New Brunswick Business Journal columnist David Campbell notes the reputation of Québec as a "bad boy" in terms of stealing jobs from other provinces (and, presumably, the United States) by […]
Tax breaks and transparency in Quebec
Posted inPolitics, The Download
State of the Race: May 15
The Boston Phoenix’s Steven Stark says that if the presidential election were held today, Barack Obama and John McCain would each get 269 electoral votes, throwing the election into the […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Over?
The consensus in the mainstream media is that Hillary Clinton lost any chance for the Democratic presidential nomination yesterday, thanks to a big defeat in North Carolina and only a […]
Posted inThe Download, Uncategorized
Meta-post: Temporary lull in blogging
Monday, April 28, 2008 Sorry for the relatively light blogging over the past week. We are now in overtime mode at CommonWealth magazine putting together our special issue on the […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
No exit (or, the sitcom campaign)
What more to say about Pennsylvania? The Democratic race has become a sitcom, in which all the stock characters — the sassy grandma, the dumb jock, etc. — go through […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Update: Democratic primary vote in the 10 regions
I’ve added the Pennsylvania results to the chart showing how Clinton and Obama have fared in our 10 political regions. For the first time, Obama leads in four regions, […]
Posted inPolitics, The Download
Conflict of interest: Where you stand depends on where your state legislature sits
The National Conference of State Legislatures features a good daily round-up of news from the state capitals, and today there are two good pieces about conflicts of interest among state […]
Posted inEconomy
What works
LOCAL GROWERS COMPETE IN COLLEGE CAFETERIAS It used to be a source of frustration in small towns in western and central Massachusetts that the contract for school milk would go […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Your town, USA
walk into a bookstore almost anywhere in America and you’ll find a shelf full of thin paperback books with distinctive sepia-toned covers. Light on text, heavy on photos, numbingly similar […]
Posted inOpinion, Uncategorized
Out of favor
in 2007, massachusetts Insurance Commissioner Nonnie S. Burnes announced the end of the auto insurance regulatory regime that had been in place for decades. Burnes proclaimed that the time had […]
Posted inEconomy, Opinion, Politics
Beyond the box
government often uses task forces and special commissions in a somewhat dubious fashion — either as a graveyard for an initiative by burying it in endless analysis, or as a […]
Posted inPolitics
Correspondence
CASINO PLAN IGNORES THE COSTS OF ADDICTION It was a breath of fresh media air to read Phil Primack’s article “Playing the Numbers” (CW, Winter ’08), which provides evidence that […]
Posted inArts and Culture, Uncategorized
Marathon man
Bill Brett at a book signing at Fenway Park.Photo by Michael Manning. Few people know Boston and Bostonians as well as Bill Brett. He’s been taking photos for The Boston […]
Posted inEconomy, Politics
Point of reckoning
the massachusetts state budget has reached a point of reckoning. First and foremost, a stubborn — and insufficiently appreciated — structural imbalance approaching $1 billion threatens the state’s ability to […]
Posted inPolitics
Red Sox call their own play to control ticket scalping
INTRO TEXT The state’s antiscalping law is in tatters. No one enforces it, resellers ignore it, and now the Boston Red Sox are giving up on it. The Red Sox […]
Posted inPolitics
Murray uses IG as ombudsman for Phoenix story
INTRO TEXT When the Boston Phoenix reported last year that state Sen. Therese Murray steered $11 million in state money to a crony who failed to deliver on his assignment […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service, Transportation
Not everyone on the South Coast is getting into training
INTRO TEXT South Coast rail, the plan to extend passenger train service from Boston to New Bedford and Fall River, promises to stir up more grass-roots activism than the Patrick […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
Patrick finds his footing in his second year on the Hill
INTRO TEXT Assessments of Gov. Deval Patrick’s first year in office were all pretty similar: He was, by his own admission, a political “amateur,” and one taking his bumps and […]
Posted inPolitics
State worker, 82, finally calls it quits
INTRO TEXT Donald Falvey, who is 82, retired from his $97,000-a-year job as deputy director of the Division of Standards at the end of January. Falvey worked in state and […]
Posted inEconomy
Subsidizing the stars
UPDATE: Since the spring issue of CommonWealth went to press, the Massachusetts Revenue Department released a report indicating the financial impact of the state’s film tax credit could be substantial. […]
Posted inPolitics, State House News Service
News from a new generation
Walter Robinson, who won a Pulitzer Prizeat the Globe, heads the investigativereporting program at Northeastern University.A decade is a long time. But advocates for senior citizens have been trying to […]
Posted inPolitics
Betting on the House
If Gov. Deval Patrick represents the new face of liberalism in the Massachusetts Democratic Party, 14-term Congressman Barney Frank is the unabashed older version. But both men believe that government […]
Posted inTransportation
Statistically Significant
BUSES TAKE A HEAVY TOLL ON THE T Passenger fares accounted for only 29 percent of operating expenses on the MBTA during 2006, according to new data from the Federal […]
Posted inPolitics
Needs improvement
Here’s one report card that Massachusetts might want to hide: Governing magazine and the Pew Center on the States gave the state a “C” in their Grading the States report, […]