CapeCodToday Blog Chowder

No, H 4060 is pension reform and I voted for it. Although BHRC ususally gets it right either they made a mistake or there is some confusion somewhere along the line.

Buzz, Maybe contrary to what the Governor would have you believe, I most certainly did vote for pension, campaign finance and transportation reformns along with the rest of the House. These bills have been sent on to the Senate and are awaiting action by conference committees. As you know, this stuff takes time to sort through.

Your statement, "... pension reforms that keep spiraling this state into debt and new taxes," is misleading and might lead one to believe that they can fix the budget problems by reforming the pension system. Do we need the reforms? Absolutely. Will pension reform eliminate the budget deficit? Not by a long shot. Tax revenues are down about 16% or about 4 to 5 billion.

Welcome to my fan club. The same 5 guys spew their negativity all over the place. I think it just prooves the point of my article.

You would think Buzz, who allegedly does the news on Fox, wouldn't lie about the state budget cuts. He knows that human services were cut severely in the first round of 9c cuts by the Governor. Local aide cuts only came later. Fair and balanced...right.

Snake Dog has obviously drank the right wing, fascist koolaid served up by his drug addled, fascist hero,Limbaugh.

Do either one of these guys do their own blog? Maybe I missed it.

Severe cuts to the state budget have been made already and we will have to cut 5 billion more next fiscal year.

In any event, revenue from the gas tax would not be used for the operating budget. It would be used strictly for upgrades to our transportation infrastructure.

Brandon, I suggest you call your Congressman about the Kennedy library stuff. It will create construction jobs. I'll give it that much.

As I mention in my article, we have cut the budget by 2.5 billion already. Because of lower income taxes, sales taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes, there is going to be a 4.5 to 5 billion deficit in fy 10. We have made significant cuts and in the most recent round have been forced to cut local aide which is why cities and towns are laying off police and fire personnel across the Commonwealth. We have held aide to education harmless so far.

As for the reforms, they will begin by combining the transportation agencies, the Mass Pike, MBTA and reigning in their 23 years and out pensions. There will also be a curtailment of the pension abuses made by legislators. Senate President Murray is going to be sure to make this happen and the Speaker has said it has to happen to regain public confidence.

(cont. from previous blog)...employees which means we are paying interest on their salaries for the terms of the bond bills which can 10 to 30 years. This is because our Republican Administrations and Dem. Legislatures told us we could have our cake and eat it too.

Mr. Possee's example shows why we need to invest in mass transit. Even at 20 mpg he is commuting 200 miles round trip. That is not sustainable when gas hits $4 again and it will.

Look at the last provision in the letter to the governor. I had that put in because I know this is a regressive tax. We need to help Mr. Possee buy a fuel efficient car or put him on a train to wherever he's going. If we don't prepare for the future we will be crushed by the inevitable increase in fossil fuels.

For those of you concerned about Ethics and pension reforms, they are in the works and will be passed in this term.

Finally, the transporation agencies will be consolidated and reformed and tolls will be increased before I vote for a gas tax increase.

Thanks to everyone.

Just a few more comments before I close this blog. I do appreciate all the attention it has had although many of the comments strayed far afield from the subject of gasoline tax.

We are not taxachusetts any more. The American Tax Foundation says we rank about 36th among states in terms of total taxes, state and local, as a percentage of our income. Our gas tax is about in the middle of the pack and Conn. and NY have double our gas tax.

For reasons why we need money to invest in transporation I cited the report by the Mass. Finance Transportation Commission which was made up of many private sector people. Get it by going to this link. You may have to cut and paste. http://www.eot.state.ma.us/downloads/tfc/TFC_Findings.pdf

I want to thank bittersweet and rootbeer for brining balance and reality to the blog. Jon Berlin deserves credit for pointing out that we have financed our transportation improvements by borrowing money to the point where even the Mass. Highway positions dedicated to these improvements are financed in the bond bills even though they are state...(cont)

I feel like I've been taken down by a pack of starving hyenas.

Chuck, you're a prince. Thanks for caring.

Walt, you told me you were going to get more liberals on this blog. I know it's tough because liberals have better things to do. Glad I don't have to count on these folks to get re-elected. Wait a minute, is this just one guy blogging under five different names? Come on Walt, come clean.

I don't support going to 28 cents and believe it will be around the middle, "By the time a gas tax wends its way into law, it will probably be someplace in the middle in addition to an increase in tolls."

I think we all benefit from an improvement in our highway infrastructure whether it's the Sagamore Flyover or the Big Dig.

