Well I support the idea that we shouldn't be rolling back the state income tax but I'd give a slightly different reason, because the reason that our taxes have gone through the roof is because we don't have enough income tax and so the local cities and towns are raising property taxes. Those hit the rest of us. The income tax is the only thing that folks at the top actually have to pay the same amount as the folks at the bottom. Everything, all those fees and all those property taxes tend to hit folks at the lower end more. So we're actually carrying the tax burden for folks at the top and large corporations that used to have 16 percent of the tax burden, now have 4.
Chris I'm for it. The people voted overwhelmingly for it. I'll work the legislature to get it done over time, certainly. Statutorily it's being done as we sit here, but this administration has taken local aid away from this cities and towns. They're starving. They've taken well over $2 billion in local aid away from the cities and towns so the property taxes have gone up well over $1.3, $1.4 billion while they've been sitting in that corner office and that's why we have absolute issues going on in the cities and towns that we just can't afford to have.
Thank you Chris. Lets just say that if cutting taxes is the question than Deval Patrick isn't the answer. The people of this state voted overwhelmingly back in the year 2000 to cut the tax rate to 5 percent. Since that time they have paid in $2 billion in extra taxes that we didn't need. The last two years we've had billion dollar budget surpluses, each of those years. Now the legislature has spent that money. We need to take it off the table in order to have fiscal discipline and my opponent cannot provide that.
The next question, and again just to remind everybody the person I ask the question of gets one minute, everybody else gets 30 seconds to rebut. My next question goes to you Lt. Gov. Healy. You do support the immediate rollback of the state income taxes. What would that do to property taxes? Also, there's already talk of a $160 million shortfall in the health care program you and the governor helped create. How are you going to pay for that?
Well thank you for that question. First of all I'd like to thank the sponsors for organizing this debate tonight. We're going to have some sharp differences and it's great to have them out on the table this early. In terms of how we roll back the income tax, it's critically important that we do this because Massachusetts is not affordable right now. People are leaving the state because they can't afford all of the different taxes, all the expenses that there are. By rolling back the income tax we'll put more money into working peoples' pockets, we will make it more affordable for small businesses to stay here, and I have a plan to take pressure off our local taxes as well by reforming our pension system, allowing our cities and towns to invest their pensions with our state treasurer's office, and also to consolidate all of our health care purchases for our cities and towns and have them bought through the state group insurance commission. That will take literally hundreds of millions of dollars that is wasted right now and put it back onto the plate of our cities and towns and that will relieve the pressure on local taxes.
First of all I think we need to face the fact that we've been playing the fiscal shell game with this administration. This is an administration that talks about rolling the income tax back and is responsible at the same time for proposing $985 million in new taxes and increased fees. $1.8 billion in increases in property taxes. That's all about shifting the burden. Lets be clear and candid with each other. People are ready for the truth. We can afford a 5 percent income rate when the economy has expanded to enable it, and that means expansion that is about not just capital gains, but more wage earners working at higher wages.
Absolutely, I mean this no new tax pledge, I don't know about anybody else in the audience but as a regular tax payer myself we've paid a lot of taxes and they're through the roof. And anybody at the state level who wants to argue that you're not raising taxes because you're rolling back the income tax is just not telling the truth. That's why we've got property taxes at 35, 42 percent above what they were before. Our cities and towns are dying, but they need increased minimum wages, help to the small businesses and things like that.
Chris, the Democrats won't do what needs to be done, the Republicans can't do what needs to be done. As an independent, not beholden to the special interests that they're taking money hand over fist with each and every day, indicted Big Dig contractors giving money to the Lt. Gov., all of the special interests, the usual suspects, are giving money to both these candidates. They can't do what needs to be done. As the independent not beholden to any of them I can do what needs to be done because I'll do it for the peoples' interest and only the peoples' interest.
Mr. Mihos, let me start with you with the next question. You talk about rolling back the state income tax, you also talk about putting a tax on local property taxes. How can you do both?
