State House News Service Weekly Roundup: Games People Play

There have been rifts over the gas tax and collective bargaining rights, skirmishes over sentencing reforms and more serious disagreements about casinos – not once but twice. But not since the great staring contest of 2010 between Speaker Robert DeLeo and Gov. Deval Patrick over slot parlors have hostilities between the executive and legislative branches been so open and raw.  Patrick this week didn’t just threaten to veto the Democratic leadership’s proposal to raise $ 500 million for transportation with tax hikes on gas, tobacco and businesses. He eviscerated it, challenging not just the policy points, but the sincerity of the leaders who crafted it. “To come up with this plan is just not serious and to say it’s a plan, to say it’s a solution is just not serious and I’m not going to play that game. I’m still here. I’m still engaged. I’m still willing to talk about compromise,” Patrick said, calling it “too small” and too short-sighted after years of neglected infrastructure investments. DeLeo and Senate President Therese Murray finally fully responded this week to Patrick’s proposal to generate $ 1.9 billion in new revenue through tax reform for long-term transportation and education investments with a more immediate, and scaled down proposal focused on a 3-cent gas tax hike, a $ 1 per-pack cigarette tax increase and business taxes on software and out-of-state corporations. “We’re trying to protect the middle class. That is I think one of the major differences of the two plans,” DeLeo said Thursday after Patrick’s veto threat. DeLeo called the leadership plan one that is “more responsive to the needs of the middle class,” a clever way of packaging a $ 500 million tax increase. Murray said the plan would not “bankrupt” the current generation. “Doable,” she called it. Click here to subscribe to MASSterlist, a free morning newsletter by State House News Service that highlights political news from a wide array of newspapers and journals in Massachusetts and New England For three leaders of the same party who profess to have great respect and personal admiration for one another, Patrick, DeLeo and Murray seem to be having considerable difficulty playing nice. The governor did not see a summary of the legislative leadership’s plan until minutes before they rolled it out for the press, and they had not spoken about it before Patrick stood before the cameras to call it “a pretend fix.” Hatched largely in private among a select few lawmakers, even members of DeLeo’s leadership team were uncertain early Tuesday morning where the speaker had landed on a plan that’s already up for a vote on Monday. Two major differences between this battle over taxes and the gambling impasse […]

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