State Using Scare Tactics Over State Budget Crisis

Hoping the booga-booga will cause the citizens to support the income tax, no doubt!!! If it MAKES the PAPER (and the front page of the City/Region section) then AN AGENDA is being PUSHED!!!!

"State's fiscal picture gets darker; Economists predict long period of poor revenues, tighter budgets" by Matt Viser, Globe Staff | October 8, 2008

Governor Deval Patrick and the Legislature should brace themselves for an extended period of declining or tepid tax revenues and smaller state budgets that will define the State House agenda for up to three years, a group of economists and public policy specialists warned lawmakers yesterday.

Legislators emerging from an hourlong meeting highlighted by the gloomy prognosis promised serious belt-tightening. Beyond the immediate impact on state residents, rapid-fire economic developments spell difficult choices for Patrick as he gets ready to begin the second half of his four-year term. Patrick won election in 2006 on promises to lower property taxes, hire new police officers, and restructure the education system. Now those goals seem increasingly elusive.

You mean, the "different" kind of governor is BREAKING HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISES?!

Oh, say it ain't so, Joe!

But in an indication of how dire the state's circumstances are becoming, state lawmakers for the first time yesterday signaled that state financial aid to local communities may be at risk.

"Municipalities across Massachusetts should be concerned," House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi said yesterday. Although local aid cuts will be a "last resort," he said, "I think they should be prepared."

Of course, "flushing . . . millions of dollars away supporting a highly profitable industry" when it comes to $300 million in taxpayer dollars for Hollywood is o.k., even as the price of a school lunch rises; paying $13 million for a computer software system that could have cost less than $3 million is all right because the winner was a close friend of the House speaker, even as my poorer-than-dirt district "has been struggling to close a $2 million budget gap."; the lottery shellling out "millions of dollars" for sports tickets for "lottery officials, their family members, and friends" is fine, even as schools are closing; making interest payments to banks to the tune of "a staggering $22 billion" for the Big Pit, as we call it around here, is required, even as bridges are neglected across the state; and again, paying off banks like UBS, who can "demand repayment of an additional $2 million a month beginning in January" while also receiving a "$179 million payment," while the state pension fund loses $1 billion dollars -- which still didn't stop the executive director from carving himself a nice "$64,000 bonus on top of his $322,000 annual salary."

Oh, and did I not mention the $1 BILLION dollar giveaway to the pharmaceutical corporations, even though "it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech?" Flush that money away, too, taxpayer. Of course, the war looters were next in line for a handout. And should the state be appropriating money for a "multimillion-dollar reconstruction" of golf courses?

Nor is it RECKLESS to BORROW the STATE INTO OBLIVION so they can PAY INTEREST to BANKS while SITTING ON $2 BILLION DOLLARS!

And did I forget about PAYING FOR the CORPORATE TV COMMERCIALS or the outlays for illegal immigrants?

But we got a budget crisis, and you should prepare to get fucked, Mass. resident!

With the problems persisting, the state yesterday hired two New York-based banks, Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, to help it sell the $750 million in bonds, starting as early as today. State Treasurer Tim Cahill said that he was afraid that if the state went out on its own and there were no takers for its bonds, it could hurt the state's image in the credit market.

So STATE GOVERNMENTS DO WORK FOR BANKS, huh?

Also see: Mass. Economy at the Mercy of Wall Street as it Borrows Itself Into Oblivion

The state has enough money on hand to carry it through several weeks, Cahill said, and there is another $1.8 billion in the state's rainy-day fund that could be tapped in an emergency.

Well, is not NOW an EMERGENCY?!! WTF?!!!

They are SITTING on MONEY while CUTTING SERVICES and BORROWING from BANKS?!! How FUCKED UP is my state, readers!!!

"In the short term we can survive," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation. "But if this is an indication of the credit market, this is a huge deal."

And THERE HE IS AGAIN!!!!!! Why is this PRO-TAX, PRO-BUSINESS BULLSHITTER in the Globe DAMN NEAR EVERYDAY?

Nothing like having a PROFESSIONAL, AGENDA-PUSHING LOBBYIST on retainer, 'eh, Globe? The guy have an office in your building or what?

DiMasi and Robert DeLeo, chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, said they plan to push the Massachusetts congressional delegation to seek a bailout for states, now that a $700 billion credit market bailout has been approved. "They need to assist the states as well as assist the financial markets out there," DiMasi said. --more--"

HA!!!! Good luck getting more money from them!!!