Transcripts

Massachusetts is home to the most restrictive state privatization law in the nation. Since the so-called Pacheco law was enacted in 1993, only six state services have been contracted out to private service providers, while similar efforts have dramatically expanded in other jurisdictions. A Pioneer Forum on competitive contracting was held to mark the release of a new White Paper “Competition and Goverment Services: Can Massachusetts Still Afford the Pacheco Law?” Speakers included two co-authors of the paper, Geoffrey Segal and Adrian Moore of the Reason Public Policy Institute, Senator Marc Pacheco, author of the law, John Parsons, general counsel and director of privatization for the state auditor’s office, and Charles Chieppo of Pioneer’s Shamie Center for Restructuring Government. The remarks of each are excerpted below.

Judge Dolan discussed his findings at a recent Pioneer Forum, with commentary by attorneys Edward P. Ryan, Jr., immediate past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, and David Steelman of the National Center for State Courts, a management consultant to courts around the country. The remarks of each are excerpted below.

Pioneer Institute partnered with the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation on a study finding the MBTA cannot afford any of its planned expansion projects without additional state funding. Speaking at a forum on the study’s release were Michael Widmer, MTF president; Charles Chieppo, director of the Shamie Center for Restructuring Government at Pioneer; Thomas Finneran, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; James Scanlon, the Commonwealth’s acting secretary of transportation; and David Luberoff, associate director of the Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The remarks of each are excerpted below.

ABC News correspondent John Stossel delivered the keynote address at Pioneer Institute’s 2001 Better Government Competition Awards Dinner. Best known for his “Give Me a Break” segment on the ABC news magazine program “20/20,” Stossel also produces prime-time specials; one of his most recent was a consumer report on government. The Dallas Morning News has called Stossel, the winner of 19 Emmy Awards, “the most consistently thought-provoking TV reporter of our time.” Excerpts of his remarks are printed below.

A recent Pioneer Institute White Paper examined the state of civic education in Massachusetts, comparing the performance of district, charter, and private— including parochial and secular private—schools in preparing students for responsible citizenship. To mark the study’s release, Pioneer sponsored a Forum with the author, David Campbell, a research fellow at Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance. Commentary was provided by former Congressman Mickey Edwards, John Quincy Adams lecturer in legislative politics at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Jay Greene, senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute; and Diane Palmer, Massachusetts coordinator of “We the People” Center for Civic Education. The remarks of each are excerpted below

Former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey, scheduled to deliver the 2001 Lovett C. Peters Lecture in Public Policy on ethics and integrity in government, instead used the occasion to address a topic that weighed most heavily on the minds of his audience—the terrorist attacks that had occurred less than a month earlier.

A recent Pioneer Forum titled “Build More or Manage Better? Subsidized Housing in Massachusetts” marked the release of a Pioneer White Paper of the same title. The paper’s co-author, Howard Husock, director of case studies at Harvard’s Kennedy School Government, summarized the study’s findings. Commentary was provided by Thomas M. Finneran, speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives; Aaron Gornstein, executive director of Citizens’ Housing and Planning Association; and Sandra B. Henriquez, administrator of the Boston Housing Authority. The remarks of each are excerpted below.

In connection with the release of a four-city study on urban entrepreneurship, Boston City Council President Charles Yancey addressed a recent Pioneer Forum on steps the city government can take to foster small business development in city neighborhoods. The study, produced by the Reason Public Policy Institute in conjunction with Pioneer and two other think tanks, was directed by Sam Staley, Director of Reason’s Urban Futures Program, who also spoke at the Forum, outlining the scope of the study and its findings. The remarks of both speakers are excerpted below, beginning with Staley’s overview.

Pioneer Institute recently issued a White Paper examining its use in the Commonwealth. In conjunction with the Federalist Society, Pioneer held a Forum featuring the paper’s author, Michael Malamut of the New England Legal Foundation. Also speaking were Gideon Kanner, professor of law emeritus at Loyola University and a national authority on eminent domain; Jason Barshak, who as an Assistant Attorney General has defended the Commonwealth in civil ligitation stemming from eminent domain takings; and James Masterman, an attorney in private practice specializing in eminent domain cases. The following excerpts each’s remarks.

A recent Pioneer conference on “Microenterprise in Boston: Building the Entrepreneurial City of the Future” included a panel discussion on the range of services offered to microentrepreneurs by various support organizations. Providing a framework for the discussion, John Friar of the Entrepreneurship Center at Northeastern University, conference co-sponsor, spoke of the role of microbusinesses in the economy. Michael Caslin, CEO of the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, offered concluding thoughts on the value of entrepreneurship in terms of individual and societal betterment. The remarks of each are excerpted below, followed by a look at the participating organizations and the services they provide.