Don't forget that it was the Federal government's investment in the interstate highway system in the 1950's that put the railroads out of business. When I was a kid you could take a train into the city from almost anywhere or you didn't have to go far to get to a train station. People forget that we are dumping tons of money into our roads to maintain them and to build new ones. We all will need mass transit when gasoline becomes too expensive.

Government is a way for us to join together to help ourselves when, as an individuals, we wouldn't be able to do it. We build structures like roads, bridges, rails, schools, firehouses, water and sewer systems to improve life for all of us. These things need to be maintained and improved when changing circumstances demand it.

And yes... before anybody remembers half the story, I did protest the renovations at the Canal Power Plant proposed in 1998 or 1999. I protested because Mirant wanted to keep the old power plant running even after they installed the new combined cycle gas turbines. We would have had even more pollution than we currently have from the power plant. I argued for the most advanced SCR scrubbers available at the time which they were forced to install.

Lot of good positive comments. Thank you, I'll try to answer some of the questions.

The additional cost in included in our rates. Ted, I installed solar systems in a previous life so I couldn't agree more. It is a neglected source of renewable energy. I put in close to a hundred systems back in the 1980's. The one on my house is over 30 years old. I had to replace the tank and control but the collectors are fine. The oil back up has been off since May except for a few prolonged cloudy days.
Middleboro Municipal Utility is involved in the proceeding. They are trying to extricate themselves from the charges for SEMA (southeastern Mass region.
Excellent point Sparky on the LCP or least cost planning. But the main point I've tried to make, and this goes to Numah too is that we don't even need the canal unless people are think we need a triple fail safe. The chances of losing the existing two lines at the same time are infinitesmal, not sure how to spell it, but very small. We don't need to run the power plant even for the six hottest months.

I accept your apology anti cowbell. I want to add that the zero percent increase you referred to in your first comment, which I earased, never happened when I was a Selectman in 1995. I believe it happened in 1990. That's why I erased it.

Buzz is right about overall statistics for racial groups and the CDC is where I got some of statistcis that I used.

But as it turns out every state has roughly the same percentages of births to African Americans out of wedlock, so I stand by my statistics and what they say about each state's quality of life.

Maverick, September 11th was a terrorist act by an independent group not a nation. Pearl Harbor was an act of war by a nation. The real difference is that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with Sept. 11th, nor did he have weapons of mass destruction.

If we are so big on overthrowing totalitarian dictators to establish democracies, why don't we invade North Korea or China or Iran...oops, the last one just might happen.

We can overthrow dictatorships with diplomacy and economic sanctions.

I guess I hurt the tough news man's [Fox Boy] feelings. He doesn't seem to have a source for the Afro American illigitimacy statistic he threw out early in the string.

But thank you Democrant and Estherandson for your positive comments.

RossBlue I would expect you to understand that if you are going to compare two very different political schools of thought you should look at their records and that can be found in the misery index of each state. If people knew where there state stood relative to other states then maybe they would be more likely to become politically active and fight for change.

Is anyone or any school of thought perfect? No, practice moderation in all things, especially politics, before reacting.

To Andy, I don't mention the blogger because that's what he would want me to do.

So good to hear from you Cynthia. Yes I voted for it and it was a mistake. I was promised a fair hearing for our Catastrophic fund bill that would enable the state to create its own reinsurance pool for homewoner's insurance companies. That doesn't mean that I have stopped fighting for it, having written several letters to the Insurance commissioner which may or may not have played some role in her denying the increase for the Fair Plan.

There can be no denying that Bush is blocking the effort to provide a backstop to states like Florida and Massachusetts that are trying to create their own reinsurance pools.

Love your comments Julie and I'll admit you are right. I'm sure southerners don't give a damn about me and the rest of us Yanks. But if you want to compare liberal and conservative (I hate useing conservative because they are not real conservatives) philosophies you need a yardstick and the human misery index is the best I have seen.

Don't forget that President Eisenhower called himself a "militant liberal."

Crusader, If it were not for the Democrats, you would have nobody defending your rights.

Who am I to question the judge and DA on the McCowen verdict? I'm not a lawyer.

See my previous post.

Posey guy on Congress: Are you for real? Are you really going to blame this mess on the Democrats? It only takes what is it...16 Senators to uphold the President's veto. The Democrats in Congress don't have the healthy majorities necessary to move legislation through without worrying about a veto and they didn't have majorities until the 2007 session.

