Baker's billions come from Patrick's taxes

[TexasTowelie]

In the wake of that boffo MassInc poll, the legislature is actually hearing the overwhelming vox populi on transportation: We need to invest more money! This puts them at odds with Governor Baker’s No New Taxes grumbling.

House Speaker Robert DeLeo [!!! — ed] and Senate President Karen Spilka are both open to raising additional revenues for transportation and the two chairs of the Legislature’s Transportation Committee, in an interview on the CommonWealth Codcast, said new money is desperately needed.

…

“I think money is the answer,” said [Sen. Joseph] Boncore, who called the 3 cent increase in the gas tax approved in 2013 insufficient. The Legislature in 2013 also indexed the gas tax, allowing it to rise with inflation, but that part of the law was repealed as part of a referendum campaign backed by Baker.

Boncore said the state needed to be bolder in 2013. “We’re seeing a system now that’s failing because of a lack of investment back then. So I think it’s crucial and incumbent on us to make the investment now,” he said.

In spite of his enduring popularity, Baker represents very old-fashioned, very Republican habits:

1) Insist on No New Taxes, regardless of the situation, deficit, or need;
2) Spend down surpluses that liberal Democrats raised;
3) Borrow-and-spend stat tax-and-spend;
4) Ignore the long-term; let some future liberal Democrat clean up after you. It’s the tomorrow-we-die attitude cited by Michael Lewis in The Big Short: IBGYBG (I’ll Be Gone/You’ll Be Gone). (See below.)

Read more: http://bluemassgroup.com/2019/05/bakers-billions-come-from-patricks-taxes/