Chopp143's Blog

I have to admit that I was very surprised that Question One was defeated by such a large margain.  As a public employee (firefighter) I voted against Question One out of self interest.  As a home owner I also voted against Question One because of the added tax burden it would have placed on people who own their own homes.  I understand that Prop 2 1/2 would have limited property tax increases but I expect that if Question One had passed the Legislature would have changed it to allow cities and towns to raise lost local aid.  Eliminating the income tax would have eased the burden on all those who work but would have placed a larger share of the burden on homeowners.  In the end I think that people understood that while the Legislature needs to wake up and listen to the voters, Question One was surgery by hatchet.

Now that Barack Obama is the new President-Elect, speculation on the makeup of his administration will begin with possible political repercussions in Massachusetts.  Will Senator John Kerry be offered and accept a Cabnet position??  This would start a feeding frenzy of activity.  Would we then see a Congressional seat open up as the likes of Rep. Stephen Lynch, Ed Markey or others vie to replace Kerry?  Will the Republican Party focus all of its' rescources to get Mitt Romney elected as a replacement for our Junior Senator?  Our Governor has stated many times he is not interested in leaving the State House for Washington but if he is offered a high ranking job in the new administration will he stay true to his word?  With Senator Ted Kennedy's health issue hanging over him how different will the Massachusetts political landscape look in the near future?  It will be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

Putting aside how one views the U.S. involvement in Iraq, I find it disturbing that while U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for approximately 48 billion dollars for the reconstruction of Iraq's infrastructure, Iraq is sitting on approximately 79 billion dollars in oil revenue.  This should be unacceptable to all Americans.  Our economy is ailing under the weight of a massive deficit and Iraq watches the American taxpayer pour billions into rebuilding their country while they are awash in money.  Lets start spending our tax dollars rebuilding our infrastructure and let the Iraqis rebuild their own.

How interesting that news of the supposed death threats against the Speaker of the House are just now being reported in the media.  Nice job Sal, play the victim and hope the masses will forget about you shady dealings.  This man's arrogance apparently knows no bounds.  He must think that most of the Commonwealth's citizens still beleive in the tooth fairy.  Impeachment of this character would be too good, he should be in jail!!

Once again one of our super smart, artistic college students causes a security scare by walking through Logan Airport with supposed "art".  Luckily for her the State Police at Logan showed proper restraint and did not over react.  Now the Courts will decide what is the proper punishment for our intellectual offender.  I would respectfully submit that she be given a broom and trash bag and sentenced to Harvard Square trash patrol for the remainder of her MIT education.  Have her spend one hour everyday including holidays and weekends picking up the trash that litters our public ways.  Maybe if we started to get back to basic disipline and took some of these supposedly intelligent individuals and showed them what respect and hard work are we would see some changes in our society.  Too many pampered children filling our halls of education who have no respect for anyone but themselves.