I know because I went to Congress to testify for a homeowners insurance bill that would have provided a backstop for states that wanted to provide catastrophic or reinsurance pools for their citizens like Massachusetts. Guess what, the Bush Administration was opposed. I sat there and listened to their guy give the most ridiculous testimony I ever heard in my life. Blame Bush for blocking state efforts to lower your homeowners ins.

All of the scandals you cite are due to the change in laws proposed by the Republican adiministration and the Republican Congress that reduced government regulation on corporations and the fact that they owe their offices to the oil industry. That's why we don't have a responsible energy plan.

Now for posey. You are off the charts! Get a grip. When all is said and done, we get treated relatively fairly by the Chapter 70 funding formula and Ed aide has gone up for every school district 7 of the 8 years I've been in the House.

Electricity is expensive and guess who is the person working on keeping it in check? If it wasn't for my research, you and everyone else wouldn't know about the Canal Power Plant ripoff.

The red states have the highest divorce rates: Nevada with 7.1, OKlahoma 6.6, Arkansas 6.2, Alabama 5.4, Wyoming 5.4, Idaho 5.3, West Virginia and Kentucky 5.2, Tennessee 5.1, Florida 5.1, according to the Division of vital Statistics, National Health Center for Health Statistics, CDC 2002, but I'll have to check on homelessness and illigitimacy.

Let's see...where to begin? Dear foxnewsboy right wing wombat. Is it true that you went to the Heritage Foundation's school for rightwing propaganda hacks? You show all the characteristics of the training. Never accept responsibility, shift blame and attack. You want to doubt the census data...go ahead. But until you can show me another credible source that is not backed by any movement, then you don't have a case.

Where do you get the African American illegitimacy statistics for example? The Heritage Foundation?

As for the 7 shootings in Boston this week end...I guess you compared that to every city nation wide. You Fox boys are so good.

Right wing lies have given us the war in Iraq, extreme poverty and deprivation in the southern states, CEOs earning 500 times what their employees earn and phony issues like gay marriage, stem cell technology to divide us. It's given us a role back of over 400 environmental regulations. It's given us $20 billion worth of annual tax brakes for big oil, coal and gas. It's given us an extensive erosion of our civil rights.

I've made a vow to myself to not sit idly by while right wing lies and myths are propagated. I don't care if I offend you or anyone else in the process. My constituents, my Country and my Commonwealth are too damn important to let this it slide anymore. I'm going to fight back!

I'll grant you this Foxboy, I am extremely angry at what the right wing has done to this Country. A Country I love and a Country that is fast losing its concern for the little guy, the worker and their families. The right wing has done a good job of turning us into a dog eat dog country especially in the southern states and it's supposed to make our people better according to George Will.

Foxboy, cry me a river. It is you that started out with an insult in your first line in your first comment on this blog. I've never ridiculed a serious comment from anyone, but your hypocrisy was just too much to take and is getting deeper with every word you say. In fact you had to go whine to the management.

Your comments are duly noted as the right wing propaganda from the Heritage/Heartland think tanks that want us to believe that global warming is something the vast majority of the worlds scientists cooked up for fun. Explain to me the ice core evidence showing a doubling of CO2 in the last 150 years for the first time in literally thousands of years.

Go back to work trying to make the world believe all right wing lies that have made the red states such wonderful places to live.

Gabe,

Consider the damage that global warming will do to the Sound and the Cape and Islands. We have a chance to do something significant about global warming and we are shrugging our shoulders and saying, it's not my concern or it's still a ways off, we don't have to do anything right now.

I would not support this if I wasn't sure it was the best thing for the environment and humanity.

Foxboy, You make my heart bleed. You can give it out but you can't take it. Guess who started it Foxboy? Just scroll back to your first comment. And that's not the first time. You want to be anonymous, tough. Guess what be a man and stand by what you say. Go whine on some other blog. You right wing punks are all the same. Your comments about the wind farm are uninformed crap.

Europe's deep water wind farms are exactly two wind turbines that produce electricity many times what the electricity costs on the mainland, don't even connect to the main land and are almost totally subsidized by the government. They provide electricity to two oil rigs. Let me know when someone applies to put deepwater wind offshore.

No it doesn't because it can be done better for less money in Nantucket Sound with no risk of public money. It would take years for a government entity to get around to doing anything the equivalent of Cape Wind if at all.

Gabe, It would be an incredible waste of taxpayers' money to invest it in deep water wind because it will cost billions more than the electricity is actually worth.

