To those of us who understand the inherent wastefulness and inefficiency of public bureaucracies (i.e. gubimint), today’s Boston Globe story on the “stimulus” is hardly surprising. The same people who brought you the ” stimulus” want to “stimulate” your health care.  Fight them. Here are some story excerpts; they speak for themselves.

Organizations that received stimulus money miscounted jobs, filed erroneous figures, or claimed jobs for work that has not yet started.

One of the largest reported jobs figures comes from Bridgewater State College, which is listed as using $77,181 in stimulus money for 160 full-time work-study jobs for students. But Bridgewater State spokesman Bryan Baldwin said the college made a mistake and the actual number of new jobs was “almost nothing.’’

“There were no jobs created. It was just shuffling around of the funds,’’ said Susan Kelly, director of property management for Boston Land Co., which reported retaining 26 jobs with $2.7 million in rental subsidies for its affordable housing developments in Waltham.

Massachusetts property owners received $75.5 million in rental subsidies from the stimulus bill, for a reported total of 437 jobs. Recipients of 27 of the 87 contracts reported zero jobs. The others, meanwhile, simply reported the number of employees working at the property. If they received two contracts, for a larger property, they reported the employee figure twice.

The only good thing to say about this is that the respondents appear to be honest about the shortcomings of this scam.

This story comes to us courtesy of the folks at Deval Patrick Watch. It pertains to the state’s Division of Administrative Law Appeals. It’s former head, Shelly Taylor, was forced to resign her $108,000/year job amidst allegations of incompetence. Excerpts from D.P.Watch follow:

The former head of the state Division of Administrative Law Appeals, forced to resign in August amid allegations of mismanagement, continues to draw $6,300 a month in consultant pay for work she failed to complete during her two-year tenure.

A former prison guard who has waited 16 months for Taylor’s decision on his request for a disability pension said she does not deserve additional pay or extra time to finish her work.“As a taxpayer, I am furious,’’ said Jeff Waite, 49. “I worked for the state. They paid me to do a job. They paid her to do a job; now do it.’’

In many of Taylor’s cases, litigants have been waiting a year or more for rulings.

Big gubimint in Massachusetts just keeps gettin’ bigger.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 59:22 — 27.2MB)

Mr. Moses is president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform based in Seattle, Washington, and the Ocean State Policy Research Institute Fellow on Healthcare Reform. In this interview, he discusses the impending fiscal, monetary and social disaster that is soon to overtake and weaken the United States.  Of particular concern: runaway spending at state and federal levels, Medicaid spending bankrupting the states, the coming “welfare-ization of Social Security and means-testing for Medicaid (to say nothing of anti-growth fiscal policy.

Indiana governor Mitch Daniels is a rarity: a fiscally responsible, popular Republican  running budget surpluses whilst simultaneously making health care universal and affordable. On this latter point, he pokes a stick in the eye of both Massachusetts and Tennessee health policy:

“It also doesn’t expose taxpayers to the catastrophe in Tennessee or Massachusetts of an entitlement program.”

The Tax Foundation’s latest research on business-friendly states suggests Indiana is doing something right. (Page 3 of their report evaluates the business climates of all fifty states).

If Republicans entertain any hope of being taken seriously as the party that can simultaneously deliver fiscal restraint and smart public policy initiatives, Daniels is a role model.

Tip of the cap to Kimberley Strassel.

The following email statement from House Minority Leader Boehner was sent to me by my Texas Tea Party sources. First the statement, then the video.

Dear xxxxx,

This week my colleagues and I are taking several steps to cut off ALL taxpayer funding to ACORN, and sever ties between the corrupt leftwing outfit and the federal government. Here’s a quick snapshot of what we’ve done:

> We sent a letter to President Obama – signed by 130 House Republicans – asking the President to publicly disclose and terminate all taxpayer funding of ACORN.

> And in case the President will not act, or says Congressional action is necessary, I introduced the Defund ACORN Act (H.R. 3571) – a bill that will shut off federal funding for ACORN once and for all.

> House Republicans are also urging the IRS to end its association with ACORN, similar to the recent move by the Census Bureau (which acted only after steady pressure from Republicans in Congress).

> And as MSNBC reported, Rep. Lamar Smith has also “called for the FBI and Justice Department to investigate” ACORN.

Considering all the evidence that’s surfaced linking ACORN to potentially criminal activity, we need to make sure not one more dime of taxpayer money goes to this organization or its affiliates.

Take a look at this YouTube video of me on Fox News talking about ACORN and be sure to leave your comments for me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9YZ4aorOic

As always, thank you for your support. I promise to keep you posted as we move forward in this effort!

John Boehner

Kudos and Hat Tip to Red Mass Group for uncovering this one.  Governor Patrick has already indicated his support for a “graduated” income tax scheme. Here are Representative Brownsberger’s contact pages.

Can We Save $10 Million on the Public Safety Complex?

By Len Mead December 2007

Audible groans were heard at Town Meeting last October when lectured that union teacher raises are “minimal compared to what we have in some industries.”

Later, in discussing the $1.7 million request for funds to develop the architectural and engineering plans for a combined police and fire safety complex, citizens had the gall to ask – “Well, what would you estimate the ultimate cost of this project to be?” After a few outright refusals to answer, a figure of “at least $20 million” was voiced. That brought audible gasps from the crowd.

