Apparently, ending homeless in Massachusetts will cost taxpayers a mere $10 million, according to Governor Deval Patrick. That's it, $10 million.

Gov. Deval Patrick is set to unveil a major new $10 million push to virtually eliminate homelessness in Massachusetts in the next five years.

The goal of the initiative is to come up with better ways to detect when individuals and families are on the verge of falling into homelessness - and move in swiftly with aid and support.

Another goal is to quickly move those already homeless into permanent housing, including an increased use of housing vouchers.

As a down payment on the plan, Patrick’s proposed state budget will include $1.75 million for MassHousing and $8.25 million for the state Department of Housing and Urban Development, an administration source told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity ahead of the formal release of the budget on Wednesday.

The proposed extra spending is intended to support the goals of a report released earlier this month by a special commission on homelessness.

More affordable housing may help keep families from becoming homeless, and putting those already homeless in permanent housing sounds that a great idea, but who are you kidding? All this for $10 million? Sounds like a low number to me; and just a way to get the taxpayers on the hook for another boondoggle that will end up costing more like $50 million, or $100 million.

$10 million over 5 years to end homelessness...yeah, right...and the Big Dig was only supposed to cost $5 billion and been done how long ago? (Let's not even talk about the leaky tunnels.)

It's good to be king, isn't it? There's nothing to do but shake your head when you read stories like this.

Governor Patrick has signed a $280 million spending bill that gives pay hikes to various public employees, including the state’s district attorneys and himself.

But Patrick said he wouldn’t accept the 4.8 percent pay raise unless it’s recommended by an advisory panel he will appoint.

Governor Deval Patrick is concerned about the $170 million in additional spending in the budget, but stopped short of making anything resembling a warning.

Millions of dollars in pork was packed into budget amendments last week that increased state spending by $170 million, drawing stern warnings from Gov. Deval Patrick, who had sought to eliminate legislative earmarks from the budget.

In an interview yesterday, Patrick refused to say whether he would veto the spending, but he made clear he is concerned about the House’s plan to tap into more than $600 million in reserves and “rainy day” funds.

“At the end of the day, we have to deal with the revenue side as well,” Patrick said, referring to sluggish tax collections. “We’ll take up (legislative earmarks) as they come. I still think there is duplication, particularly in administrative overlap, that is at risk from earmarks generally.”

Deval Patrick met with Democratic legislative leaders before and after the election, presumably private deal making was going on. I guess they were just talking about the weather, or the Patriots, because it doesn't seem like the troubled governor is on the same wavelength as House Speaker Sal DiMasi.

  Continue reading "What Were Those Closed-Door Meetings For?" >>

A $16 million cut in the human services budget is profiled in today's Boston Herald, a cut we were told by Governor Deval Patrick, wouldn't be made.

In Gov. Deval Patrick’s budget, Donald Rankins is under line item 1599-6901.

Rankins is a $32,000-a-year human services worker, a man who works with mentally ill patients for 10 hours a day at Vinfen Corp. on Commonwealth Avenue.

He drives his clients to doctor appointments, makes sure they take their medications on time and comforts their families when there’s a crisis. “In matters of the heart, supporting people has always been my dream,” Rankins said.

In line item 1599-6901, his dream takes a $16 million cut.

The line item pays for salary increases for the state’s lowest-paid human services workers, people like Rankins who toil every day amid human miseries that make other people turn their heads, or perhaps scribble out a check at Christmastime.

Patrick, who pledged to protect services for the state’s most vulnerable, slashed the salary fund from $28 million to $12 million, sparking outrage from human services advocates.

Not only was Governor Deval Patrick lying to us during his campaign, he was clearly lying to himself.

Governor Deval Patrick's first budget is being criticized--of course--and it's not about partisanship, it's about his blatant hypocrisy.

After pledging to protect funding for poor and vulnerable citizens, Gov. Deval Patrick is facing harsh criticism for slashing salaries for social workers, reducing services for the mentally ill and eliminating water-rate relief for cash-strapped homeowners.

