And to think I used to be a lefty believer in all this crap.
See: A Different Kind of Governor
Ron Paul was a real eye-opener, folks.
"The move means taxpayers would be responsible for the turnpike's debt if the agency defaults."
How much more you gonna toss on our backs, Patrick?
"State tries to rescue Pike from huge debt; $800m would be refinanced; treasurer objects to 'bailout' " by Casey Ross, Globe Staff | July 16, 2008
The Patrick administration is engineering a large-scale financial rescue of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority that would allow the cash-strapped agency to refinance $800 million in debt to avoid potentially ruinous repayment terms.
The House, acting swiftly at the administration's request, gave initial approval yesterday to legislation that would allow the Turnpike Authority to use the state's higher credit rating to refinance its debt to lower its interest costs. The move means taxpayers would be responsible for the turnpike's debt if the agency defaults.
A Patrick administration official yesterday said the debt provision is urgently needed to get a safety net in place before the Legislature recesses at the end of July.
Jay Gonzalez, undersecretary of administration and finance:
"What we're doing is making sure the Turnpike Authority is not in the position of having to make a lump-sum payment in the hundreds of millions of dollars that would have to be financed on the backs of toll payers."
So either way, the citizens of this state are screwed.
But to whom and why (read on)?
State Treasurer Timothy Cahill accused the administration of exposing the state and its taxpayers to heavy risk without demanding financial reforms at the Turnpike Authority:
"It borders on fiscal recklessness, to be honest with you. This is a bailout, and it does nothing to force the turnpike to clean up its own mess. The taxpayers deserve better than this."
I'm not surprised at all, coming from this administration and this government!
Turnpike officials have indicated that one of the primary options for fixing its finances is to increase tolls.
Haven't we ALREADY PAYED ENOUGH for the shit roads we have around here?
Top aides to Governor Deval Patrick defended the administration's maneuvers, arguing that the state's backing is needed to avert a financial disaster brewing at the Turnpike Authority.
Gonzalez also emphasized that the turnpike will still be primarily responsible for repaying its debt and that he does not foresee deeper financial problems that would force the state to open its coffers:
"We don't expect to have to pay a cent of the turnpike's debt."
Yeah, just like Paulson doesn't expect to have to bail out Freddie and Fannie!
I am really tired of lying officials from the government, aren't you, America?!
Nothing but a bunch of LYING LOOTERS!!
How did we get into this mess, anyway?
The turnpike debt provision was tacked onto a $3 billion borrowing measure that, if passed, would fund repairs to as many as 300 bridges that have structural problems.
Why must the taxpayer always pay an extortion fee to get what the government is SUPPOSED to provide?
Overall, the provision authorizes the state to guarantee the Turnpike Authority's entire debt load of $2.4 billion; the Commonwealth would in effect act as a cosigner on a loan for the turnpike.
I'm sorry, governor, but I'm tapped out.
And just WHO is the taxpayer going to be on the hook to?
The authority is facing a pair of troubling scenarios involving complex debt deals it made earlier this decade with investments banks, including UBS. Under one scenario, UBS can demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January, a burden turnpike officials said they would have trouble meeting.
The authority may also have to make a $179 million payment to UBS if the company that provided insurance on the bonds, Ambac Financial Corp. of New York, experiences further financial troubles.
Ambac's credit rating was lowered last month by Wall Street rating agency
The move to use the state's credit rating would allow the turnpike to avoid both costly scenarios.
The authority's arrangement with UBS was authorized by former Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew Amorello as a way to extract an upfront payment from the investment house to plug holes in the Big Dig budget. Similar transactions were also made with
The turnpike's problems stem in part from the turmoil that has been rocking financial markets since last summer, and has spread in particular to public agencies and large nonprofits whose interest costs have soared as investors have retreated from portions of the bond market.
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Oh, so we are asked to BAILOUT MORE BANKS because of the BIG DIG FIASCO, huh?
UN-FRIKKIN-REAL!!!!