So with real estate values dropping, National Grid leaving town (taking as many as 900 jobs away) and the average single family tax bill rising $500, taxpayers might conclude that there really is a ”Grinch” out there ready to steal Christmas. And still to go is the multi-million dollar cost of upgrading our water treatment facilities.

Fortunately, Dear Reader, that’s why you have me to turn to – always looking for the positive side, always looking for where spending might be curbed, needed municipal buildings constructed more efficiently and rising tax bills restrained.

Let’s first affirm that the concept of a combined police and fire complex is deserved and practical. Our fine police and fire departments now operate out of facilities that have significant shortcomings of space, logistics, and safety itself. Start by realizing that we have a police department operating out of an old converted school building and a fire department which has to park equipment on floors where the supports are so rusted there’s a chance the trucks might fall through to the basement.

With the $20 million plus “guesstimate” for the new proposed public safety complex sticking in my mind, I set about to research if there were ways to complete the project without spending about a quarter of our town’s annual budget. At 55,000 square feet, that comes out to, let’s see, $20 million plus the $1.7 million for the architect/engineering fees and project management = $21.7 million divided by 55,000 – that’s about $394/square foot! Not including the $1.4 million to buy the land and the demolition costs for the “V-Arc” structure that was on it.

First I discovered that Plainfield, MA, with a population of 20,000, is putting up a new firehouse for $750,000 designed by Reinhrdt Associates of Agawam, MA. But that doesn’t include a police facility.

Then I discovered Paxton (just west of Worcester) is constructing a combined police and fire safety complex of about half the size we want — 24,000 square feet — for about $9 million including the architect/engineering fees and project management – or about $373/square foot.

In other states, however, more research identified a handful of other police/fire complexes costing considerably less than the $394/square foot price floated at out town meeting. Then it hit me. These less expensive safety complexes were pre-engineered steel buildings!

To understand why our public safety project cost is estimated at $20 million plus, I had breakfast with George Barrette, Chair of our seven-person Municipal Building Committee (a former Chair of our Selectman) and Dexter Blois, another member who happened to be a past Westborough Town Coordinator and Ashland Town Manager for 9 plus years. These capable and dedicated individuals plus five other committee members are appointed by Henry Danis, our Town Coordinator.

They kindly explained that our plan was highly customized. Our plan is three stories high, specifically designed to fit on the available lot by Jacunski Humes of Berlin, CT an architect with extensive experience designing similar public safety complexes. Asked why a pre-engineered steel building approach wasn’t being considered, the response was to question whether multi-story structures like our safety complex could be constructed that way.

So, to check out what might be possible, I then called “The General,” General Steel Corporation in the Denver, CO area. You know — those guys who advertise on the radio about building your needed municipal structure in “half the time for half the cost?”

And guess what? After looking over our top down architectural sketches – even without needed elevation drawings — General Steel conservatively estimated that, indeed, they could build what we’ve sketched out for (don’t hold us to this) — $8 to $10 million. About half the $20 million plus number we heard at Town Meeting!

Now, I’m not an engineer – I don’t even play one on TV. But the idea of saving Westborough $10 million to build our public safety complex seems like something our Municipal Building Committee should actively consider.

To get more specific details about how a pre-engineered steel building could compare with other construction approaches, General Steel or any of the other fine pre-engineered steel building construction companies have to be “asked in” by municipalities. Certainly that’s not my job.

But with awareness and pressure by you, my friends, hopefully Westborough’s Municipal Building Committee can consider “inviting in” pre-engineered steel building construction companies to propose getting our public safety building built for (dare we hope?) half the $20 million we heard at Town Meeting.

That’s a $10 million dollar Christmas present saving every Westborough taxpayer would love.

Len Mead can be reached at mead1720@msn.com

Update: From Op-Ed March, 2009

Government Liberals & Unions are now Crushing us

Locally, I urged our selectman save us $10 million by constructing the proposed $20 million dollar public safety complex using General Steel Corporation whose estimate was only $9 million. But last week, two selectman voted to move forward the safety complex proposal (now estimated at $30 million) to town meeting which would require a debt exclusion tax increase to fund! This move defines a good argument for saving money by regionalizing public safety with other towns.

I am excited to welcome Len Mead to the Massachusetts Matters fold. Mr. Mead heads the Westborough Taxpayers Association and is a vigilant defender of the town’s/state’s public fisc. He gave me permission to reproduce the following article he wrote in December of 2007. Look for more reporting of this kind on these pages. His post follows…

Hot off the press: “Obey, Waters Fight on House Floor“. Oh really??? According to Roll Call, the contretemps erupted because Obey refused to accede to Waters’ request for a $1,000,000 earmark in her district. Congrats to Obey, fie on Waters  (if you want a monument to yourself, spend your own money), and one more reason to abolish earmarks entirely.

Here’s an audio copy of the call I participated in with Senator Lamar Alexander(R,TN) on Wednesday. He mentions Barney Frank (D,MA) several times (once at 01:43 and again at approximately 02:47). I will be posting more of these as they come along: