‘Forward’? You’ve been forewarned
by Howie Carr/Boston Herald 1/16/2013
They’re planning to HAMMER the middle class!
That’s all you need to know about this evening’s State of the State speech.
Here you have the working population of Massachusetts still reeling from the 2 percent pay cut imposed by Barack Obama earlier this month, and now comes Gov. Deval Patrick’s tax-crazed scheme, “The Way Forward.”
Beware that word “Forward.” It is to the 21st century what “investment in the future” and “for the children” were to the 20th. A euphemism for higher taxes.
If they were truthful, they’d hang a big banner behind Deval as he speaks in the House chambers: “From the Wonderful Folks Who Brought You the Big Dig ...”
The timing is perfect. Deval is a lame duck, ditto the Senate president. The House speaker is a semi-lame duck, plus he’s got the Probation indictments to worry about. What better time than to rob the bank?
Take the money and run. You know the old saying on Beacon Hill. Lame duck is their favorite dish.
Patrick says he won’t reveal until tonight which taxes he wants to raise. I’ll go out on a limb and say ... all of them. This is the oldest trick in the hack playbook. The lame-duck governor (or mayor) steps up and waves his finger and says, “I’m going to tax you people back to the Stone Age.”
Then some clear-headed, white hat-wearing solons step up and say, “Never fear. We’ll save you. The real plan is only to tax you back to the Bronze Age.”
And the taxpayers are supposed to swoon in gratitude, and think to themselves, what a lucky break we’re getting, they’re only jacking up the gas tax from 21 cents to 51 cents a gallon.
The sales tax is only going up from 6.25 percent to 7.75 percent.
And the income tax will be jacked up from 5.25 percent to 5.66 percent.
But of course all this dough disappearing from your pocket is going for worthy causes. Like the “prevailing wage” construction costs that made the Big Dig such a bargain. The work will be done very expeditiously, too. Remember the unofficial state motto: “Don’t Kill the Job.”
And let’s look at some of these vital projects. My favorite is the Boston-to-New Bedford/Fall River commuter rail line. That’ll run $1.8 billion, they’re saying now, which probably means at least $5 billion when all is said and done.
I have a counterproposal. Why doesn’t the Commonwealth just buy a fleet of stretch limousines and assign one, complete with driver, to each of the 30-40 commuters who would otherwise be taking this marvelous new train back and forth from Bristol County to Boston every day.
You could give these people limo rides — free — for eternity, and the cost would be but a tiny fraction of the cost of this new rail system.
The Boston Globe has naturally been cheerleading for this giant welfare-state boondoggle. They’ve been prominently featuring quotes from the head of the Boston Foundation: “This is really the moment to do something significant.”
This is the same Boston Foundation that hires “street workers” to fight gang violence. One of their “street workers” was busted Saturday morning after police stopped his car and allegedly found a two-shot derringer, cocaine and a hooker whom he claimed he was giving a ride home.
And now they tell us they know how to spend billions upon billions of dollars.
What could possibly go wrong?
tweet via @bostonradio
>>For ‘toxic talk’ lovers, former NewsTalk 96.9 afternooner Michael Graham is filling in for Howie Carr on 680 from 3 to 7pm tomorrow(1/17).
Note that Graham has done fill ins for the 10p-1a slot on Philly’s Big Talker WPHT 1210 the past
couple nights. The Natural Truth is that it’ll be Graham
not McPhee this time around (not sure why HC is off—
birthday? was pretty sure he was born on Jan 17)
I like Michael Graham. Plus, my teenage daughter does a great, “IIIIIIIIIIAAAAAAAMMMM Michael Graham!”