Healey's Hurdles

 

I had to laugh when I read this letter in the Daily Hampshire Gazette.  

On Oct. 4, Gov. Maura Healey signed into law Massachusetts’ first tax cut in 20 years to the tune of $1 billion. Fast-forward to Jan. 8, when Gov. Healey announced a $1 billion tax shortfall.

I am one of many residents who put in countless hours to make sure the Fair Share Amendment passed. I do not appreciate this fiscal mismanagement.

Nancy Stenberg

​​Easthampton 

 

Right on sister, but in fairness to Her Governess, the current billion dollar shortfall has nothing to do with the tax cuts, which didn't kick in until the new year. In the coming months we will see the first effects of those tax cuts and perhaps we will indeed see an additional billion dollars in revenue shrinkage, but that hasn't happened yet. 

It's sad how Ms. Stenberg worked so hard to pass the so-called "Fair Share Amendment" only to have the billion bucks in new revenue it raised be cancelled out by the billion dollar (so far) revenue slump. Of course the "millionaire's tax" was never going to be paid by any actual millionaires anyway (who are almost all business owners who then pass on their higher tax bill to the general public by raising prices) but I don't think anyone foresaw that the money raised by the  tax would be  completely wiped out in its first year due to the bottom falling out of the state budget. 

So if the tax cuts didn't dig the budget hole, what did? Much of that Fair Share one billion was lost due to the exploding expense of the hundreds of "migrants" arriving in Massachusetts every week and being placed on welfare within twenty-four hours of their arrival. Busloads of new welfare recipients arriving on a daily basis gets to be expensive. 

With word spreading like wildfire along the southern border that Massachusetts is the only state in the union that guarantees housing for families by law, we can be sure that this is a budget line item that will only continue to metastasize in the coming months, blowing ever bigger holes in the state budget. 

The prudent fiscal ways of former Republican Governor Charlie Baker left Healey with hundreds of millions of dollars in unspent funds left over from the so-called pandemic. But in just her first year, Healey has managed to blow all of it except for the cash of last resort in the state's "rainy day fund" (and you can be sure the politicos are starting to eye that as well). 

Poor Governor Healey. She thought  her term as Governor would be spent spending all that beautiful cash Charlie left her, merrily devising new socialist style policies for Massachusetts. Instead, it looks like she will spend most of her term deciding which budgets to slash and how many workers to fire. 

Heading home....

 

Thornes at night. 

This morning out the window of the Woodstar Cafe. 

Snow on the street. 

Ice on the street. 

 

Gone but not forgotten.