That's the great thing about Cape Wind, there is no risk of public capital and Cape Wind won't get a dime until they produce electricity. It is a production tax credit that requires them to have the captial up front to build the project and only provides them with a subsidy of 1.9 cents per kWh when they actually sell it.

It's a fail safe. If Cape Wind can't show their investors a positive cash flow the project won't get built. Pooring public money into deep water wind is a waste of money the public sector can ill afford.

Margaret, Our uses of "most" are relative. My use of "barely visible" is also relative. The fog, haze, rain and other various weather conditions will make the turbines difficult to see from six miles away most of the time. Plus, I want to be able to see them and other off shore wind farms have stimulated the creation of tours in boats because people want to see them.

Durkin is spreading misinformation again. The latest proposal for the lights on the wind farm have them directed skyward and their numbers greatly reduced from the original proposal. Check the EIR.

My thanks for Mr. Freeman for his rational thinking and the many others who have written or called to thank me for saying what needed to be said.

Where to start? Foxboy, while you may not have any editorial input, your opinions mirror those of Fox. I only watch Fox for the Simpsons, their single greatest contribution to the civilized world. All of my facts on global warming come from the Union of Concerned Scientists Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment, Max Holmes of the WoodsHole Research Center, Richard Delaney of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies, Dr. Brian Rothchild of UMass Dartmouth, Rachel harold, Insurance specialist Ceres Inst., Linda Orell, Director of Nature Conservancy, Sue Reid of the Conservation Law Foundation, Jack Clarke of Audubon, Jon Bullard of SEA and various other international United Nations reports. As for the best site for wind, read the Environmental Impact Report that covers several sites.

Manatee, I agree, we will need a combination of radical or extreme efficiency measures, renewables and the new nuclear power plants. I also agree that the new focus on ethanol is very misguided. Diesel from soy is ok.

Notice the insightful quote is unsourced and undocumented. I would expect nothing less from the Fox News guy.

Fox gets their "science" from the Heritage Foundation which created the Heartland Institute that goes around trying to convince state legislators that the rest of the world's scientific community is wrong and their five guys that happen to be on the fossil fuel payroll are right. I've got their notebook.

They're the folks, both Fox and Heritage, you can thank for getting the right wing anti tax, anti government, anti environment republicans into office and the US into the Iraq war.

Good job guys. Keep up the good work. With continued success you can turn us into a third world country.

Maybe that's where the Alliance learned their trade.

Frankly, I don't care if you see them clearly most of the year. It's worth seeing them to remind us of what we are doing for the environment and our own health by eliminating green house gasses and the tons of poisonous chemicals that come out of the smokestacks of power plants. I want to see them. I want our kids to see them. There will come a day when we can't put them up fast enough to meet our demand for electricity. Then you won't worry about what they look like but right now there is no place in Massachusetts where you can put them up 6 miles away from the nearest building.

Last time I checked, 60 percent is still a majority so your original premise was wrong. Wheather the SSA needs state oversight is a matter of opinion. It's the only state transportation agency without state oversight.

And yes, I do support the Union. I think I said it before. They haven't had a contract in five years.

If you want to count this as a flip flop go ahead. Back bencher Rep. Matt Patrick, 1 flip flop. Presidential candidate Romney, at least 6 on decidedly more important issues.

For the benefit of the former Selectman from Nantucket, the legislation I support will not take away the majority vote from the islands. Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket will still maintain 60 percent of the weighted vote. The State Executive Office of Transporation will get a 10 percent vote. Aspiring legislators would do well to read the legislation before commenting.

As for how it affects my district, many of the employees of the SSA live in my district. Even those who don't live in my district are glad to have their voices heard and represented in the legislature. It is my duty and honor to make their side of the story known.

During a time of war why should anyone get a tax cut? We are going to borrow a trillion dollars to pay for this war before its over and it is our children who will pay for it. Never in history have we had both a war and tax cuts at the same time.

Jack's comment about Kennedy refers to a time when the highest bracket paid well over 50% of their income in taxes to help pay for the World War II and Korea. It was still very hight after Kennedy's cut.

I think the real issue is the impact on the shrinking middle class. Just the fact that we need two people working in a family to maintain what our parents did with on wage earner is a detriment to society and the middle class.

How many kids have been raised in absentia of an adult compared to the boomer generation. And there is no longer an affordable college education for low to moderate income kids that qualify academicaly but don't have the money or family resources to go.