“This is the governor who last night said he wasn’t going to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest people in Massachusetts,” said state Sen. Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield). “What we’re looking at today is a direct contradiction to that.”

The criticism emerged after Patrick released a line-by-line accounting of a $26.7-billion budget that slashes spending by $515 million and squeezes businesses for about $300 million in new taxes. The governor’s cuts drew immediate heat yesterday, with human service advocates decrying a $16 million cut to a fund that boosts the salaries of social workers.

“These are some of the lowest-paid people doing some of the toughest jobs with our most vulnerable populations,” said Michael Weekes, president of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers. “It’s unfair to people making $12 and $13 an hour.”

During a press conference yesterday, Patrick said he was pained by many of the cuts, but he defended them as necessary amid a $1.3 billion deficit. “We appreciate that behind every single dollar is a human being, somebody’s job or a program of vital importance,” Patrick said.

We congratulate the Governor on being able to make a cut in the budget, but you can't ignore the fact that he cut out the budget the very thing he said he wouldn't.

There once was a man who said he would not run a government by gimmick or slogans or sound bites or photo ops.

That in of itself was a nice little gimmick, slogan and sound bite.

Even on the unveiling of his first budget, he comes running out the door with a new slogan, but according to Governor Deval Patrick, it is a budget without gimmick.

Calling his budget a blueprint for “lasting change,” Gov. Deval Patrick last night pushed proposals for limited tax relief and education upgrades, but was forced to defer many of key campaign promises.

In a televised speech, Patrick outlined a budget proposal that would cut more than $500 million in state spending while squeezing businesses for about $300 million in new tax revenue. The plan also boosts public education spending by $200 million, a modest increase to help stave off deep cuts in local school spending.

“This budget is balanced without gimmicks,” Patrick said of his efforts to erase a $1.3 billion deficit. “We didn’t defer difficult decisions. We didn’t use Band-Aids to treat symptoms and ignore causes.”

"Blueprint for lasting change" sounds like a nice marketable slogan to me.

Now, I'm no expert on the state budget, but in all I've read about Deval Patrick's first budget, but I'm hearing more often the words "increase," "bolster" and "boost" and not enough "decreasing" and "cuts" (if any at all)--and this coming from the guy who has been saying for over a year that Massachusetts is in a fiscal crisis. The Patrick Administration said they were going to make people unhappy with some budget cuts, but where are these cuts?

It sounds like we are in for a tax increase; how else will we pay for the increasing, bolstering, and boosting in the budget? I guess we'll see for sure once the budget is unveiled tomorrow, but you can't help but worry for the sake of your wallet.

The Romney/Healey Administration may have turned a $3 billion deficit into a $1 billion surplus, but depending what day of the week it is, Deval Patrick can't seem to decide what the economic situation in the Commonwealth is.

After getting elected he started insinuating that there was no surplus at all, and then really started to paint a bleak picture of the state's economy. Then Deval flip-flopped and restored various cuts made by Romney after he decided that the state can cover the spending. Then he proposed even more programs that will cost the state millions of dollars.

So, what's the story here?

Well, Brian Dodge, executive director of the Mass GOP, is spot on when says the so-called deficit "is nothing but smoke and mirrors," and that "there is no indication of a revenue shortfall that would lead to a deficit, absolutely none." Which means that if the state does end up with a deficit again, it will be courtesy of Deval Patrick's spending.

Clearly, Deval Patrick is up to something, and based on the information out there, it seems that Deval Patrick is laying the groundwork for eventual tax hikes. By alleging the existence of a billion dollar shortfall even before he took office, Deval is preparing to shift blame for the tax hikes on Romney

In fact, Deval Patrick most certainly will "discover" plenty of things he'll want to blame on Romney to use as a smokescreen for his terrible governing.

Bay State Republicans challenge Gov. Patrick on the budget.

The Romney/Healey administration may have turned a $3 billion deficit in 2002 to a $1 billion surplus in 2006, but Deval Patrick claims he is "having some trouble" finding it...

Well folks, it's already starting... The preemptive excuses which will eventually explain why he "has to" raise our taxes.