David G. Tuerck: Gov. Patrick at a crossroads.
Now is when Gov. Deval Patrick decides his political future.The Legislature has laid down the gauntlet: The governor can either sign legislation that will raise the sales tax or use his veto and let Beacon Hill thumb its collective nose at him and override the veto. For the sake of both the commonwealth and his political future, he should call the Legislature’s bluff.
What the governor needs to understand but what also runs counter to his political instincts is that this is not about teacher layoffs, human services cutbacks and all the other dire consequences that the increased sales tax is intended to avert. This is about politics and moral courage.
In the Legislature, politics has trumped moral courage. The Legislature knows that the increase in the sales tax will not bring in enough revenue to end the “crisis,” as it is commonly seen. But it also knows that it has to raise some tax - any tax - to show that it is willing to sacrifice a few thousand private-sector jobs in order to pacify the union bosses and other special pleaders to whom it is largely beholden.
It is this lack of courage that makes the Legislature so terrified of the “R” word. When Patrick tried to reform transportation by abolishing the Turnpike Authority and moving MBTA employees’ health care to the Group Insurance Commission, he got a poison pill from the Legislature. When he tried to cut back on overpriced police details, the Legislature thwarted him by tying the hands of local governments. When he tried to raise the gas tax, the Legislature decided a sales tax hike carried less political risk.
So now it’s the governor’s move. Now he gets to decide whether he can practice good politics and responsible government at the same time.
UPDATE: More from the AP.
SECOND UPDATE: More from the Cape Cod Times, Herald, Phoenix and Globe.