People should read "Perfectly Legal" by David Cay Johnston to find out how the people who have access to our U.S. legislators, have been able to distort the tax system. The reason they have access is because they can raise a lot of money for campaigns that all legislators must weather. The result is a tax system that no longer favors the poor and middle class but favors the rich.

Someone above mentioned that the rich pay 38% of the taxes and the poor don't pay enough to get much of a break. That's income tax which is still a progressive tax in US although much less so than it was before Reagan's era. What most of us neglect to mention is the Social Security tax. This is a flat tax that kills the poor and middle class. The tax disappears for incomes over $89,000 leaving most of the income of the super rich untaxed.

There are numerous studies that bear out the fact that the rich are getting richer at the expense of the middle and lower classes.

Read Johnston to find out how the alternative minimum tax is crippling the middle class.

The rich really are paying much less in taxes and have access to lawyers and tax consultants that show them how not to pay any taxes. By rich I mean millionaires and up. Right now it is more likely for a people living in poverty to get an IRS audit than it is for a multi-millionaire or a mulinational corporation. Right here in Massachusetts there are 1,100 corporations that each gross over 100 million dollars annually and pay the minimum tax of $456 according to our own Department of Revenue. Right here on Cape Cod I see a constant stream of people that get run over by the system and don't have the income to recover. Predatory mortgages, illnesses and hugh health bills or the cost of health insurance. All attributable to bad luck or a few bad decisions. 60% of people who work on Cape Cod work in retail trade or service industries where the average wage is $23,000 a year according to census data. Then look at the cities and the youths who have no family as we know it, education or hope.

The reason for this shift is complex. See next comment.

Reps. Cleon Turner and Demetrius Atsalis and also Senator O'Leary signed on to the letter.

We are not necessarily against nuclear power or opposed to relicensing. We just want it to include more security and a reduction in spent fuel rods from the storage tank. The close proximity of the rods to each other make them much more dangerous with the potential to start a fire that could not be extinguised. The tanks were never designed to hold three times the number of spent fuel rods that they currently hold.

Congratulations Jordan, it is quite an accomplishment. Goes well with your Peace Corps resume.

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts does more for its veterans and their families than any other state to my knowledge.

The lack of funding for this program was an oversight and will be corrected. The funding for the program can take place at any time and the state colleges have been told they will be reimbursed.

All of us in the legislature support our veterans and the troops regardless of our political party and regardless of the politics enmeshed with the war in Iraq. The program received a unanimous bipartizan vote in the House.

It is a Federal responsibility to support our veterans after their service. Contrary to some of the comments, the Commonwealth did not fund college education for veterans previous to this law. This is a first and very important benefit to bestow on our veterans.

Rep. Matthew C. Patrick, Third Barnstable District

My comments on Bush and Romney are based on facts. For example, did Romney veto the money in the budget for the MMR? Yes he did and his veto was rejected almost unanimously in the House. Time and time again his vetoes get not one vote in the House. Check the record.

This is a typical righty statement: "Everyone knows the magnitude...." Show me the documentation for all the corruption and shoddy construction on the Big Dig. Maybe a lot of people have that suspicion but that's not enough to launch an investigation. The Globe had an article on James Kerisiotis, a Republican and long time overseer and manager of the Big Dig for roughly ten years. Maybe you ought to read it.

KMA, You and the other right wingers just don't like a liberal who dishes it out like you all do.

Since my first blog you or the other righties have had nothing good to say about my ideas. Ask yourself, if Matt Patrick were a Republican would I still be so negative? I don't really care because the purpose of my blog is to let other people know that there is more than one point of view. I'm going to dish it out right back at you because you don't have a monopoly on the truth and you don't speak for all my constituents, or I wouldn't be here.

PP thinks she can say anything without documentation but it's just more right wing blather. Democrats are always wrong and Republicans are always right.

Don't we have any common ground anymore? I think we do because we all love our country, our constitution and the ideas that make it great. To paraphrase Mark Twain, I love my country as much or more than anybody. I love my government when it does the right thing. There is a difference.

My thanks to Pecham for keeping it light and humorous and Cape Cod Guy for his logic.

KMA, you are the most partizan right wing person on the blog. Who are you to sit in judgement?

I don't concede Dukakis' responsibility at all. The Dukakis administration may have hired Bechtel to do the design work (and I don't even concede that) but that doesn't excuse the Republican Governors from their ongoing administration of the project over the past 16 years.

If you will take the time to look back at the blog you will see that PP blamed me personally for the death of the women.
My original blog made no mention of who to blame. Who to blame was brought up by PP. If the independent commission finds the legislature or the Unions responsible then so be it. But I doubt that will be the case.

