Oped: Better Government

http://www.pharmacychoice.com/News/article.cfm?Article_ID=884991 May 11Gov. Deval Patrick has ushered in the return of Taxachusetts taxing and spending more than ever, new figures show. The latest state numbers show Massachusetts has taken in a record $17.21 billion in income and sales taxes and other levies during...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/04/mitt-romney-homeland-security-massachusetts_n_1467940.html Mitt Romney ran for governor of Massachusetts as the man who saved the 2002 winter Olympics. While much of his focus had been on righting the games in Salt Lake City after its organizing committee became mired in a U.S. bribery...

http://www.wickedlocal.com/swampscott/newsnow/x1783273805/EDITORIAL-Strauss-Kinney-the-right-choices#axzz2OHGE6ymJ One thing Swampscott’s top two boards lack is experience. On the Board of Selectmen, only Jill Sullivan has been on the board for more  than one term. No one on the School Committee has served for more than one  term. Experience...

News outlets examine a variety of state health policy issues, including articles from California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Oregon. Reuters: Revenue Wilted, States Rely On Cuts To Meet Budget Trapped in a revenue wasteland, U.S. states...

http://www.politico.com/politicopulse/0412/politicopulse725.html TODAY: SENATE BUDGET BEGINS ‘MARKUP’ — The Senate’s top budget guru on Tuesday said he’s introducing the so-called “Simpson-Bowles” deficit report with hopes of building a bipartisan consensus before the end of the year. The committee will begin a markup on...

http://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2012/04/18/another-take-budget-buster-report-health-law-was-more-expensive-one-analyst-says/P3MWkYqHtZG5MMYUGX6PvM/story.html Josh Archambault appreciates that there are other people in the state, besides him, trying to calculate the overall cost of the 2006 Massachusetts law requiring most residents to have health insurance.  And, he said, he thinks a report out last week...

http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/obamas-2013-education-budget-and-blueprint-a-costly-expansion-of-fed “Budgets are about choices.” Such was President Barack Obama’s message during a recent speech to the National Governors Association. President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget request and supplemental education spending proposals make the Administration’s own choice perfectly clear: Continue to...

http://www.wbur.org/2012/04/08/debt-big-dig BOSTON — For nearly a decade, traffic has been zipping through Boston’s Big Dig tunnels, the nation’s costliest highway project that has also left a gaping financial hole in the state’s transportation budget that isn’t likely to be filled anytime soon....

http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/print-edition/2012/04/06/new-conservative-watchdog-joins-beacon.html?page=all A new fiscal advocacy group joined the ranks of conservative Beacon Hill watchdogs in March by calling for lawmakers to drop plans to boost the minimum wage and require that companies give workers paid sick days off. But the Massachusetts Fiscal...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/294861/biden-vs-romney-katrina-trinko Joe Biden didn’t mince words when he talked about Mitt Romney in Iowa yesterday. He blatantly accused the former Massachusetts governor of killing jobs. “When he was governor of Massachusetts, he vetoed a bill passed by the Massachusetts legislature that would...