Monday, January 26, 2004
Snow Job
And so it begins: the annual kabuki (or "January snow dance" as one advocate called it (source: Boston Globe, 1/26/2004)) of budgetary good news to fool the headline readers into thinking that all is right with state government.
Willard Mitt recently announced that he would propose a $5.5 million increase in foster care funding for FY2005. (source: Boston Globe, 1/25/2004) Which sounds like a lot of money, until you remember that Team Reform last year granted Manulife Insurance a $7 million tax credit for building on the dilapidated Boston waterfront. (source: Boston Globe, 1/25/2004)
Riddle us this: the Manulife tax credit was approved in May 2003, during what Angry Eric Kriss called the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Yet Kriss has since claimed that the economy is improving, that the worst has passed. (Boston Herald, 12/10/2003) So shouldn’t Romney be able to give foster parents in 2005 at least as much as he gave Manulife back in the dark days of 2003?
Let’s look at this a different way: Manulife, which recently merged with John Hancock, has already announced it will cut its operating budget by $255 million over the next three years (source: Boston Herald, 10/7/2003) and perhaps slice its Massachusetts workforce (source: Boston Globe, 9/29/2003; Boston Herald, 9/30/2003) and they get a $19,000-a-day tax cut, yet each of the state's approximately 5,400 foster homes will receive merely $2.79 more per day?
Looks like the waterfront is not the only thing that's dilapidated in Romney's world.
And so it begins: the annual kabuki (or "January snow dance" as one advocate called it (source: Boston Globe, 1/26/2004)) of budgetary good news to fool the headline readers into thinking that all is right with state government.
Willard Mitt recently announced that he would propose a $5.5 million increase in foster care funding for FY2005. (source: Boston Globe, 1/25/2004) Which sounds like a lot of money, until you remember that Team Reform last year granted Manulife Insurance a $7 million tax credit for building on the dilapidated Boston waterfront. (source: Boston Globe, 1/25/2004)
Riddle us this: the Manulife tax credit was approved in May 2003, during what Angry Eric Kriss called the worst economic period since the Great Depression. Yet Kriss has since claimed that the economy is improving, that the worst has passed. (Boston Herald, 12/10/2003) So shouldn’t Romney be able to give foster parents in 2005 at least as much as he gave Manulife back in the dark days of 2003?
Let’s look at this a different way: Manulife, which recently merged with John Hancock, has already announced it will cut its operating budget by $255 million over the next three years (source: Boston Herald, 10/7/2003) and perhaps slice its Massachusetts workforce (source: Boston Globe, 9/29/2003; Boston Herald, 9/30/2003) and they get a $19,000-a-day tax cut, yet each of the state's approximately 5,400 foster homes will receive merely $2.79 more per day?
Looks like the waterfront is not the only thing that's dilapidated in Romney's world.
