Upcoming Mass. budget debate is strictly for show
Is it laziness? No. The fix is in with the closed-door negotiations.
It is going to be very ugly at the State House next week.
The House is going to debate the state’s annual budget. While we are lucky that the Speaker has rejected Gov. Maura Healey’s multiple tax increases, the House is still burning our tax dollars at the same high pace.
The grand total for the annual budget is over $61 billion. Appropriations have grown by 50 percent in just five years! And remember this grand total does not include the supplemental budgets that the legislature passed during the year. Last year, they had to add a half billion more for the migrant shelters!
Included in the House budget is more money for Atty. Gen. Andrea Campbell to sue the Trump administration and $5 million for lawyers for the illegal aliens. Do you hear a flushing sound? It is not enough that we have housed and fed them. Now we have to give them lawyers to fight deportations so they can remain here on welfare forever.
Over 1600 amendments have been filed. The majority of Democrat amendments are for more money while Republicans are pushing to end the MBTA’s Community Act. Don’t waste your time trying to watch the “debate.” Everything will be negotiated behind closed doors. Hundreds of amendments will be bundled into one, so we have no idea what is being passed.
Back in 2014, they snuck in the “Blue Ribbon Commission” of legislative pay raises that shockingly recommended huge increases for the members.
Who is getting a gazebo for his or her district will not be disclosed. How much they are adding to the budget with each bundled amendment will be hidden from us.
This budget debate will last no more than three days. Back in the 1990s when the House spent $15 billion, the debate would last two to three weeks. Amendments were actually debated and members took the time to read the document. Spending $61 billion for some reason doesn’t deserve the same scrutiny as $15 billion.
Is it laziness? No. The fix is in with the closed-door negotiations.
With the lack of transparency on spending these billions of our tax dollars, I am shocked that the ballot question to audit the legislature did not pass with 99% of the vote.
