THE PIONEER BLOG

Steve Poftak

Maxing out the State Credit Card

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

As noted in yesterday’s post, the Commonwealth signaled its intention to utilize the full $1b in short-term borrowing capability in advance of April’s tax receipts. April is typical the toughest month as personal income tax receipts aren’t due until the 15th and over $1b in local aid has to go out at the beginning of the month. But the Treasurer just announced that the state will be maxing out its credit card in December, not April.

Steve Poftak

Interesting Reading

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The latest version of the Commonwealth’s Information Statement Supplement , the best source of concrete financial data on our state, is out. A few nuggets: The Surplus: pg. A-1 — The State ended up with a fiscal 2007 surplus of $190.9 million. Of course, there was a supplemental budget passed in October (for FY2007) that spent $212.1m and rolled over $60m in unexpended funds. Thus, without that supp, there would have been a surplus of $462m. Lottery Deficit: pg. A-2 — The lottery was short by $119m and will be short by $124m next year, unless sales pick up significantly.  That’s $243m that the state needs to make up somewhere. Taxes: pg. A-3 — FY2007 tax revenues exceeded projections by […]

Steve Poftak

Full Coverage of Saliva-Related Issues

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The Legislature may not have had time to take up gambling or biotech investments this session, but rest assured that the issue of band-instrument spittle is moving apace — just today the Senate approved a House bill establishing a task force to examine hygienic procedures pertaining to band instruments.

Scott W. Graves

American Exceptionalism

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela Dawson

Joseph Stiglitz was spot on about the costs of the Iraq War. But, like many Nobel Prize economists, he’s gained a tendency to believe he has a pulpit from which to preach. Sort of like being an economist and a New York Times columnist, except that Stiglitz still is an economist. I enjoy Stiglitz less and less, I admit, but being cooped up in an airplane for 20 hours does something to you. You read what you brought or you watch the Transformers. (On that score, god, please let the Screenwriters strike stretch on –at least this year we will have fewer lousy movies.) In one of the articles, Stiglitz, taking a page out of the John Edwards-Mike Huckabee-Barack Obama […]

Scott W. Graves

Science giveth and science taketh away

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela Dawson

The ethical controversy surrounding embryonic stem cells engendered by the scientific use of stem cells may now be at an end. Dr. Maureen Condic and Dr. Markus Grompe write in the Wall Street Journal (11/23/07): Two major scientific papers published this week in Science and Cell magazines unveil a proven way to generate patient-matche, human pluripotent stem cells without human cloning, and with the use of human embryos or human or animal eggs. Exciting stuff. And, one hopes, a way past what many considered a slippery slope of giving ethical “easements” on the basis pure hope (and as we are not sure of the potential yet, perhaps even hype). Science has provided a resolution to the ethical and political debate, […]

Liam Day

Panderbears are so cute and cuddly

/0 Comments/in , , /by Liam Day

What does it say about the Democratic party that its entirely uncritical relationship with the teachers’ union has become the baseline against which to measure other panders. This from the Talk of the Town section in the most recent New Yorker, in which George Packer analyzes the Republican presidential candidates, who he claims try to outdo one another, burnishing tough foreign policy stances while “. . . pandering to the war lobby as if they were Democrats addressing the teachers’ union.” And this is The New Yorker, mind you, not the National Review.

Scott W. Graves

Life support for the Globe?

/0 Comments/in , /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela Dawson

Been traveling so catching up on some items. In case you missed it, the Globe‘s circulation is down 6.66% (to 361,000) and the Herald‘s 8.7% (to 186,000). I loved the November 6 Globe’s headline: “Newspaper circulation still on decline.” All true, though the numbers for the Globe and the Herald were decidedly steeper than for all newspapers except for the Dallas Morning News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. While it might be interesting to understand why the circulations of Boston papers are headed in the opposite direction from that of the Philadelphia Inquirer (up 2.3% to 338,000), the broader, more important question is why the decline in newspaper readership is steeper in Boston than elsewhere? Other cities and regions have Metro […]

Steve Poftak

Another first from the paper of record

/0 Comments/in , , /by

I’m confident that no previous New York Times’ article has ever mentioned this level of alcohol consumption.  From the NYT’s helpful guide to carving a Thanksgiving turkey: “One year the turkey took a long time to cook and I went to carve it after about 13 beers,” said Maurice Landry, who lives near Lake Charles, La. “The way I remember it, I bore down to take off the leg and the whole thing went shooting off the platter and knocked over the centerpiece.” Happy Thanksgiving!

