State Budget Deadline Impending, Healey and Spilka Skip Town
Our state budget is due on July 1. This week the Senate President Karen Spilka is in Israel and our new Gov. Maura Healey is in Ireland. That means nothing is going to happen.
It’s Groundhog Day in June.
Once again, the legislature has failed to do its most important job.
Our state budget is due on July 1, but every year for the past two decades and counting, the Beacon Hill pols have failed to pass a budget on time. They don’t even try anymore.
This week the Senate President Karen Spilka is in Israel and our new Gov. Maura Healey is in Ireland. That means nothing is going to happen, because all the power at the State House is controlled by three people—the governor, the Senate president and the speaker of the House.
Don’t worry. The Commonwealth is not going to shut down for a few days, which might even save us a few tax dollars. Everything will continue as smoothly (or not) as ever.
Most important, of course, is making drivers’ licenses becoming available to illegal aliens. That could never be slowed down or stopped! Gov. Healey on her way out of state again filed an interim budget of $6.66 billion to keep the state operational until July 31.
So, the legislature is not going to be a week or two or even three weeks late. They are going to be one-twelfth of the year late.
State House News Service reports that Healey said filing the interim budget was the “prudent thing to do.” Really? Our state is going to pass an emergency spending bill of $6.66 billion with no real oversight.
That’s prudent?
Wouldn’t the ‘prudent thing to do’ have been to stay in the country to get the work done? No, traveling overseas to push the extreme liberal agenda is more important than doing the job that the taxpayers hired you to do.
If the legislature cannot get its work done on time, should we be paying those 200 “lawmakers?” No! It is not like they are working around the clock and could not come to an agreement. They are choosing not to do their job. And this is not their only failure.
Look at how long the so-called tax relief legislation has dragged on and on. We were promised tax reform a year ago March. While a conference committee continues negotiating the differences between the House and Senate versions, there is still no guarantee anything will pass. The legislature got to this point last year and then dropped the ball. If it weren’t for Gov. Charlie Baker discovering the 62F law, no one in Massachusetts would have ever seen a dime last year.
There is one way to correct the lethargy and sloth of our professional political class. We should pay legislators $100 per year as New Hampshire does. With so little pay for their time, a budget would get passed on time, because they would have to earn a living in the real world where deadlines must be met.
