Scott Brown: Fighting For Massachusetts

The Boston Globe has published story critical of Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) and his assertion that proposed financial overhaul bill would result in lost jobs in Massachusetts.

Senator Scott Brown’s use of as-yet-unsubstantiated industry estimates to predict the number of jobs that would be lost to greater financial regulation drew fire yesterday as partisan debate continued to heat up in the US Senate.

Brown said yesterday that his weekend prediction on national TV Sunday that tightening Wall Street rules would kill 25,000 to 35,000 jobs in Massachusetts was “based on my speaking with industry leaders’’ in recent weeks, but he did not cite any specific analysis.

That varied from an explanation offered by his representatives on Sunday, when his office said Brown was given the estimate by the chief executive of MassMutual, a large insurance company headquartered in Springfield.

MassMutual officials said Sunday, and again yesterday, that they did not give Brown any firm estimates of projected job losses in the Bay State.

The company said it warned of unspecified job losses in the future and provided him with estimates — dramatically inflated estimates, the company acknowledged yesterday — of jobs lost thus far in the current recession.

I’m not what the problem is. Estimates are exactly that: estimates. Based on information Senator Brown has, he gave an estimate of the number of lost jobs and has brought that issue to the forefront. Forget about the specific number of jobs lost…the real point is:  jobs will be lost.

The idea that the financial overhaul bill would cost jobs has not, until Brown’s weekend assertion, been part of the debate in Washington.

“No one has argued to us this is going to be cutting jobs as an overall in the economy,’’ said Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, who authored the House version of the financial overhaul. “I have no idea where that figure came from. I don’t think anybody does. It may have just been spewed out by the Icelandic volcano with some of the other debris.’’

If Brown’s estimate on “Face the Nation’’ were true, the measure would eliminate up to 17 percent of the 207,000 jobs in the Bay State’s financial services sector.

“I stand by them,’’ Brown said in a brief interview yesterday in which he defended the remark. “And there will be larger numbers nationally.’’

Pressed to describe the source of his estimate, Brown said the figure was “based on my speaking with the industry leaders over the last month or so.’’

Brown aides last night also cited a study by the Business Roundtable — which largely opposes the current bill — estimating that a crackdown on a financial tool called over-the-counter derivatives would cause companies to be less profitable, resulting in 100,000 to 120,000 direct and indirect job cuts nationwide. The industry group did not provide any Massachusetts-specific figures.

Although MassMutual’s initial calculation put the number of financial sector jobs lost to date at 33,000, data compiled by the state’s Department of Labor and Workforce show there have been 18,700 jobs lost in all financial activities — including finance, insurance, and real estate — over the last three years.

There were 225,700 jobs in those categories in March 2007, and 207,000 as of last month.

The Boston Globe’s story is completely missing the point. As it stands today, this financial overhaul bill is will subject Massachusetts companies that didn’t take TARP funds, or contribute to financial meltdown, with huge fees and burdensome regulations, and will certainly cost the Commonwealth jobs. That is what Senator Scott Brown was saying on Sunday. Whether is 2,000 or 20,000, jobs lost in the Commonwealth is an end result we sent Scott Brown to Washington to prevent from happening. Thanks to him, now it’s being discussed.

Scott Brown is in Washington standing up for the interests Massachusetts. This bill, as currently written, would negatively impact the more than 200,000 Massachusetts employees. The financial services industry is important to the Massachusetts economy; and Scott Brown is fighting to keep those jobs. What more could we ask for?

Thank you, Senator Scott Brown, for doing exactly what we sent you to Washington to do.

Scott Brown Winning Boston.com Survey on Who Won The Debate

It may not be a scientific poll, but if I was gonna predict how a Boston Globe online survey would turn out regarding the outcome of last night’s debate, I figured Coakley would have been able to rely on the state’s significant party loyalty advantage to flood the poll with people who would vote for her as the winner.

Well, apparently, there just aren’t enough who believe she won, because with nearly 11,000 votes, Scott Brown is currently winning with 74.6%. Only 20.9% think Martha Coakley won.

Oh Happy Day

Democrats at each other’s throats? Yes!!!

The widening rift and bitter words between Governor Deval Patrick and his Democratic colleagues in the Legislature is creating dismay among some party members, who worry about their political fortunes as the state faces a budget crunch of epic proportions and a countdown to reelections in 2010.

The inability of top Democrats to work in concert, generating as much ill will between the branches as when Republicans held the corner office, shows how liberals, conservatives, insiders, and outsiders at the State House have succumbed to factional disputes and political posturing as they respond to intense pressure to cut budgets and raise taxes.