And Bush is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths all over the world. PP should fess up to being a Republican party flak.

Mitt tried to sell the Turnpike deal by saying it would save us tens of millions of dollars, I forget the exact amount. He also wanted to eliminate the tolls if I remember correctly. But how do you do that if you have to pay the bonds off and your only revenue stream is the tolls.

If Romney called me up and said help me form a commission to study the big dig I certainly would listen but as CEO he's not use to asking anyone to do anything, even his Republican legislators who he doesn't even know by name. He wants to tell us what to do via the media. Many of his vetoes of budget line items and bills get unanimous rejection in the House. Not even his own party will support him.

This is a Republican mess. Republican Governors appointed all of the people to the Turnpike Authority and Mass Highways since the Big Dig was started. Why was Bechtel inspecting its own work? That's the question. Forget about the politics.

Amorello is a former Republican Senator that contributed to Romney's Campaign. I do not know the man but it's kind of fun to watch the Republicans eat their young.

Speaking of campaign contributions, has anyone checked to see how much money Romney got from Bechtel and Modern Continental employees? I'll bet it's a pretty hefty amount.

There are many reasons to vote against the merger of the Mass Highways with the Turnpike Authority. First, it would burden all of the taxpayers with the debt of the Turnpike Authority. Second, it's part of Romney's plan to privatize the highway system by selling it cheap to his corporate buddies.

Why did I decide to act this time? Well I read the newspapers and any report that crosses my desk. The death brought on a flurry of reports and articles that just were not available before. After reading a letter from our Inspector General, Greg Sullivan, I could see that what the project lacked was an independent inspector over looking the big dig on behalf of the public.

Bechtel designed the project and managed the construction. Where state administration went wrong is we also allowed Bechtel to inspect their own work, an obvious conflict of interest. The Legislature is not in charge of administering nor ever was in charge of administering the project, but we could have mandated independent oversight earlier.

It did take the unfortunate death of a women to get the legislature to act. To not act to set up the independent commission at this time would only compound the problems that are presently before us. I, along with some of my colleagues, am not affraid to face the implications head on in an effort to correct them.

Why didn't I propose an investigative commission earlier is a valid question. I guess mostly because I wanted to make a positive difference so I focused on what I knew best. This happened to be energy. As a legislator you realize quickly how complex everything is and how much time it takes to do the research necessary to advocate with authority for change. There are 200 total representatives and senators. Each has their area of interest and sometimes expertise. You kind of figure out who is the expert in certain areas and you rely on them for much of your information.

My expertise certainly is not civil engineering but I know a lot about energy so that's where I spend most of my time. I didn't campaign on the Big Dig and it certainly wasn't a key issue in my district.

To assume that all legislators are corrupt is rediculous especially when it was up to four Republican Governors to implement and administer the project. The legislature is not involved with nor ever was involved in implementing the project.

In spite all of the controversy, the Big Dig is a modern marvel.

I'm glad Gone has a direct line to the Governor's office. That's more than I have. Wonder who Gone is. So many of these righties hide behind an alias. Wonder why that's the case.

I certainly would take a call from his Highness but he doesn't deem it in his realm to speak to mere legislators even though our offices are separated by no more than two stair cases and a few dozen feet. You would think the Gov. would want the legislators of the area to know what his strategy is but he has not reached out nor has he had anyone from his office reach out leaving me no choice but to continue fighting for my constituents.

Yarmouth, Did you ever think that my constituents have concerns about a civilian airport at the base? Plus, all of the above legislators worked hard to keep the MMR off the BRAC list with Romney. It wasn't a partisan issue. That's why it's hard to understand why he wants to veto the funding for the studies.

I can see the rollercoster zipping by the Mirant plant smokestacks. The State DEP guys can get real close to hold up their opacity cards.

I got to hand it to you guys. You know how to make me laugh!

KMA, It's a bad veto if you want to keep the base open.

By the way, these weren't in the budget. They are from the Economic Stimulus bill. It can be argued that all of the items you cite above will stimulate the economy.

I put money in for the winter moth which was not really a study but a project that propagates the natural predator of the winter moth. The winter moth is not native and has no natural predators to suppress its numbers. Most of the bare trees you see have been ravaged by the larval form of the winter moth the european bud worm. When trees are defoliated 3 or 5 years in a row they could die. This has been covered extensively in the press. UMass Amherst will do the work.

