THE PIONEER BLOG

Alan Petrillo

Some markets are more equal than others.

/1 Comment/in , /by

The subprime crisis may soon lead to a shortage of liquidity, but it’s already produced a surplus of unhelpful commentary. A happy exception is this little rant from MSN Money columnist Bill Fleckenstein, especially this bit: Wall Street, the hedge-fund community and their lap dogs in the news media continually brag about how much they love capitalism and free markets. Yet when the creative-destruction component of capitalism rears its ugly head, they want the central planners to bail them out immediately, before they take any pain. And the ones clamoring the loudest are the very same folks who behaved the most irresponsibly. This isn’t just about central banks. In trying to manage the market, municipalities and states often resort to […]

Scott W. Graves

Good God, professors bow to the Left?

/3 Comments/in , , /by Scott W. Graves and Micaela Dawson

Who wudda thunk it? I mean, I never saw any hint of politicized courses at university! Marcella Bombardieri today reports in the Globe that 75% of the $7 million given to campaigns by academicians went to Democrats. I am shocked–shocked! 81% at MIT, 82% at Harvard, 90% at BU, 99% at Northeastern, and 100% at Tufts. More importantly, Bombardieri notes at the top of her article Professors and others in the education field have given more to federal candidates running in 2008 than those who work in the oil, pharmaceutical, and computer industries — a sign of how academia has become a much bigger player in the political cash sweepstakes. We need laws–yes, laws!–to stem the controlling influence of the […]

Scott W. Graves

Bored with education progress

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

It was something of a blast from the past that Governor Patrick appointed Paul Reville to chair the Board of Education. Entirely expected given that Paul chaired the First Task Force that led to the Second Task Force. But the appointment does say something about the “blast from the past” quality of education debates. Paul was on the board from 1991 to 1996. A bipartisan agreement (Weld-Birmingham-Finneran) led to the replacement of Paul and others and the appointment of the top vote-getting Democrat (and previously electoral opponent to Weld) John Silber to the helm of the BOE. Positive qualities Paul brings to the BOE are that he listens, and that he has some broader academic training (M.A.), which could be […]

Steve Poftak

Wednesday Quick Hits

/1 Comment/in , , /by

Burying the lede: State House News has a brief piece on the latest filings for School Building Assistance program. Towards the end, it notes that several of the schools built under the program (when it was administered by the Dep’t of Ed) in western Mass were being used for non-school purposes since the students never materialized to fill the building. So what exactly did we subsidize? We didn’t say it: I enjoyed this quote from a local restaurant bulletin board: “Ugh. So, I’m attending the American Chemical Society meeting with 1223947928 of my closest friends. Historically, this meeting (along with all the others) was at Hynes, which left you any number of options for lunch/dinner/drinks. But the new convention center […]

Steve Poftak

MBTA Pension Brouhaha

/6 Comments/in , , , /by

Today’s Globe has a brutal piece on the MBTA’s pension plan and the unbelievable payouts it generates. One of the highlights is former MBTA General Manager Michael Mulhern’s payout. He retired as GM several years ago and got the proverbial soft landing as head of the T’s pension plan. At age 48, he collects a pension of $130,000 and a salary of $225,000. The T’s plan does this because it has many of the crazy features of the other public pension systems (read more about those here) plus it has no minimum age feature, so folks can retire as soon as they get their 20 years in, even if they are in the prime of their careers. To add insult […]

Steve Poftak

Counterintuitive Thoughts on Healthcare Costs

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Back in October, we released a paper on business costs in Massachusetts. One of the surprising conclusions was that our healthcare costs were not terribly out of line with our competitor states. This was a real surprise and ran counter to a lot of the anecdotal data floating around. A fascinating entry in WBUR’s Commonhealth series sheds some light on the discrepancy. If you measure by average premium (which we did), we are not that far out of whack. If you measure by some variation of healthcare’s share of the Massachusetts’ economy, then we are massively out of line. David Torchiana, of the Mass. General Physician’s Organization argues that the second measure includes NIH expenditures and the costs associated with […]

Scott W. Graves

Thoughts on housing and Middle Cities

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

Housing is critical to the viability of Middle Cities, because housing development is the ticket to bringing a younger demographic and spending power back downtown—and therefore to fiscal solvency. These cities are built for and the leadership in these cities comfortable with high-density construction, especially if funding for school costs is available. Then why is there no 40R construction in these cities? The problem lies in the state requirement that all communities, notwithstanding the specific city or town’s attainment of the state’s 10 percent affordability threshold, deed restrict 20 percent of total 40R units to households earning no more than 80 percent of area median income (AMI). Most of these cities easily exceed the state’s affordability goals. Holyoke more than […]

Liam Day

I wholeheartedly agree. . .

