(Cross-posted from the mighty mighty Boston Daily)
It’s budget season on Beacon Hill again. And it’s apt that it should coincide, roughly, with the run-up to area colleges’ final exams. After a semester of lying around and drinking, the legislature now has to pull a week of harried all-nighters before it can knock off work for the summer.
In broad strokes, this year’s House budget is big but not unduly wicked big, is unkind to out of state corporations, hates smokers, and offers, in Speaker Sal DiMasi’s own estimation, “nothing spectacular about any new initiative.” But you already knew that already.
So, in the interest of wrapping up the week with some semi-original reporting, here’s a few of the more interesting budget skirmishes to keep an eye on in the upcoming weeks. (more…)
Categories: Politics
Tagged: Boston Magazine, Brad Jones, Casinos, Deval Patrick, Fish, Legislature, Sal DiMasi
(Cross-posted to Boston Daily)
Mitt Romney’s campaign for president has ended. Who’ll we make fun of now?
It was, by all accounts, a bizarre scene at City Hall on Wednesday when the Boston firefighters union met with members of the City Council.
“What they really should’ve done is convene the Council psychologist,” says a source. “They seem crazed, like they’re living in denial. I get it – they’re feeling pressure, the leaks are pissing them off, they feel like they’re being dragged through the mud. But nothing good can be coming from them fighting drug testing. Fifty minutes of that one hour meeting was just them venting. There were no talking points. It was just stream of consciousness emotion.”
As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, the union’s vaunted PR firm was not in attendance. (more…)
Categories: Politics
Tagged: Boston City Council, Boston Magazine, Brad Jones, MBTA, Mitt Romney, Wonkery
