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.
Download Report: MBTA Capital Spending: Derailed by Expansion?
James W. Dolan, Esq., Principal, Dolan and Connly, P.C., Former First Justice, Dorchester District Court
The study graphically documents the wildly uneven distribution of resources caused by a patronage system that has led to overstaffing of courts that are politically connected and understaffing of those that are not. The documentation is compellingly clear, one of the best existing analyses of the effects of patronage in a court system. The legal maxim “res ipsa loquitur” captures the self-evident nature of the presentation. There was no need for editorializing.
A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
This report explores the current budgeting and staffing process and the problems arising from it—striking productivity declines, rapidly rising costs, and, most importantly, systemic inequities in the distribution of resources.
Download Report: A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
“She’s a good girl. She helps me a lot. She has big, big dreams. I don’t have the money, but she has big dreams. I hope she’s going to get everything, but she works so hard. She works so hard in school.”
“Our family is needing to make some really big sacrifices because we believe this is important, and so, we’re basically going to do whatever it takes… Sometimes we look at each other and go ‘I don’t know if I can do it again another month…’”
“A lot of the families have to sacrifice and work multiple jobs… And just scraping together enough money to just make tuition, just the basics.”
“It is discriminatory, that parents who want to choose an alternative to public school for their children, would not in any way receive any compensation for that, whether it be tax credit, whether it be a voucher…”
In the 1840s, nativist movement leaders formed official political parties and local chapters of the national Native American Party (later the American Party), although they continued to be commonly known as the Know-Nothing Party. Politicians sought to insert provisions into state constitutions against Catholics who refused to renounce the pope. The Know-Nothing movement brought bigotry and hatred to a new level of violence and organization.
The party’s legacy endured in the post-Civil War era, with laws and constitutional amendments it supported, still today severely limiting parents’ educational choices. A federal constitutional amendment was proposed by Speaker of the House James Blaine prohibiting money raised by taxation in any State to be under the control of any religious sect; nor shall any money so raised or lands so devoted be divided between religious sects or denominations. These were then named the Blaine Amendments of 1875.
in recent decades, often in response to challenges to school choice programs, the U.S. Supreme Court has demonstrated great interest in examining the issues of educational alternatives and attempts limit parental options. Massachusetts plays a key role in this debate. The Bay State was a key center of the Know-Nothing movement and has the oldest version of Anti-Aid Amendments in the nation, as well as a second such amendment approved in 1917. Two-fifths of Massachusetts residents are Catholic, and its Catholic schools outperform the state’s public schools, which are the best in the nation.
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.
Download Report: MBTA Capital Spending: Derailed by Expansion?
James W. Dolan, Esq., Principal, Dolan and Connly, P.C., Former First Justice, Dorchester District Court
The study graphically documents the wildly uneven distribution of resources caused by a patronage system that has led to overstaffing of courts that are politically connected and understaffing of those that are not. The documentation is compellingly clear, one of the best existing analyses of the effects of patronage in a court system. The legal maxim “res ipsa loquitur” captures the self-evident nature of the presentation. There was no need for editorializing.
A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
This report explores the current budgeting and staffing process and the problems arising from it—striking productivity declines, rapidly rising costs, and, most importantly, systemic inequities in the distribution of resources.
Download Report: A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
MBTA Capital Spending: Derailed by Expansion?
/0 Comments/in Transcripts /by Pioneer Institute and Charles ChieppoPioneer 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.
Download Report: MBTA Capital Spending: Derailed by Expansion?
A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
/0 Comments/in Better Government, Press Releases, Press Releases: Government /by Editorial StaffJames W. Dolan, Esq., Principal, Dolan and Connly, P.C., Former First Justice, Dorchester District Court
The study graphically documents the wildly uneven distribution of resources caused by a patronage system that has led to overstaffing of courts that are politically connected and understaffing of those that are not. The documentation is compellingly clear, one of the best existing analyses of the effects of patronage in a court system. The legal maxim “res ipsa loquitur” captures the self-evident nature of the presentation. There was no need for editorializing.
A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch
/0 Comments/in Better Government /by James DolanThis report explores the current budgeting and staffing process and the problems arising from it—striking productivity declines, rapidly rising costs, and, most importantly, systemic inequities in the distribution of resources.
Download Report: A Declaration of Independence: Reaffirming the Autonomy of the Third Branch