“It’s clearly getting in the way of important work. It does exactly what none of us want, which is the further erosion of public confidence,” said Representative Jay Kaufman, a Lexington Democrat and House chairman of the Committee on Revenue. “The analogy that rings true still is that we haven’t quite sorted out this dance. You would think that after 2 1/2 years we would have started to figure that out.”

The only joy in the current political environment is emanating from the state’s Republican Party, which is already recruiting candidates for next year’s election as it portrays Democrats as incompetent to lead in a time of crisis.

“It’s an exciting time,” said Nick Connors, executive director of the Massachusetts Republican Party. “The Democrats are creating opportunities for us all around the state. It shows a definite need for two parties and a different vision for where we can take the state.”

The discord among Democrats, in some ways, is counterintuitive. The party has control of both the House and Senate – by the largest majority in the state’s history – and also took the corner office in 2006 for the first time in 16 years.

But with no Republicans to battle, Democrats have turned upon themselves in repeated bouts of intraparty bickering. Strains that may be less visible during flush times are also highlighted as top leaders debate raising taxes, cutting local aid, and overhauling laws around ethics, pension, and transportation.

UPDATE: More from the Norwich Bulletin, NECN and WBZ.

SECOND UPDATE: More from the Herald, Brockton Enterprise, Wendy Murphy and Joan Vennochi.

THIRD UPDATE: From the Herald.

The Anderson Tapes

Barbara Anderson on the Bay State’s tax fetish.

Governor Deval Patrick, in an effort to let us know how serious the budget crisis is, says that “if we fired every single state employee, we’d still have a billion-dollar hole.”

Of course we would. Many of those employees would go out on instant pensions. Others would collect unemployment, have state-subsidized health insurance, or get a job at one of the independent authorities where they would start to accrue bigger pensions like those available at the MBTA after 23 years.

Would we still have a $28-billion state budget to go with the billion-dollar budget hole? Who would be running it and spending the money? Governor, what’s your point? That payroll costs aren’t much of the problem?

Can we stop being silly now?

At least Patrick’s sticking to his demand for “reform before revenues.” Unfortunately, the Legislature is sticking to its resistance to reform.

As various Democrats have said: “We can’t reform our way out of this crisis.”

Translation: “Let’s go directly to the revenues.”

So the Senate opened its budget debate by passing a 25-percent sales tax hike and local option taxes. Maybe it will get to reforms after my column deadline. Darn, it’s hard to write while holding my breath.

UPDATE: More from Cape Cod Today, Wayne Woodlief, the AP and Boston Phoenix.

SECOND UPDATE: More from Adrian Walker, Scot Lehigh, WBZ, WCVB, Red Mass Group, the Globe and Herald.

She & Him

Another round of Michele McPhee vs. Gov. Patrick.

The next time you notice a bumper sticker that reads “Honk If You Paid For This Sweet Ride”; or maybe one that says “My Other Car Is The One You Didn’t Pay For,” pay attention. Because it may be very likely that there is a welfare recipient behind the wheel of the donated vehicle who got the car for free — along with a year subscription to AAA; taxpayer-funded insurance; free excise tax; and who knows, maybe even one of those free Fast Lane toll paying mechanisms that the lawmakers and politicians drive around with.

Free for them, that is. The vehicles cost Massachusetts taxpayers $500,000 — not to mention the salaries of the people who oversee the hackarama bureaucracy that doles the cars out.

Apparently, this is the reform Deval Patrick has been referring to. He is going to lay off police officers, firefighters and teachers across the state and give people who don’t pay taxes new cars. This is as absurd as giving pink slips to Registry of Motor Vehicle workers making less than $50,000 a year so that he can hire career hack Eddie Jenkins.

Maybe Patrick needs to become familiarized with the term “reform,” which the dictionary describes this way: “to make changes for improvement in order to remove abuse and injustices.”

Isn’t it an injustice to expect Massachusetts taxpayers to pay a new sales tax; while continuing to face the highest gas tax in the country; while paying $7 bucks to get off the island of Eastie? I would say yes.

I am bewildered by the foot-dragging that is going on with the part of the reform definition that describes making changes for improvement. Because nothing has improved for us.

UPDATE: More from the Globe and Herald.

SECOND UPDATE: From the Globe, Herald, NECN and Michael Graham.

THIRD UPDATE: More from Scot Lehigh, WBUR, the Globe and Herald.