Monday, October 20, 2008

Governor Patrick's Plane and Other Budget Bull-oney

"taxpayers [paid] $27,750 per year in maintenance and storage fees"

For a plane NO ONE EVER USED!!!

One wonders how much more $$$ this state is pissing away. And yet, we can't do away with the income tax because it will cut services, etc, etc.

I am so sick of being fed shit by the agenda-pushing MSM!!!


"State airplane falls victim to Patrick budget cutting" by Noah Bierman | October 19, 2008

Governor Deval Patrick did his own Sarah Palin imitation last week, ordering a state airplane sold to cut costs. But don't expect the latest gubernatorial plane sale to launch a vice presidential nomination, or a vicious war among political bloggers, a la Palin.

Patrick did not even mention the aircraft sale publicly; he's never ridden in it, according to state officials; and few in the state were aware it existed. It's sitting in a hanger in Norwood Memorial Airport, a Cessna-182 purchased in 1974 for $22,000. (By contrast, the Alaska jet famously sold by Palin - though not on eBay - was worth more than $2 million.) An obscure state agency, the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission, owns the plane and at one time used it to travel to small airports for inspections, according to Klark Jessen, spokesman for the state transportation secretary, Bernard Cohen.

"It has been used very little in recent years," Jessen said. The last logged hours were a year ago, when airport inspector Richard Bunker flew it for three hours to make sure it was still running, Jessen said. The plane may have been used to transport more prominent public officials in years past on an emergency basis, but even that is not clear, Jessen said. "It was never, for example, assigned to a particular elected official," he said.

The sale was one of the smaller moves Patrick made last week when he announced $1 billion in budget reductions. It is expected to save taxpayers $27,750 per year in maintenance and storage fees. Jessen said he was not sure what the plane would fetch on the open market.

And what do you get for paying MORE in TAXES? LESS SERVICES!!!!

That's TAXACHUSETTS for you!!!

Facing longer waits at RMV

Other cuts to the state transportation budget will hit residents harder, including Patrick's prediction last week that drivers would have to wait longer to renew licenses and take care of other business at the Registry of Motor Vehicles.

The Registry was already struggling, with the average wait times rising from less than 10 minutes in 2005 to more than 15 minutes last year - and climbing yet higher in 2008, according to preliminary numbers. Now the worse news. Because of hiring freezes and budget cuts, the Registry is shrinking its hours beginning Nov. 3.

That does it; I'm gonna start riding the bus!!!!

Cut in bus routes possible

Excuse me?

Patrick's cuts may also mean fewer long-haul bus routes that bring commuters into Boston from Marlborough, Northborough, Newburyport, Worcester, Marshfield, Taunton, Plymouth, and other towns in between. The state, through the MBTA, has subsidized private bus companies for about two decades to run those lines, according to private bus companies that run them. The combined subsidy is $408,500. --more--"

You Mass. taxpayers must be made of gold, huh?