I'm from Western Mass, and was THIS STATE EVER LOOTED on THAT ONE!!!!
And NOW Patrick wants us on the hook to PAY OFF BANKS!!!!
Meanwhile, have you checked out your kids' school cafeteria lately?
The rising cost of grain, milk, and vegetables is expected to drive up school lunch prices this fall for tens of thousands of students, causing even further financial hardships for already-strapped public school systems across Massachusetts, education officials said.
So what? The governor is eating just fine, thank you!
Some of the school systems that will be hit the hardest are the ones trying to offer the healthiest menu choices - fresh fruits and vegetables and other vitamin-rich choices that cost more than the processed fare that marked school lunches of old.
Dozens of districts, such as Brookline, Chelmsford, Quincy, and Marshfield, will increase prices 25 cents to 50 cents this fall in hopes of avoiding a deficit next year.
Meanwhile, this government is handing out scads of $$$$ to favored friends like at rich Hollywood folk, Wall Street, corporate and lottery favorites while the governor PARTIES DOWN?
And it is O.K. if the state runs golf courses, cuts overpriced contracts to favored clients, or gets primo tickets to the games, even if OUR KIDS STARVE in SCHOOL!!!!
Tonight, the Boston School Committee will consider a plan to close an estimated $3.8 million deficit in its food service program for this past school year and a projected $6.7 million deficit for the coming year. A district spokes man said the plan is to encourage more parents to apply for federally subsidized free or reduced-priced meals.
Good luck on that one!! Bush don't want to pay for nuthin' but WARS!!!!
Lunch programs are the latest victims of surging fuel costs that make it more expensive to deliver food. School officials are already seeing the impact of dwindling state local aid dollars and a reluctance on the part of voters to support property tax increases in the form of overrides.
Yeah, it is the VOTERS FAULT for not wanting to increase their already overwhelming tax burden!
F*** YOU, Globe!
How about calling for a SHUTDOWN of the WAR MACHINE?!
Yeah, that's what I thought!
School leaders across the state are concerned that the higher prices could prompt some students from working-class families who don't qualify for federally subsidized meals to skip lunch.
Why not? I have to now!
Nationwide, 75 percent of school districts are expected to raise lunch prices this fall, far more than the 30 percent that traditionally raise prices in a given year, according to the national School Nutrition Association. The average national price of a school lunch is expected to be $1.98, a 32-cent increase from this past school year.
Katie Wilson, president-elect of the national School Nutrition Association, who last week asked a congressional committee to increase federal assistance and make meals free for all students:
"We truly are at a point of crisis. Without proper nutrients, brains don't operate properly. How can you concentrate on calculus when you are so hungry?"
Hey, it's a double win for the government.
They an then declare the kids are stoo-pid, and have fodder for the draft!
School districts are feeling the pinch after spending the past few years bolstering the nutritional content of lunches amid national concerns about increasing childhood obesity. Many cafeterias no longer fry foods and are offering made-to-order sandwiches, soup and salad bars, whole-grain breads, and more meals made from scratch.
This approach allows schools to better control sodium, sugar, and fat content but requires more labor. But school districts had not expected prices to soar.
Last week, the federal government announced that it would raise its per-meal reimbursement rate for students who qualify for a free meal to $2.57, a 10-cent increase over this past year and one of the highest increases in recent years.
Yet the national school nutrition group says the increase is not enough to cover inflation and the true per-meal cost of $2.88 to prepare a healthy lunch. The group predicts that school nutrition programs could lose about $3.3 million per school day nationwide next school year.
To avoid deficit spending, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education recommends that districts complete a monthly reconciliation of costs, training staff on proper portion sizes and purchasing food through regional collaboratives and the state, which most Greater Boston school districts already do.
In one controversial move, Chelmsford is turning to a private Andover-based company that prepares and sells prepackaged school lunch items in individual servings. The move will save the district about $225,000 next year by eliminating six school food service managers and reducing work hours of the 34 remaining cafeteria workers so many of them no longer qualify for benefits.
