Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Deval Patrick's New Year's Resolutions!

(This column first appeared in print December 26, 2006)

Christmas is over, the fat goose got eaten, and now its time to tackle the dreaded RESOLUTIONS. New Year’s, with all its drunken hoopla and frantic calendar switching, allows each and every one of us an opportunity for a new slate (or, slightly used slate, depending on your outlook). Now is the time to vow to change your ways, whatever they be.
For real resolution success one must do three things: 1. Actually make a resolution- writing it down helps. 2. Tell people about it, then at the very least you’ll be embarrassed into keeping it (unhealthy maybe, but helpful). 3. Set goals to reach your target – these can be real or imagined; whatever helps.
Do a Google search on ‘New Year’s Resolutions’ and you’ll get over 58 million hits. 58 MILLION websites referring to the annual act of trying to outsmart yourself. The website eHow has a five step list of how to make resolutions. One website links the practice of making New Year’s resolutions to the Babylonians about 4000 years ago. Resolutions topping the ancient Babylonian’s lists: returning borrowed farm equipment.
Yes, there are billions of kinds of resolutions to make and thousands of years of humanity’s experience to help you resolve. Top resolutions, which come as no surprise, include lose weight, stop smoking, get fit, quit drinking, get out of debt, and get an oil change.
I’ve read erudite expositions on why resolutions just bind us closer to failure or that resolutions should be smaller attainable steps of an overall goal. Perhaps. Mainly I think resolutions should put the FUN in FUNctional, so, this year I’m presenting the TOP THREE RESOLUTIONS OF THE DEVAL PATRICK ADMINISTRATION (because, if you can’t make fun of yourself, make fun of state government).

Deval Patrick Resolution Number 1: Local Aid Smoke and Mirrors: During the campaign Patrick promised to restore local aid to pre-2000 levels. Utilizing a political sort of fuzzy logic, the governor-elect believes that increasing local aid will lower property taxes. Patrick knows that the state house does not determine property taxes, that residential property values (and therefore taxes) are based on residential home sales, and that the real-estate boom in recent years brought more property tax increases in than anything else. Next year Tewksbury is headed for a slight decrease in property taxes, because the real estate market has slowed to a crawl and residential property values have plummeted around the state. Surely, Patrick will take credit for the reduced property tax “burden” on the people and tout it as a result of his increase in local aid (if, indeed, it comes).

Patrick Resolution 2: No Tax is Too Little: Patrick, in what will likely become a signature move, decided to keep a tax Massachusetts should have done away with years ago: Pike Tolls. Originally levied as a way to pay the bonds sold to finance the construction of the Pike, the toll is well past its expiration date, with many commuters complaining that they’re paying for the bloated albatross of the Big Dig rather than Pike maintenance.
Additionally, the Patrick campaign promoted the institution of local meal taxes as a way to “help local communities raise the revenue they need to support the services businesses need to thrive.” Just so we’re clear, charge customers (typically the residents of the town that patronizes those restaurants) more taxes to raise money to support services for the businesses in a town… Its dizzying logic. Watch for more creative money management solutions!

Patrick Resolution 3: Speak Vaguely and Promise Nothing Good: Interestingly, Patrick ran a feel-good campaign, a Together-We-Can hug fest campaign that, clearly, overwhelmingly succeeded. Now we’re in the transition period and learning that state finances are much direr than Patrick previously thought. Like many pols, any bad news is the fault of the previous administration and any good news is a direct result of his policies. The opposites, things that are working right now, and things that go badly in the future, won’t likely receive much lip service or credit. Together-We-Can what? Nobody knows, and nobody is likely to know since the transition staff were made to sign non-disclosure agreements. Let’s hope his positive campaign-vision resurfaces in the months to come and that not all the good news was due to rose-colored glasses.


As the year draws to a close and we come closer to 2007 and the inauguration to follow, I wish everyone a year full of prosperity, success, health, happiness, a five pound weight loss, an oil change, and returned farm equipment. After Patrick takes office, we’re going to need it.

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