Well it's not local property taxes, its local property assessments for residences and businesses. Lookit, under the Republican's administration, they've been in charge for 16 years, the Democrats have been in power forever. Massachusetts has become unaffordable. We have to do it, we have to get the money back out of Beacon Hill, back to the cities and towns and it can be done. We've run billion plus dollar surpluses in revenue over the last three years. This money is sitting up there on Beacon Hill. They're giving it to the Turnpike Authority, $31 million to start the Rose Kennedy Greenway up again with your money, they're giving it to the Red Sox and their corporate neighbors to upgrade the infrastructure up around Fenway Park. That's your money, that's money that should be going back to the cities and towns, not to the special interests.
Well it's interesting that you're talking about the special interests spending money on Beacon Hill because just today my opponent Deval Patrick was standing on Beacon Hill with all those special interests, he was standing there with all the heads of the legislature who've been spending that money. We did have a billion dollar budget surplus. They spent it. And I can tell you that the only way we'll ever get any fiscal discipline on Beacon Hill is to take that money off the table and the only way to do that is to roll back the income tax to 5 percent now.
Well the special interests, so called, that I was standing with are our congressional delegation, the people I want to partner with to help Massachusetts forward again. The people, frankly that you and your administration, Lt. Gov., should have been partnering with to move Massachusetts forward again and when you have it's been good for all of us so I think it's a little disrespectful of their role to refer to them as special interest. I think the key tax to cut right now is the property tax. That's the one that's squeezing people and we have a plan to do that.
Yeah, you know, we talk about the 5 percent role back. For people like me that's going to be, I don't know, what, a hundred dollars a year or something like that, but the really wealthy in this state will get back probably $100,000, $200,000. I don't know what it is. When they say that they want the money back in our hands, well that money's not coming back in our hands. That money's going to be gone and if we want to talk about special interests wanting something, those hundreds of thousands of dollars are going to go to the top income earners in our state.
I was just going to say, I think all of us agree on one thing, which is about the importance of stimulating economic growth here in Mass. and how important that is. I will say when I talk about the reasons for restoring local aid it is about investing in the infrastructure so we can create a platform and small and medium-sized businesses to grow. It's about creating opportunities to provide capital for those small and medium sized businesses, which is where most job growth is going to come from.
And if I can break in here, I too completely agree with you that we need to increase local aid. My administration proposed a 17 percent increase in local aid this year along with a 8 percent increase in education aid, plus the beginning of a tax rollback. All in the same budget. What did the legislature do? They only gave cities and towns 8 percent more this year. I know that I have the fiscal discipline to figure out hoe to focus on the things that really matter so that we can increase local aid but also get the tax rollback in there.
The people who are watching here tonight can mobilize and get that done. We've seen it happen with Melanie's Bill, we've seen it happen with the Retroactive Capital Gains tax, when people are educated they will pick up their phone and call up their legislator and demand what is theirs and they deserve the rollback.
Yes, but the fact of the matter is that your office had the capacity to veto any piece of the budget that you wanted to veto and I don't see the million, the billion dollars that you're talking about ...
The Republicans vote to override you, all the Republicans are voting to override you. So they know that you can't get it done because you won't work with the legislature, you vilify them each and everyday. And that's what we're sick of in this state, this gridlock everyday, throwing bombs at each other. It's not working and that's why people and businesses, Kerry, are moving out of here in record numbers under your watch.
Ms. Ross I'm going to go to you here because you're out a question in this first round. Your platform calls for ending poverty, for universal healthcare, for providing affordable housing, all very admirable goals. How are you going to pay for them?
Well, it's very straightforward. It turns out that if you add together all the many taxes that everyone's been talking about and you look at who pays those taxes it turns out that the folks at the bottom pay about twice out of every dollar what the folks at the top do. So if we had a system that was even flat, not just for income tax but for all taxes, we would have about $3 billion more, mostly coming from the folks at the very top. So that's $3 billion more in a $22 billion budget. Then if we look at an issue like we spend about a billion dollars a year on sweetheart citing deals for big corporations, folks remember the Fallon Hotel in downtown Boston. They got a land deal, man I'd like to get their land deal any day, if anybody wants to give me a land deal like that I'll take it, um, and then they went around bragging that they got millions of dollars in tax breaks while, you know, they're raising the T fares so people can't even afford to get downtown. So we have a very uneven system. That's a billion more dollars in our budget, combine reporting for corporations, which requires them to actually pay for the business they do in Massachusetts, we get almost $5 billion back with all of those.
We're overtaxed. This administration, the Democrats and Republicans, have decimated the middle class and now they're coming after everybody else. This state is unaffordable, that's why people are leaving in record numbers. That's why young, energetic, productive people coming out of college, they come here, they go to school's here, they graduate here. We train them here. They can't find a job here, they can't find housing here, they're gone. People are moving out of Massachusetts, businesses are, and it's got to stop.
The question about spending proposals is a very good one. My opponent Deval Patrick has numerous spending proposals and some of them are very vague and you have to really droll down. And when we ask him, is he committed to rolling back taxes he says no, he says no, he's open to the idea of possibly raising taxes, and when you see what he's promising to do, jus this week Deval you took a pledge with the AFL CIO's saying you're going to work with them. How are you ever going to be able to negotiate and keep down costs for our state when you are taking pledges with labor unions, when you have the endorsement of every union...
Well first of all you might be interested to know I have lots of labor and other endorsements and I haven't traded a quid pro quo for one of them.
Mr. Patrick your time is up. I promised that I wasn't going to be the only one asking questions tonight, you the voters would be asking as well. We have the first one of those and my colleague Maria Stephanos is here with that.
Kim, I'm in favor of the MCAS. I think the problem is that we take the MCAS and we slap it on top of school systems that are already under strain and that we have had enough experience now with the MCAS to take some of that learning and make the MCAS better. We need remedial programs, we need additional measures of how a student is developing academically so that we are educating the whole child. I think it's a mistake for us to think that all there is to education reform is one high-stakes test.
Yeah I'm shaking my head because we have a generation now that might not even make it through high school. About a quarter of kids are dropping out, if you go to African American kids you get close to 50 percent, Latino kids we're over 50 percent. So, the test is a big part of the problem. Obviously we need the funding for the schools, as Deval says, so that we can actually pay for teachers and kids can actually go to school without mittens on in the winter. But the reality is that test is a key piece, it's connected with the timing of when the kids started dropping out and we've got to pay attention.
I was the first candidate to come out against and the Dems and Republicans who've got us into this problem by not getting the proper local aid back to the cities and towns so we can properly fund education Maria, and not have this issue right now where we've really cut all the support services for MCAS. I am against MCAS. It was a tool, it's now a weapon. We went from 1789 to 2003 in this Commonwealth with public education and it works. We've spent $9 billion dollars over the last few years on ed reform and what have we learned? When you fund these school systems properly they do well, when you don't they don't. I'm against MCAS.
Healey: Well its not all about funding, it's about standards. I'm a strong supporter of the MCAS and I'm glad to hear Deval say he supports MCAS 'cause I thought after the teachers' unions got a hold of you you were sliding back from that standard because I can tell you it's the most important thing we do here. Over the last 10 years we've brought our schools from being below the national average to way above the national average in terms of the SATs scores We have over 90 percent of our kids who past that test every year and it tells our employers that they are qualified to do the jobs they're going to be asked to do. Standards are important.
Lets turn if we can to the hot button issue of immigration and how illegal immigrants in Massachusetts should be treated. Lt. Gov. Healy, state lawmakers passed a measure last year to allow illegals to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and Gov. Romney vetoed that. If you're elected and that same measure ends up on your desk, what would you do?
Well in fact that measure was defeated, but I would always be opposed to that particular measure. I can tell you that a lot of people are struggling to pay for college for their kids here and if we have enough money that we would want to give the equivalent of a $40,000 scholarship to someone who doesn't live here in this state and who is not here in the country legally than we should use that money to lower tuition for the kids who are here who are citizens who have been paying taxes into this system. I think its wrong to give in state tuition to illegal immigrants and I will continue to oppose that.
Well I think we differ on this issue, although I will say I think this is one issue where I think both sides have a point. The folks on the other side of the question from where I am say we should only reward people who play by the rules and they're right. I understand that immigration is a serious problem, it requires a serious response. It requires some candor. People are not coming here for in-state tuition, they're coming here for jobs. And it's this administration, by the way, which has been a part of that problem by providing millions of dollars of contracts to employers who employ unlawful aliens. We need to come down hard on employers.
Yeah, I mean its great to listen to people putting down the working people of Massachusetts. I think the unions, I'm proud of the unions in this state and I'm proud of the folks who work hard and the fact of the matter is that immigrants who work here pay taxes here. In fact, most of the taxes we're all paying are property taxes and things like that, they pay all of those things. Now, the important issue here isn't that, the issue is why there isn't enough money for tuition in general. We've listened to all these stories, oh I'm going to get a little bit here, or oh, we're going to roll back the income tax. We're blaming immigrants for state policy that's hurt all of us.
Mihos: Illegal immigration is illegal. And they're not immigrants, they're illegal immigrants, they're here illegally and INS tells us that by the year 2010 that's going to cost this Commonwealth $1 billion in cost to deal with this issue. Kerry you talk really tough about illegal immigrants and in November of 05 you said they should all go back basically, but a funny thing happens. In May of 2006 your husband gets a federal position and then you're with George Bush on his issue that these people pay taxes, they should stay here.
I'd actually like to respond to Deval's point about labor. The impact of illegal... (inaudible from Mihos) well, cause, it's, I can't even imagine what I would say.
In terms of the impact of illegal immigration on labor, this is a very serious topic. A number of contractors come to me, people who work on the trades, who say they can't afford because their playing by the rules, because they're paying all the taxes and the benefits that they ought to to their workers, that they can't compete with those who hire illegal immigrants, and that's a very serious problem I've said that I would make sure that we do not do that.
Well, again, I do because of the security issues. I want to know the names and addresses and faces of the people who are here. The people who are driving on the roads, I want the insurance issues dealt with, I want to know the people on the road know the rules of the road. Lets be clear, people are not coming to Massachusetts to get a drivers license, they're coming to get jobs. The first thing we have to do, it seems to me, is secure our borders. And it's been a Republican administration in charge that has let these borders become as leaky as they have. The second thing we have to do i believe is crack down on employers hiring undocumented workers.
Well it's funny, of course it's about job. This issue never gets raised except when there aren't enough jobs and the jobs aren't paying enough. So what we really need to look at is what's happened to our economy. Yes, cities and towns are starved for money but what's going on is that we have minimum wages the value of which has dropped. Even though we got that recent bump they aren't where they were in the 1970s. We can't afford our rents and that's because we don't have enough building going in our local communities, run by local nonprofit that's actually affordable for regular people and then we end up fighting about some immigrants.
Lets be clear about immigration, illegal immigration -- the Democrats want their votes, the Republicans want cheap labor. That's what this is all about and that's why we have gridlock and that's why the federal government won't do anything and that's why the state government won't do anything. And this administration, let me ask you a question Kerry, how many corporations -- everybody knows illegal immigrants are working here in the Commonwealth -- how many corporations under your administration, have you been other there, have you fined, have you gone out there and done an investigation, how much have you fined them and how many corporations have you looked at?
You know it's good that you ask that question, we have been urging the AG to do just that. That's his job as AG, to get in there and do that and we've been asking him to do that.
Let me tell you, we do, I do oppose issuing licenses to illegal immigrants because that is your most basic form of identification here in America. If you have that card you can get on an airplane, you can go to another state, you can disappear into society. I could not disagree more with Deval Patrick on this topic. I think that that drivers license has real meaning and its very dangerous to give it to illegal immigrants.
I want to ask one more question in this round, Mr. Mihos I want to ask you. Would you continue to give power to local and state police to arrest illegal immigrants and would you actually press them to make arrests?
Let me put it this way, when I'm elected governor in 43 days what I will work with the legislature, and one of the first bills I will pass is I believe anybody riding around without a license, without a registration, without insurance, I want to change that from a misdemeanor to a felony. We've got to secure our borders and yes, I will ask the state police to enforce that, I will ask them to work with INS at that point and I will set my state police contingent free instead of protecting me get out on the road and find this and get that done. This is a huge issue for the Commonwealth. Again, INS says $1 billion by 2010. We can't afford that.
Our administration has already begun the process of training our state police officers and working with the INS so that they can, when they make a stop, determine whether somebody is in the country legally and if they are not take them into custody and turn them over into the proper federal authorities. And I think that's the right thing to do and I would continue that policy as governor. I think it's extremely important that we respect the laws of the Commonwealth, this isn't about some discretion that we might have that you can enforce laws when you like them and not enforce them when you don't. I think it's just a matter of right and wrong.
