have also declined.   In fact, MA tax revenue collections are lower than in fiscal 2008.

The income gap has been widening in Massachusetts, and is especially prominent in Western MA  .  20% of families in North Adams earn less than $20,000 and half of those earn less than $10,000.  In Berkshire County and the Pioneer Valley, median incomes for the poorest, adjusted for inflation, have decreased to $16,000 - similar to areas in Appalachia.  Yet median incomes in Greater Boston have increased over the same amount of time by 54%, to $230,000.

The statistics provide one picture of the story.  This article also provides you the human profile of Mindy Shoestock, single mother, and her struggle to feed her children, provide a safe and clean place to live, stay in a community that has a support system for her family, and find a job(s) with a living wage.  [Full Article:  The Boston Globe]

Great article talking about what taxes pay for which sometimes we might get as granted:

For example, a few miles from my house I can ramp onto Interstate Highway 35. To the south lie Austin and San Antonio; to the north are Dallas and connections that will take me virtually anywhere in the U.S. via a series of carefully engineered, safe superhighways and secondary roads. This system, perhaps the best in the world, cost many billions of dollars to build and much more to maintain. Yet we use it as often and as much as we want - for free! Of course, it's not really free; we pay for it with taxes. Still, our fine highways are such a significant part of the ordinary psychological infrastructure of our lives that it's easy to forget that they exist because we decided to combine our money to build something that would benefit everyone, which is, I guess, one of the most basic definitions of civilization. [Full Article: Wicked Local - Northborough - Southborough Villager]

Former Senator Alan Simpson is interviewed about the federal credit rating downgrade by S&P, the debt ceiling debate and resulting legislation, and ongoing deficit reduction debates, which he hopes are taken seriously.

The Senator has much to say about many topics... Obamacare, AARP, entitlements, tax expenditures, and Grover Norquist - who he thinks "... will be irrelevant in a couple of years"  [Full Audio: npr]

Maintaining clean water - one of the essential things we do through government.  A great example of what we value in government and how we do things better together than we can do by ourselves.

US Representative William R. Keating plans to rally with environmental advocates and residents at Veterans Memorial Park in Hyannis today to maintain funding and regulations for the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund and the Clean Water State Revolving Fund. [Full Article: The Boston Globe]

Worcester has additional money in its fiscal year 2012 budget.  

“This positions the city well,” Mr. Petty said. “It’s good to see that the city manager is looking at the long-term picture by wanting to set aside much of this money for reserves. But he is also looking at the future by investing more money in our public schools for technology upgrades and capital projects. I am a firm believer that we need to fix up our high schools so we don’t lose students to other communities."  [Full Article: Worcester Telegram & Gazette]