Steve Poftak

A Small Step for Transparency

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Buried in the outside sections of Governor’s latest supplemental budget is a provision to move the Mass Turnpike’s accounting system into the main state accounting system (that’s NewMMARS for you budgeting enthusiasts). This change will now make the MTA’s accounts (and spending down to a very detailed level) transparent to state budget officials. I’m not sure whether to be happy about the progress or sad that such a basic thing counts as progress.

Steve Poftak

Another Great Idea from the central planners

/0 Comments/in , , /by

From today’s Globe editorial promoting universal wireless in Boston: Boston is trying to invent a more open model, with a network to be built and maintained by a newly created nonprofit using donated money. This nonprofit would pursue the civic mission and welcome commercial partners. So, for example, Verizon might offer low-cost e-mail service. [Emphasis added] Great idea, you could call it Hotmail. Or maybe Gmail. No wait, how about…….

Liam Day

Boston vs. Buffalo

/0 Comments/in , /by Liam Day

The Patriots rolled to victory again last night. The victim this week – the Buffalo Bills. Football, however, is not the only field in which we appear to have a distinct advantage. It seems, at least according to msn.com, that Boston and Buffalo will be the most and second most expensive cities in which to heat your home this winter. Msn.com surmises that Buffalo comes in at no. 2 on the list because, well, because it’s quite simply a godforsakenly frigid city. Boston, however, is a different story. We top the list because we rely much more on heating oil than natural gas, whose price has inflated only 72% in the last decade compared to oil’s 234% increase. This obviously […]

Steve Poftak

Stopping the Drip, Drip, Drip

/0 Comments/in , , /by

I posted a few weeks ago, regarding the quiet, unchecked potential expansion of legislation that would greatly increase pension costs. So, its only fair that I give credit to the Joint Committee on Public Service for putting a severe limit on this type of behavior. They are requiring that all ‘reclassification requests’ (the practice of changing the classification level of an employee or class of employees, thereby increasing their pensions through statutory action; one of the many gaming techniques detailed here) come with an estimate of the cost and a written opinion from the Retirement Board that actually has to pay out the money. Its apparently angered at least one of their colleagues, but we salute their common sense request […]

Steve Poftak

Ummm, ahhh, the number is 617-723-2277

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Heh, heh, still waiting for the Patrick Administration to call. Did you feel a palpable shift in the oversight of state government last month? Sure you did. October 18th marked the expiration of my term on the Commonwealth’s Finance Advisory Board. Still waiting for that reappointment phone call from my friends in the Administration.

Steve Poftak

Or you could just give the money back to ratepayers

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Tuesday’s Globe had a story on the tug of war going on regarding the Renewable Energy Trust with some legislators seeking to move it out of the quasi-autonomous Mass Technology Collaborative (with its… ahem… own loyalties) and into the Environmental Affairs Secretariat. The Trust, like many well-meaning programs, suffers from the Ginsu Knife effect (remember – it slices, it dices, but wait, there’s more….). It offers grants, rebates, technical assistance, equity investments, debt financing, and marriage counseling. (OK, I made that last one up.) The net effect being that its almost impossible to figure out if the program is doing any good. I’m all for clean energy, but taxing our utility bills then shuffling the money off to a quasi-state […]

Scott W. Graves

Some ugly numbers on deficient bridges

/0 Comments/in , , , /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela Dawson

The Reason Foundation has posted up some data on the number of deficient bridges across the nation. The feds track this stuff for obvious reasons (mobility across states, an understanding as to how states are doing and what they are doing with fed money, and also because bridges that are rated ‘deficient’ become eligible for federal funding for repair. Overall, Reason notes that The condition of the nation’s highway bridges continued to improve from 2004 to 2005. Of the 596,980 highway bridges in the current National Bridge Inventory, 147,913—about 24.52 percent—were reported deficient for 2005 (see table), a slight improvement from 2004. In 1998 about 29.0 percent were rated deficient. However, progress is slow; at the current rate of improvement, […]