But the district, which is reeling from voter rejection this year of a $2.8 million property tax override, will still have to increase lunch prices by 25 cents.
Donald Yeoman, Chelmsford's superintendent, noting that many of the laid-off workers had been there for 15 years or longer:
"It's tragic. They were great, great people and employees, but my job is to make sure we are in the black, and we have to be efficient."
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Fuck 'em! We got BANKS to BAILOUT and OCCUPATIONS to fund!
And LOOT to GATHER!
"The lobbyists said jump and... Beacon Hill says, 'How high.'"
A hotly-debated ban on drug companies providing gifts and meals to physicians was stripped out of proposed legislation a House committee approved late yesterday.
The panel also removed requirements that drug and medical device companies report payments they make to doctors for consulting and speaking to other physicians and that the Department of Public Health post that information on its website. A proposed $5,000 fine per violation was also dropped from the bill, which is expected to be voted on by the full House today.
Instead, the measure would simply require drug companies to adopt a marketing code of conduct, such as the one the pharmaceutical industry's trade association announced last week while negotiations on the Massachusetts bill were in progress. That voluntary code would ban meals at restaurants and trinkets such as mugs and pens bearing the names of drug companies and products, but still allow companies to cater lunches in doctors offices and hospitals, which salespeople use to promote their products directly to physicians.
The changes infuriated some consumer groups and longtime gift-ban advocates who said the legislation would allow pharmaceutical and biotech companies to continue influencing doctors to prescribe new and typically more expensive brand-name drugs, driving up costs.
The pharmaceutical measure was just one provision of a larger bill, sponsored by Senate President Therese Murray, intended to rein in healthcare costs. The Senate unanimously passed a version of the bill with the gift ban.
Senator Mark C. Montigny, a New Bedford Democrat who first proposed a ban on drug and device company gifts to physicians in 2005:
"The lobbyists said jump and, unfortunately, Beacon Hill says, 'How high.' If you are serious about taking on cost control, you have to take on the special interests and the sacred cows of the pharmaceutical industry."
Patricia Walrath, House chairwoman of the Joint Committee on Health Care Financing, said her committee removed the gift-ban language because pharmaceutical and biotech leaders told lawmakers it could chill industry-funded educational conferences that bring doctors together with researchers.
That's what is known as EXTORTION in my book!!!
The version expected to be debated today does include a section, also approved by the Senate, that would create a doctor-led outreach and education program to provide objective information to physicians and encourage evidence-based and cost-effective prescribing practices.
And how much is that "program" going to cost Mr. and Mrs. Taxpayer?
The trade association that represents Massachusetts medical device makers said it was pleased that the House committee deleted the gift ban, but would lobby lawmakers today to fine-tune the wording to make sure the bill applies fully to its industry. Much of the language now refers to the pharmaceutical industry.
--MORE--"
Do those guys ever have a death grip over the health industry, 'eh?
Good thing the biotechs are coming, 'eh?
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley's office said it will receive just over $9.2 million from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. as part of a settlement of allegations of Medicaid fraud and illegal drug marketing practices. The states and Department of Justice accused the drug developer of inflating prescription drug prices to get more money out of Medicaid programs, illegally paying physicians and healthcare providers to use its products, and promoting the unapproved use of the antipsychotic drug Abilify. (AP July 16, 2008)."
Yeah, that's great! Bring 'em on in, huh?
Thank God we have growth in the environmental sector, huh, Mass. residents?
"Evergreen Solar opens new production facility in Devens; Company also snags $1.2b pact, its biggest" by Erin Ailworth, Globe Staff | July 16, 2008
Evergreen Solar, which yesterday cut the ribbon on a new solar-panel manufacturing facility in Devens, has signed a $1.2 billion sales contract with Germany's IBC Solar AG.
The deal, which constitutes about a third of Marlborough-based Evergreen's $2.9 billion contract backlog, is the biggest in company history and extends through 2013.