Well I think its' a matter of priorities is what it is. The idea of training the state police so that they can recognize and do their duties, who can argue with that. But with gun and gang violence as soaring as it is in urban communities all over the Commonwealth it seems to me that there's a whole lot else that we ought to have the state police and all law enforcement concentrating on. What I will do as governor is get engaged in the Congress with a balanced and rational approach advocated now on a bipartisan basis by Senator McCain and Senator Kennedy to bring some reason and some real solutions to our immigration issues.
yeah i think its fascinating that you named all these businesses that are the folks that are actually benefitting from illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants make the worst wages in our state, they do the jobs that are usually the dirtiest jobs. ( But they're here illegally!) Listen to me for a second. You name that the problem is that businesses are making money off of it, but then all of your solutions have to do with going after individuals who might be driving down the street. ( If they're illegal they're illegal.) So I think that's an interesting position. The reality is, the reality is, that we have law enforcement that's needed for other things. I know kids who've been arrested for selling drugs on the street. None of them had the money to bring in those billions of drugs. That's where our borders are leaking and if we want to make sure our kids are alive for the next generation and being parents we got to deal with where the drugs are coming from and rich people are the only ones with the millions to bring in those drugs.
Another reader question, Shonda Schilling from Medfield: Curt and I have four kids that attend the public school system. With such a shortage of teachers what is your position on giving them incentives to stay in our classrooms to teach our children.
Absolutely, I have two proposals around merit pay. I'd like to test our kids in the beginning of the year and the end of the year to help identify who really are our best teachers and I'd love to give them merit pay. The other thing I'd like to do is give incentives to our best teachers to go and teach in the schools where they're needed most, in our schools that have been identified as under-performing. I'd like to give additional pay for those teachers who'd like to go help the kids who need it the most. I think that's incredibly important to do. My mom was a teacher, I know there's nothing better than a good teacher to help a child learn.
You can call me Christy. I'm against merit pay, but what I'm for is Christy's proposition 1, get as much local aid back to those cities and towns, let them make the decision at the local level where there local school committee, right at the local level, as to how them to run their school committee and not let some elites up on Beacon Hill in the department of education make the decision for the local cities and towns as to what they want taught in their schools and how they want it taught.
The best measure of how a school is going to do is how much money that community has and that tells us what's really going on is there is an economic drain going on in our schools. No teacher can teach well in a school that has 35 kids or more and when we were out at a debate with the Mass Teachers I asked the audience that were teachers how many kids they had in their classrooms and do you know there were any number of hands still up when I got all the way up to 35 kids per classroom. So what we need to do is put money back into our schools, we have a Constitutional commitment to education in this state and I think we actually need to follow our Constitution.
Shonda, and I will say that I want to agree with one of the Lt. governor's ideas, this idea about incentives to encourage teachers to come to underperforming schools. That's a great idea. I will also say that I support merit pay but I think there's a right way and a wrong way to do it. I think we do differ on this. The right way to do it is in a way that encourages collaboration and doesn't defeat it because collaboration is so vitally important to a successful school. So I'm looking at merit pay by team or by school. How do we lift the whole school, seems to me that ought to be our approach.
I don't have to tell you four that whichever one of you wins this race, its going to be the first for Massachusetts. Either the first African American governor of this state or the first woman to be elected governor of this state, or the first independent to be elected governor to be elected governor of this state. So lets explore that. Mr. Patrick, lets start with you. I know from the eight years that I've lived in Massachusetts that race has long been a very divisive issue in this state. What has changed so that Massachusetts might now become the second state in the history of this country to elect an African American governor.
Well I think if I were running with the proposition of being the first African American governor of Massachusetts and that's all i had to bring to the table I wouldn't win.And it doesn't have anything to do with the sensibilities of the people in Massachusetts, it's just that that's not a strong enough case. I am a black man and I'm proud of that, but I'm also a successful businessperson. I've managed thousands of people and hundreds of millions of dollars across multiple continents. I've led in government, a big, broad, serious and complicated agency. I've brought agencies together to get results I've led in nonprofit and community groups, I understand those sectors, and what collaboration among those sectors or between government and those sectors can do. No one else in this race has that range of leadership experience. I also run a grassroots campaign because i think its vitally important to ask people who've checked out to check back in. That is why I feel we have come so far in the last 18 months and the proposition I'm offering people as the next governor of Massachusetts.