/0 Comments/in , , /by Liam Day

. . . with Sally Dias, Vice President at Emmanuel College and member of a state task force assigned to examine why Black and Hispanic applicants lag behind white applicants on Massachusetts’ teacher licensing exams. She was quoted in today’s Boston Globe, “One test should really not be a determinant of someone’s career.” Ms. Dias is absolutely correct. It’s patently unfair to make teachers pass a licensing exam when no other profession is required to pass a similar test. I mean, doctors don’t have to. No, wait, they have to pass their boards. Okay, so they’re the exception. No, wait again, lawyers have to pass the bar exam. Okay, so two exceptions. Nurses? No, registered nurses have their board examinations. […]

Liam Day

OK, today’s sign of a cultural apocalypse

/0 Comments/in , , /by Liam Day

This one gleaned from the Georgia Public Policy Foundation’s Friday Facts, which, though decidedly ideological, are often hysterical. It seems the American Council of Trustees and Alumni conducted a survey of 70 colleges, of which just 15 require their English majors – not their general student populations, mind you, but their English majors – to take at least one course on Shakespeare. Again, I have to ask, Shakespeare? Really? Not Dreiser, Booth Tarkington, Sinclair Lewis or Upton Sinclair (Yes, I have a thing against early 20th-century American realism), but Shakespeare, the apogee of Western Culture and the English language. Now, the literary canon needed to be broken open and made more inclusive, but please tell me there is a place, […]

Liam Day

Only 7 percent? Really?

/0 Comments/in , /by Liam Day

According to today’s Springfield Republican, just 7% of American adults can name the first four Presidents in order. Not 17%. Not 70%. That’s right, 7%. And not all of the Presidents in order, just the first four, who among other things, drafted the Declaration of Independence, led a military campaign to insure that independence, drafted Massachusetts’ Constitution, which was one of the bases of the United States Constitution, and, finally, composed the Bill of Rights. Now, this has only tangentially to do with Pioneer’s current focus, but my predecessors at the Institute did, once upon a time, publish a report on the state of Civic Education in Massachusetts. Even if they hadn’t, can I just say: Washington, Adams, Jefferson and […]

Steve Poftak

So which is it?

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

From the Boston Globe of August 9: Cahill’s sharply worded statement is the most serious political breach to erupt between Patrick and a major Democratic figure since his inauguration in January…. Political insiders say much of the breach between Patrick and Cahill stems from the decision last April by Cahill’s one time top political consultant, Doug Rubin, to join the governor as his chief of staff. The relationship between Rubin and Cahill has been strained as the two offices grapple over several difficult issues…. Yesterday’s public flare-up was sparked when….. From the Boston Phoenix of August 15: Cahill has long been closer to Patrick than most in state government — a source in the treasurer’s office says they worked with […]

Steve Poftak

Conventional Wisdom Confusion (plus a MS Word bonus)

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Organic is good. Walmart is bad. Right? So what happens when Whole Foods (a huge seller of organic items) forces its suppliers to sell through (higher cost) distributors to Walmart, thereby raising prices and limiting the potential market for organic food. So confused… Oh, and that bonus. We get to learn about the Whole Foods tactic from a poorly redacted legal filing released (and subsequently withdrawn) by the Federal Trade Commission. It seems that some poor soul over there ‘redacted’ the sensitive information by using MS Word to turn the background black to match the color of the type. An enterprising AP reporter changed the background color off, revealing the sensitive data.

Steve Poftak

Before we spent billions on public construction…

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

…would it be worth it to reexamine the contracting process? Barry LePatner thinks so. (Plus he gets bonus points for citing Pioneer in the article.) He questions why the contracting process insulates the service providers from almost all risk. Then partially answers his question by noting that the structure of the construction industry is almost unchanged from 100 years ago. I don’t pretend to have expertise in the subject, but its a provocative read. And probably a conversation worth having before we embark on any more mega-projects.

Steve Poftak

CPA Point and Counterpoint

/0 Comments/in , , /by

We take a break from our usual self-promotion, to promote another think tank’s work — the Rappaport Institute has authored a study on the Community Preservation Act that has several major findings: 1) the CPA transfers funds from poor urban communities to affluent ones, particular to Middlesex County and the Cape, 2) it does not seem to promote affordable housing very effectively (particularly relative to open space), and 3) there’s not enough data on what the funds are being used for. The authors of the study make their case in this Globe op-ed. And are rebutted in this Globe op-ed. Both sides seem to agree that some reform is needed. They agree on the need for better data. The Rappaport […]

Steve Poftak

We should pay certain farmers to keep farming

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Sunday’s Globe brings us a long editorial praising the Administration’s commitment to the acquisition of open space in the Commonwealth, including a paragraph-length paean to the Agricultural Preservation Restriction program. This program seems innocuous enough — purchasing the development rights to key strategic parcels of farmland to preserve their agricultural usage. Even I can see some limited utility for this program, in concept, if it protected parcels in rapidly developing areas or that had important environmental qualities. But doesn’t this preservation compete with things like housing or commercial development? (Aha, the countervailing incentives for these programs are elsewhere in the capital budget.) Most tiresome for this observer is the location of many of the selected parcels, typically they are indistinguishable […]