Charlie Baker gets fat with pay hike

During his inaugural address the other day, Gov. Charlie “Tall Deval” Baker somehow neglected to mention perhaps the biggest news in state government.

Namely, his $100,000 pay raise, and the fact that he is now the highest paid governor in the United States. His base pay went from $151,800 to $185,000, and now he also pockets a “housing allowance” of $65,000 a year.

Of course, he had to take that extra $2,000 a week, don’t you know. It was a “statutory requirement,” as he said last fall. I guess that means it would have been a crime for Tall Deval not to take the extra two grand a week.

And it’s not like the taxpayers aren’t getting good return on their “investment” (a word Tall Deval used at least three times in the course of his interminable, paralyzingly boring remarks).

After all, at the same time Gov. Faker and the rest of the hacks at the State House are grabbing megabucks, if your family makes around the median annual income for Massachusetts households ($77,000), then under the recent income-tax “cut” you are going to grab an extra 70 cents a week in your paycheck.

Seventy cents a week. Don’t spend it all in one place.

While the RINO governor collects an extra hundred grand a year – this is what Gov. M. Stanley Dukakis used to call “good jobs at good wages.” And for Tall Deval, at age 62, it gets even better, because, as one of Whitey Bulger’s pals, Fat Harry Johnson, once noted:

“Behind the salary comes the pension.”

The governor’s office was asked Friday about his pension status. I mean, he’s been feeding at the public trough off and on practically since he was a child. But his coat holders declined to answer the question if he’s vested, so we can assume he is.

However, I have some very bad news to share with Tall Deval. In fact, I would call it “disappointing,” as he always describes any actions by President Donald J. Trump.

More than a decade ago, Billy Bulger, the Corrupt Midget, sued to have his “housing allowance” from UMass included in his pension — $200,000-plus a year since 2003, by the way. And some people still say crime doesn’t pay. It’s one thing to slop at the trough, it’s another thing to lick the plate – just ask the Corrupt Midget.

The courts, as rotten as the rest of state government, okayed the Corrupt Midget’s extra money grab. But Friday, I made a call to the state treasurer, who oversees the Retirement Board. I was shocked to learn that the regulations were amended in 2009 so that “wages shall not include, without limitation, indirect, in-kind or other payments for such items as housing.”

In other words, Tall Deval is NOT going to be able to grab an extra four grand a month in his state kiss in the mail based on his “housing allowance.”

Not that he’ll be subsisting on pet food in his dotage up in his $1.1-million mansion in Swampscott. Let’s say Tall Deval, career payroll patriot, grabs 80 percent, or close to it – 80 times $185,000 is still $148,000 a year.

Is your pension going to be $148,000 a year?

The swearing-in was attended of course by Tall Deval’s family – his wife, his father, and his three kids, one of whom, A.J., a/k/a Gropey, was accused last summer of groping a female passenger on a Jet Blue flight to Logan. That case has been effectively broomed.

As Tall Deval noted in his address, without elaboration:

“We have also made progress on criminal justice… Nobody wants to see someone’s life ruined over a small-time lapse in judgment.”

Anyone in particular you’re referring to, Tall Deval?

One of the more humorous moments came when Senate President Karen Spilka, presiding over the proceedings, announced that “at this time I would invite” the governor’s family up to the podium for the swearing-in.

Tall Deval was out of his seat like a rocket. He rushed up to Spilka and leaned over her shoulder at the podium.

“Just my dad,” he said.

“Oh,” said the Senate president. “Okay.”

“Just my dad,” he repeated.

The Baker spalpeens, for the record, were seated just in front of a number of uniformed cops – Boston brass, it looked like to me, which was a good decision by somebody, considering that the ultra-corrupt State Police have already broomed at least one case against the governor’s son.

Meanwhile, Kevin Spacey is due in court down on Nantucket tomorrow to answer to charges of sexual assault.

“Your Honor,” he should say, “I ask for no special treatment from this court. Just treat me like Tall Deval’s son.”