Well, it's an interesting statement. The one thing that you haven't done is actually had an elected officer where you had to represent the regular people of a state and I think that it's very interesting...
Yes, that makes a few of us but I've probably spent way more hours in the state house talking to those very legislators you've been standing on the steps with for years and I think the really critical issue is that of course race is going to be a very critical factor in this race, anyone who wants to pretend otherwise isn't telling the truth. Gender is also. And I think that the real trick here is that our behavior behooves us to represent something different for the people of Massachusetts so that they understand that the diversity of their leadership should be an expression of who were are as people.
MA is a great state, its been my home all my life. It's a fair state too, it voted for McGovern over Nixon and the only one in the country to do so too. So they understand what's going on here. But lookit, I represent 50 percent of the registered voters here in the Commonwealth, 12 percent, the minority party is 12 percent Republicans. People are checking out because what the Republicans are selling people aren't buying and the Democrats used to be well over 40, they're down now to 36. People are leaving these parties because there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two of them.
I think it's a really important thing to say that there is going to be history made in this race, one way or another and that's a good thing. Breaking those barriers is always something to celebrate, but when people come up to me on the street and talk to me about why they're supporting my candidacy the reason why they're doing it is because they think I understand what needs to be done to make Massachusetts more affordable... they're concerned about their taxes, they're concerned about their auto insurance rates, they're concerned about all of the burdens we impose on small business. Those are the things that they care about and that's why they support my candidacy, not gender.
Lt. Gov. Healy there are questions about how closely you want to be identified with Governor Mitt Romney. Tell me what policy of his you most want to be identified with and which one you disagree with.
Well I think where we disagree is pretty clear. We've always disagreed on choice and I think those differences have only become more stark over time. And I respect that, I respect differences of opinion, but I've always been pro choice. In terms of what I agree with, I agree with the fiscal discipline that the governor has brought to this state. When we came into office there was a $3.2 billion budget gap that we needed to address. It's hard for me to imagine that my opponent Deval Patrick confronted with that same situation and with Democrats in the House and the Senate wouldn't have come together and simply agreed to raise taxes to fill that gap. We needed to make some tough choices and we did, but the result has been good for Massachusetts. For the last two years billion dollar budget surpluses and I think that fiscal discipline is what I would most like to emulate.
Well fiscal discipline is the responsibility of any governor, it ought to be. And it's one of the reasons why I put out a plan to take $730 million out of the existing budget. That money, it seems to me, ought to be used to prime our economic pump and start this economy moving again. I think it's one thing to hear about the words of fiscal discipline and another to confront the fact that your administration, Lt. Gov., has proposed $985 million in new fees and it took the legislature to say no to nearly $200 million of them.
Fiscal discipline would be a nice thing. I think it would be a good thing for government to practice. Right now to give you one example it costs $43,000 a year to keep somebody in a cell in a prison and one third of the folks in prison right now are awaiting trial. They've never even been tried, they're sitting there and they're costing us $43,000 a year and many of them are there for well more than a year. Putting somebody in a shelter instead of real housing? $36,500 for a family of two. We can have seven housing subsidies for that cost.
Fiscal discipline? this administration, like Deval says, well over $900 million in fees, fines and taxes over the last 3 1/2 years. They've raised the gas tax administratively 2 cents a gallon. We do about three plus one billion gallons of gas here, that's about $61, $62 million a year since April 2003. They did that without the legislature, they just did it. The legislature let them raise fees, fines, and they just did it. Ask any barber on the street what's happened to his license, ask any small businessman what's happened to his licenses, look what they've done to local aid that's caused real estate property aid to skyrocket under this administration.
Mr. Mihos, you are running and you have made that point clear tonight, as an independent. Why shouldn't you been seen basically, as a spoiler, whose main effect on this campaign may be to siphon off enough Republican votes to ensure that Kerry Healey can't win?