Richard M. Feldt, chairman, president, and chief executive, following a tour of the fledgling plant:
"We've almost sold out . . . for the next five years. That means business is good."
WTF?! If this issue is so pressing, and so important, why the backlog?
Yesterday, scores of people toured the facility that stretches longer than three football fields. At full capacity, the plant will be able to produce more than 780,000 of the roughly 3-foot-by-5-foot solar panels a year - enough to power more than 23,000 homes. Production of the 200-watt panels, which sell for about $3.50 a watt, hasn't officially started.
But it is big, first-page news in the business section!
Because you see, Americans, the economy is just fine, thank you!
Feldt joked as he stood yards from a giant red robot used in the production process:
"It's pretty nice. We haven't made one panel yet and we've sold out."
And yet they are getting ALL THIS PUB!!!
You sense an agenda being pushed, folks?
Feldt said he expects the plant to be running at full capacity by the end of next year.
Governor Deval L. Patrick praised Evergreen Solar's presence in Devens, where the plant will provide 700 new jobs:
"We love the jobs. We love the jobs, and we love that the jobs include manufacturing jobs. I look to this facility as a symbol of the kind of industry we want to build, as a symbol of the future."
The governor issued a challenge to his administration and others, saying he would like to see solar power become more commonly used - perhaps even at state schools:
"Let's bring it to bear. Let's see a major increase in solar by the end of this calendar year."
They ain't even gonna be running by the end of the year, so WTF?!
Quite spewing HOT FART MIST, 'eh, gov?
How about FEEDING the KIDS instead?
But even as he pushed for more solar, Patrick said all renewable energy uses needed to grow and be available at roughly the same cost.
He's also for nuclear power, did you know that, Mass. lefties?
--MORE--"
Nevertheless, the Globe endorses giving Deval dictators powers.
Oh, and get ready to suffer, Mass. residents!!!
"Sharpen the shears, just in case July 16, 2008
GOVERNOR PATRICK needs new tools to deal with economic threats that, if left unchecked, could lead to a fiscal fiasco in 2009. Business-as-usual practices on Beacon Hill can't cope with what the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation fears is a budget that is $1 billion out of balance.
Patrick is asking the Legislature for special authority to make emergency cuts in budget areas, including local aid, that are beyond his current powers. The governor already has unfettered power to cut spending in his Cabinet agencies. But that covers just half of the $28.2 billion state budget approved this month by the Legislature, according to administration officials. And half-measures aren't likely to be enough in a darkening fiscal climate.
With just two weeks left in the legislative session, lawmakers are dealing with weighty bills on a variety of issues. But preserving the state's fiscal health has to be a top priority. Lawmakers should expand the governor's emergency budget-cutting powers, and they should do it immediately. Patrick needs the management flexibility to spread the cuts across the board. And if cuts are needed, it's better to take action before service agencies plan their programs than to cut services in the middle of the fiscal year.
Michael Widmer, president of the business-funded Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation:
"Delay is death, The longer you delay, the more savage the cuts have to be."
Patrick's concerns are also reflected in his veto of $122.5 million in the Legislature's budget, three times the amount he targeted last year. Not all of the vetoes are on target. Cutting anti-violence grants, for example, looks shortsighted, especially when he fails to veto cost-of-living raises for state retirees. Patrick distorts his message of fiscal responsibility when he increases the state's unfunded liability for retiree healthcare.
Administration officials say that they aren't panicky, but caution is in order. The severity of the cuts will depend, in part, on current negotiations with the federal government over a Medicaid waiver that is vital to funding the health reform plan. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake. But the state has no control over what is sure to be a falloff in certain tax collections. While budget forecasters initially expected $1.7 billion in capital gains tax revenues, that figure now looks optimistic as the stock market slumps and energy costs rise.
Given the political penalty, Patrick isn't likely to use expanded budget powers rashly. Wise use of reserves and new revenues from the closing of corporate loopholes could hold off some of the fiscal storm. But most indicators are shaky. The governor will need strong tools to button down the state.--MORE--"