Dear Ms. Porcupine,

I will not respond to your questions until you respond to mine. Remember, you accused me of not providing health insurance to my employees when I was executive director of Self-Reliance. I asked you for proof positive because we always provided health insurance while I worked there even though it was a financial burden. You never responded.

Self-Reliance is a 501 c 3 non-profit organization. Our books are open and we file annually with the Secretary of State's office. Did you bother checking the allegations? Where is the proof? It's easy to discredit someone's reputation when you can hide behind an alias? I guess it's alright to discredit a Democrat with false information.

KMA, in your comments you stereotype "politicians" of which I am one. Public trust is everything to me. However, the culture of curruption in Congress makes it is easy to understand how people would believe all lawmakers are currupt. Corporate America has usurped legislative responsibilities in the conservative controlled Republican Congress.

Generally, I support the labor unions because they support laws and budget items that support the working families of my district and the Commonwealth.

I'm not very open to large business lobbies unless they can show me how they are going to help my constituents and the rest of the Commonwealth. I certainly will hear them out.

Which brings me to your question. I have heard from small business people in my district. I support them because they are my constituents and they create most new jobs. They say they pay better than minimum wage to keep good people.

Restraunteurs have asked me not to increase the percentage of minimum wage for tipped employees from 25% to 50% as proposed in the bill.

$1.55, You are old! Guess I better show some respect but, it's awful hard when you keep aluding to how currupt I am. I'm sick of the Conservative cynacism about government and elected officials. All of them are corrupt except for good God fearing conservative Republicans.

Walmart's average wage is nearly twice the Federal Minimum wage. That's great since it's only 5.32 so they make about $11.00 an hour, whoopee! It's not a bad wage....for Alabama or Mississippi.

And don't forget there are 5 Walton heirs in the America's top 10 richest people. It's the richest company in the history of the world and and they are dismantling our manufacturing base to increase their profit margins.

Add this to the Conservative mantra, greed good, big business good, government bad. Even though we are the government.

I find it interesting that Vinick and Sue Nick would bring up eutrophication of Nantucket Sound's salt ponds and estuaries but they are certainly right. To me that's the biggest and the most immediate problem we are facing today. Not one of our Cape Cod embayments is unaffected by nitrogen loading.

The Waquoit Bay Esturine Research Reserve cites studies that show up to 38% of the nitrogen loading in our bays and estuaries comes from atmospheric deposition. And how does it get into the atmosphere you ask. Through the burning of fossil fuels in power plants and automobiles. You would think that would make them fans for Cape Wind but they would not want facts to get in the way of their efforts.

Let me get this right, the wealthiest company in the history of the world can't afford to give health insurance to all of their people at a lower rate. Of course their employees can't afford it. They're earning less than $18,000 per year, $1820 below the poverty line for a family of four.

I'm sure your doctor is an expert on health care finance and he has read the legislation but why don't we wait to see what happens. At least we are trying which is more than you can say about the conservitive government in the White House that wants everyone to take care of themselves on slave wages.

Government is bad, bad, bad. That's why we are the only industrialized country in the world without national health care. By the way we also have the most expensive health care per capita in the world and in the nation. Let free market take care of it the conservatives say but they want you to pass legislation to reduce the costs for big business at the same time.

The conservatives have this nation in a death march. How can you hate government- want to eliminate it and govern at the same time?

Let's all reapeat this again folks, government bad, big business good. Look where we are today as a result of the Conservative dogma. There is no such thing as a perfect free market system just as there is no such thing as a perfect socialist system.

Haliburton and KBR are doing great. WalMart is too but they have driven all the manufacturing out of the country to get bigger profit margins. Sam Walton sold American goods but he's gone and all that has gone by the boards with the new management.

The Commonwealth has never operated in the red and never will yet we haven't increased the income tax since 1989. The legislature is constitutionally required to submit and vote on a balanced budget unlike the Governor.

GM would have been much better off if they anticipated the rise in gasoline costs. If they were making hybrids and not 8 mpg Hummers and 12 mpg SUVs they would be in great shape. One has to wonder how they let this happen to them again. Don't blame the workers and their pensions. Blame their management for its unprecedented historic amnesia.

Here we go again with the conservative agenda -- government bad, free markets good. It's the consevative agenda that has given us record deficits and an illegal war in Iraq that is costing us good soldiers and 8 billion a month and a toothless FEMA that can't get out of its own way.

It just so happens that it is the WalMarts, Stop and Shops and Dunkin Donuts that are the biggest abusers of the free care pool. That's your tax dollars at work to support the biggest company in the world because they're too cheap to provide healthcare to their employees. And guess what, they aren't going to move away because they are in retail.

