MORE ARTICLES

Stay Connected!

Receive the latest updates in your inbox.

LATEST ARTICLES

Gentle tap on the shoulders

/0 Comments/in , /by

The governor gave everyone a less than gentle reminder of why he got elected, and why he will be a tough competitor throughout this campaign. Going after the consolidation of parole and reining in the judiciary’s probation system — these are tasks not for the meek or weak of heart. Kudos to him for putting it out there. Good messaging, hits some of the people he would enjoy hitting, as the Globe pointed out, and allows him to point the finger at Senators and Reps — i.e., good political strategy — because he will need their approval to consolidate parole (currently a $20 M exec function) and probation (a $100+M judicial function) in any executive branch office.

New Report on MA Reform

/0 Comments/in , /by

It’s too bad that this new Cato report on health care reform in Massachusetts http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11115  is not in a policy journal like Health Affairs as many more people would read it.  It certainly provides some interesting analysis and food for thought regarding the reform’s outcomes.  The results are in line with what I reported recently in the first chapter of Pioneer’s series evaluating the reform http://www.pioneerinst.wpengine.com/pdf/100113_interim_report_card1.pdf  The authors use CPS data to look at reductions in the uninsured, crowd-out from private to public coverage, and improvements in health.  They provide some interesting data assessing the effect of non-response on insurance questions pre and post reform.    They posit that the misreporting of insurance status is greater given the mandate to have […]

Sleeping through the election

/1 Comment/in , /by

Two quick hits on yesterday’s election. One’s obvious. The geographical coverage of Brown’s victory is stunning. Coakley took western Mass, the tip of the Cape and most cities, but the rest of the state (again, the rest of the state went for Brown). Bad news for the Governor (no, scratch that – incumbents generally) with the 60+% of independents going for Brown. Second thing that strikes me from the data is that the cities may have gone for Coakley, but they really sat this one out. Voter turnout as a whole was high, and averaged around 60% outside the cities. But it was only in the high 20s to mid 40s in the cities. Boston 43% Chelsea 37% Fall River […]

NEA $1M to Kennedy Institute

/0 Comments/in , /by

From our Education Intelligence Agent: The National Education Association board of directors approved a $1 million donation from the union’s contingency fund to the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate. The contribution will be made in $200,000 installments over the next five years. Among other things, the institute will have a training program for incoming U.S. Senators. Hmm. If the first senator-elect to use it is Scott Brown, I think the NEA may need to do some extra training.

MassDOT Developers Must Be Stopped

/2 Comments/in , , /by

Dear Secretary Mullan, Last year, I criticized manual toll collection, saying “Few other government services are executed with the deliberate inefficiency and expense of manual tolling.”. But I have a confession – its practices like this that make my job necessary. That’s why I’m so concerned about the MassDOT Developers project. What could be a standard issue example of overly long and complex government procurement, with expensive consultants, millions of dollars of custom code, and little interest in actual customers, is becoming something very different. Although in a pilot phase, they’ve shown the ability to bring products to market quickly, leverage outside skillsets the state could never hope to hire, and do it at minimal cost. Most importantly, the results […]