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No answers from the Know Nothings
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byBoston and Massachusetts as a whole have made some strides toward racial harmony in the past few decades. But we still face what some politicians like to refer to as the “civil rights issue of the 21st century”: education. Fact is from the time of Brown v. the Board of Education, education has always been the civil rights issue. Our history with tolerance has, as we know too well, high points and some really low points. At the same time that we nested some of the early abolitionists, we became a stronghold of vituperative anti-Catholicism. The picture above shows one of the brutal emanations of that intolerance: the Plug Uglies. The Plug Uglies’name was fitting, indeed; commissioned by the Know […]
What’s a retiring teacher’s pension worth?
/5 Comments/in Blog, News /by Jim StergiosTRAIN CRASH – Watch more Funny Videos Well, that’s an easy one to answer. It depends on how much a retiring teacher earns at the end of his or her career. So let’s start there. According to the state’s department of education, in 2009 the average teacher in the Commonwealth earned $67,577 in 2009. That’s the last year for which we have complete data. If you apply a reasonable algorithm, based on the lowest assumption for salary increases (just over 4.5% annually) made by the pension system itself, you get an average teacher salary in 2011 of about $74,000. Retiring teachers, of course, reach salaries that are far beyond the average salaries. You put 30, even 35 years into a […]
The New Monopoly and the Ballot Initiative
/0 Comments/in Blog, News /byHere is testimony I submitted today to the Election Laws Committee on the attempt by big public labor to undermine the ballot initiative process. James Stergios, Pioneer Institute Testimony ~ Wednesday, March 23, 2011 ~ 10:30 AM ~ Room B-1 HEARING BEFORE ELECTION LAWS COMMITTEE Senate Chair Barry R. Finegold, Senate Vice Chair Sal N. DiDomenico, Senator Kenneth J. Donnelly, Senator James T. Welch, Senator Thomas P. Kennedy, Senator Michael R. Knapik, House Chair Michael J. Moran, House Vice Chair Sean Garballey, Representative Cory Atkins, Representative Stephen Stat Smith, Representative Brian M. Ashe, Representative Dennis A. Rosa, Representative Denise Andrews, Representative Jerald A. Parisella, Representative Daniel K. Webster, Representative Marc T. Lombardo Thank you for the opportunity to testify here […]
Public pension tension is warranted
/1 Comment/in Better Government, Blog /byInteresting juxtaposition in the Globe recently on public pensions. First came columnist Renee Loth, carrying water for the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, formerly the Tax Equity Alliance of Massachusetts. The rumor, when they changed their name, was that the group did it because the nickname Barbara Anderson’s group Citizens for Limited Taxation had given them – “Tax Everything And More” – had gained some serious traction. Loth rehashed the favored talking point of the past couple of years from public employee unions. “Independent” studies by groups like MBPC find that public employees actually make less than those in the private sector, when compared with those with similar education. The “penalty” for those with college degrees working in the public […]
It’s not where the gov is, it’s the business climate
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Blog, Economic Opportunity, News /byThe timing was lousy. Gov. Deval Patrick was on his big “trade mission” to Israel and England when the giant sucking sound came from Marlborough – Fidelity announced it was essentially shuttering its operation there, moving 1,100 jobs to Merrimack, N.H. and Rhode Island. It tended to take the wind out of the governor’s announcement that this 10-day junket might bring all of 50 jobs to Massachusetts. Patrick didn’t help his cause much, declaring from London that he was “deeply frustrated” that the company had blindsided him, and later demanding that they “tell me to my face” that the decision is final. What does he expect – that CEOs are going to check with him first, or ask his permission […]