I don't get extra pay for being on a committee and my aide is paid fairly well by the Commonwealth. She gets good health care and a pension as do all state employees.

The old right wing is awake this AM!

Don't tell me that all the Waltons worked like Sam Walton, who, by the way, wanted his workers to be able to earn a decent living wage. Many people inherit their wealth and I don't have a problem with that but don't tell me all millionaires or billionaires worked hard for their wealth and we all have the same opportunity. If hard work made us rich some of the richest people would be the builders, farmers and working mothers of my district. There is a lot of luck involved in who gets rich. Money makes money is the old axiom.

The main thing these facts point out is that the gap between rich and poor or rich and middle class is just getting larger and larger.

What's more important is that it is now much more difficult for a low income child to break through to the middle class in America than it was years ago. It's now easier to do that in a European country.

And availability of education has everything to do with it thus the facts on education.

What percentage of the voters actually turned out for that referendum on the wind farm in Mashpee? If it is anything like Mashpee's last election, it wasn't much. Probably under 20% and most of those were from precinct 5, which is mostly the New Seabury area, an area noted for its opposition to the wind farm.

The more people learn about Cape Wind the more they support it as demonstrated by the Civil Society Institute's survey.

Way to go Alliance to Save our View. Now you have succeeded in stopping 15 wind farms across the country, that we know of, lending new meaning to "pro renewable energy" but just not here in our "pristine" Nantucket Sound. What exactly do you do to promote renewable energy?

The cynicism is overwhelming. Ms. Porcupine, the bill went to Health Care Financing April of 2006, not last April, 2005. The bill is modeled after legislation from Connecticut that passed last year. It was sponsored by the speaker of the house, Patricia Dillon, a medical doctor. The legislation has been picked up by at least twenty states.

It is our soldiers and their famillies that are being poisoned by DU. How can anyone think that is ok? It's amazing. It's our soldiers' children who are born deformed. We send our kids over there to a war that should never have been and then we don't tell them about DU and how they should stay away from it and to wear protective gear when ever they deal with it and then the kids who do come home sick are refused treatment.

You think it's a joke. Come to the forum and talk to the victims of this incredibly ugly and demented crime against all of humanity.

To those of you who think I'm spending all of my time on this issue and not enough on the bread and butter issues, please go to my website and see the legislation I have proposed and even moved through the process into law.

This letter is just one of many that I may write in the course of a term. It's an important issue and I'm grateful for the healthcare professionals who are weighing in to support my veiwpoint.

I encourage people to write the governor to let him know you disagree with him holding up the proposed policy of removing formula samples from the gift package for young mothers.

No Cynthia, I would not ban gifts of formula if it was necessary for the woman to use formula to feed her baby.

To the women who said the majority of mothers have their minds made up before they enter the hospital, I quote the Globe article, "A scientific analysis in 2000 of previously published studies found that women who got gift bags were less likely to exclusively breast feed."

The trust of the people is the most important thing a legislator can have. Losing it means losing your office. I even submitted a bill that would end influence peddling in the State House. It would ban all campaign contributions to chairmen by people or entities that would have legislation before their committees. It's a good bill, one that would work not only here but at the Federal level as well.

Of course I would support whatever a mother and child need. I never mention an outright ban. Just a ban on the formula in the gift bags. If a mother can't breast feed then what is the alternative?

The Globe article in the Health and Science section is very good and talks about the difficulties women run into when they want to nurse their children like where they can privately use a breast pump at work. It also goes into a little more depth on the studies, one in Belarus for example.

Sorry Moms. The point I was trying to make is that the hospitals shouldn't push formula feeding. If women need it for other reasons, like Cynthia, then of course it should be used. But the gift bags of formula is an endorsement by the hospital and should be avoided for health reasons. Supplementing is often necessary too.

For those of you who didn't see it, take a look at yesterday's Globe, May 8th, page one and later Section C page 1. I quote, "Still, in the past 10 years, scientisfic evidence strengthened the argument in favor of breast feeding, with studies suggesting that babies who are nursed are less prone to stomach ailments and earaches, and that breast feeding may even protect against chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity. One study even found that children were more likely to see their first birthday if the were breast fed."

""People say nobody dies because the weren't breast fed," said Dr. Lawrence M. gartner, retired chief of obstetrics at the University of Chicago. "It's not true. Not only do babies get sick because they weren't breast fed, they die.""