It’s the time of year – actually, every other year – that the haughty process of setting agendas is at the forefront. It’s a period of high-mindedness, hope, promise, and optimism. Then, of course, that little hurdle known as reality takes hold and everything comes to a screeching halt.
Everyone has an agenda, in politics as well as life. The question is, whose agenda rises to the top? In Washington, President Obama won the first round of wills with the deal to increase taxes on the uber-wealthy while maintaining the Bush-era tax cuts for 99 percent of the population, his main campaign goal dating back to 2008. Check, agenda item number 1.
But it may have come at a political and fiscal cost as the looming debt ceiling debate threatens to gut programs around the country that will affect nearly all public and private sector social programs. The Republican agenda is to use the debt ceiling increase to exact deep cuts in federal spending. Can you say “continuing gridlock?”
Closer to home, House Speaker Robert DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray were handily reelected to their respective positions and each laid out a slightly different vision of what they see as the upcoming legislative agenda for the next two years. Suffice to say, taxes were not explicitly mentioned in the agenda-setting speeches but rest assured the T word was never far from the minds of those listening closely.
The interesting aspects of both speeches were the focuses on priorities that likely aren’t high on Bay State voters list of things to do first but may be a nod to getting bills passed with little resistance, unlike the bottleneck in Washington. DeLeo promised an examination of the state’s gun laws in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, massacre where 27 people, including 20 first-graders, were gunned down by a 20-year-old man with apparent mental health issues. DeLeo got a standing ovation from both Democrats and Republicans but what goes without saying is Massachusetts already has among the toughest gun control laws in the country.
Murray, too, gave some weight to the gun control argument, with both leaders saying they wanted to avoid stigmatizing those with mental illness. Murray called for restrictions on assault weapons and large capacity magazines. But that already exists in Massachusetts and the problems other states have with regulating guns do not regularly occur here.
Murray, entering her last full term as Senate president unless the rules are changed, also declared she would return to an issue that was her calling card when she first arrived on Beacon Hill two decades ago, welfare reform. Though few will argue the system needs to be updated and more responsive to everyone’s needs – recipients as well as taxpayers – you’d be hard-pressed to find a lot of voters who walked into the polling place in November with welfare reform on their minds as a defining issue.
While not broaching the T for taxes word, a capital T – MBTA – did rise to the top of the agendas. But while DeLeo and Murray both called for broader solutions to transportation issues, such as road and bridge repair around the state and full funding for regional transportation authorities, neither focused on where the money would come from. And with the pot running dry, at some point someone is going to have to put taxes on the agenda.
Perhaps that will come when Gov. Deval Patrick lays out his agenda for transportation funding in the coming days. Because you can never have enough agendas.
–JACK SULLIVAN
BEACON HILL
Stronger gun laws in Massachusetts will mean little without commensurate action from Washington, opines The Berkshire Eagle.
Convicted former House speaker Sal DiMasi argues that the $65,000 he received from a Canadian software company’s lobbyist — payments that were laundered through his law partner, a criminal defense attorney, under the guise that they were referral fees for a no-show lobbying job DiMasi had arranged — amounted to legitimate legal payments, “the everyday occupation of the nation’s part-time state and local lawmakers.”
MUNICIPAL MATTERS
The Cape Cod Times points out that the region needs to deal with trash disposal sooner rather than later and salutes Sandwich’s pay-as-you-throw approach.
The state slaps Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua with a $5,475 lien for failing to pay state income taxes in 2011, the Eagle-Tribune reports. Meanwhile, Lantigua is feeling so good about his reelection prospects that he granted an audience to the Herald. The paper returns the favor with an editorial asking for his resignation.
CASINOS
KG Urban Enterprises, which is seeking to build a casino on the New Bedford waterfront, blasted the state Gaming Commission for extending the timeframe for the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe to garner federal approval for their deal with the state.
A Canadian casino operator drops plans for a slots parlor in Littleton, the Lowell Sun reports.
NATIONAL POLITICS/WASHINGTON
President Obama, who returned to Hawaii to finish his vacation, directed that the “fiscal cliff” deal be signed in his stead by autopen, a machine that mimics someone’s signature, which, of course, has the conservative opiners up in arms questioning the move’s legality. US Rep. William Keating, one of the few lawmakers who didn’t bolt from Washington after the tax deal vote on New Year’s Day, tells Keller@Large crisis negotiations are no way to run a country.
Economists almost universally pan the fiscal cliff deal, Time reports.
Karl Rove’s roundup of wrongheaded prognostication does not include the word “Ohio.”
What does it mean when House Speaker John Boehner rains f-bombs on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid? The Daily Beast asks.
New Jersey governor Chris Christie unloads on House Republicans.
ELECTIONS
Scott Brown, out of idle curiosity, wonders aloud on radio to Margery Eagan and Jim Braude whether Ed Markey really lives in Malden. Margery promptly sets out to scour the city’s streets for signs of the 18-term congressman. Markey’s congressional colleague Steve Lynch prepares to jump into the scrum for John Kerry’s Senate seat. Joan Vennochi has a problem with Democrats lack of devotion to democracy as they try to anoint Markey their Senate nominee and avoid the messy business of a contested primary, candidates making their case to voters, and all that.
Elizabeth Warren, just before being sworn in as a US senator, bashes the departing Scott Brown and the rest of the GOP but says she is already working on her bipartisanship skills, the Herald reports.
BUSINESS/ECONOMY
Federal regulators approve a controversial infectious disease lab at Boston University Medical School, NECN reports.
EDUCATION
The Gloucester Community Arts Charter School is planning to close January 11 rather than finishing out the year, the Gloucester Times reports. The decision will affect about 100 students who will now have to move to other schools.
UP Academy, an in-district charter middle school in Boston, is facing criticism for allegedly pushing disruptive and low-performing students out, even though the school’s withdrawal rate is actually lower than the citywide average for middle schools.
The Brockton School Committee names Deputy Superintendent John Jerome interim superintendent to take the place of Matthew Malone, who is leaving to become Gov. Patrick’s secretary of education.
TRANSPORTATION
Weymouth residents and officials are bracing for traffic disruptions as well as problems from noise and dust as the state begins replacing the Fore River Bridge.
ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT
A New York study suppressed by state officials found that fracking could be done safely, the New York Times reports.
The devastation caused by Hurricane Sandy is forcing the Northeast to rethink infrastructure, Governing reports.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE
Armed police officers began patrolling schools in Marlboro, New Jersey, the Star-Ledger reports. In Fall River, police officers are in all the city’s schools while Mayor Will Flanagan ponders his next move to make sure classrooms are safe.
Two Webster men played a game on New Year’s Eve in which they tried to see whether they could draw a gun or a knife faster. The game ended in tragedy when one of the men, a security guard, shot his friend, the Telegram & Gazette reports.
MEDIA
Al Jazeera announces a deal to buy Current TV, the low-rated cable channel founded by Al Gore and others, the New York Times reports.
Star blogger Andrew Sullivan leaves The Daily Beast to form a subscription-only website, Gigaom reports.