Maybe she's going to spoil my election. But how can you spoil a system that's rotten? I mean, take a look at Massachusetts. We are the laughing stock of the nation on the Big Dig because both the Democrats and the Republicans have been taking special interests' money for the last few years and looks what's happened. We've had two deaths in those tunnels, we've paid well over $15 billion for a project that we can't properly use, and both the Democrats and Republicans- when I was getting fired by Jane Swift, when she was violating my civil rights because I took on big business, big government, big labor, and big business, and spoke truth to power- both of them, and you Kerry, as head of the Republican party, when Jane Swift, your hero, was firing me, you were calling her, as head of the Republican party, your hero. People are just fed up with both of these parties and that why they're checking out. And Deval brought up a great point- that's why people are checking out of politics, because they can't deal with it any longer. And an independent will speak truth to power.
You're my hero, Christy, you're my hero. The question is about the impact of third parties in elections and I think it's very important to have balance in politics and it's great to have this dialogue here tonight with all the different parties represented. The thing that concerns me most is that if Deval Patrick wins this election, we will go back to the days, back to the Dukakis era, where there was only one party represented on Beacon Hill. Right now 87 percent of the legislature are Democrats. We are tenuously holding down the corner office so that there can be dialogue, so there can actually be some real democracy and discussion on Beacon Hill.
We I actually don't think that's the balance people are looking for. I think Christy is right. Most people don't buy 100 percent of what either party is selling. I don't. I think the balance people want is between a fairly entrenched inward-looking establishment and an outsider in the corner office- someone whose experience is broader, who didn't grow up in the Beacon Hill culture. That Big Dig is a great project- better at $5 billion than at $15 billion- but billions of dollars of cost overruns we've known about for a long time, structural defects we've known about for a long time, and hardly any attention given to that until the tragedy in July.
Yeah, well, you know, we've talked about an outside voice. I haven't said this before, although Christy made a comment in the break, let me put something out on the table for folks. I make about $20,000 to $30,000 a year, have my entire adult life and lived on that money. The three folks I'm running against are in the top 14,400 income earners in the country, and if we think we're getting something from the outside when what we're getting is all folks- besides me- who are, well they make over $5 million or something year, they have no clue what the rest of us face.
OK, Ms. Ross, the next question is for you. It appears, at least, that you're in this race to raise issues, not to have a realistic chance of actually winning What do you hope to accomplish in this campaign?
Well, you know, Deval keeps talking about bringing in voters who have given up. The fact of the matter is that the standard fare now for campaigns is that you spend millions and millions of dollars, whether you got it from your own back pocket or somebody else's, and you go and you research a few positions and who your profile is, and those are the only people you talk to. So, when people ask me, 'how do you get people involved?' one of the things is that we need to talk to real people about real issues. It's not about fighting over whether the folks at the very top get $100,000, $200,000 tax break or not. It's about whether we have enough money so that our kids aren't killing each other in the street, whether we have enough money to ensure that we have a future, whether we're putting the money into the communities that actually need it or whether we're continuing to give tax breaks to the very wealthy and to huge corporations. So I'm accomplishing something different. It's called trying to rebuild democracy. And if we can't have a democracy for and by the people, if all we can have is a democracy for rich folks, and therefore, mostly for rich folks, then we don't have a government anymore. And in fact, whether I win or not, you'll never know because they don't poll anybody but likely voters.
Well, I guess I would say Grace, if you think that our campaign has been just about millionaires talking to millionaires, you've been missing something. I have been very blessed, but I haven't always been like this. I grew up on public assistance, I worked my way forward. This whole campaign has been about reaching out to everybody and not drawing divisions and separations, but asking people to see their sake in an intact community- poor, middle income, and wealthy as well- because everybody has a stake in our future, everybody.
Well, I think it is very important that we have this kind of dialogue. As I was saying earlier, balance is about to be lost on Beacon Hill and the kind of dialogue that you can have if you have at least two voices- and we're about to lose those two voices if Deval Patrick is elected this time- allows us to sometimes have debates that people wouldn't even know about. We are about to go back to a time when all the decisions on Beacon Hill are made behind closed doors with no public discussion whatsoever. I know for a fact that if we had not been in office this passed year, there would've been a capital gains tax passed retroactively. People wouldn't have even known that it happened. We fought against it and we got it reversed.
I hear about this, you know, who's got money and who doesn't and all, I'm spending my children's inheritance running for political office right now and they're not too happy about that, I can tell you right now. But really, I'm doing it a little different. I'm not taking any money like the Democrats and the Republicans are, from lobbyists, state workers- I love them, let them do their job, but they can't give to me- state contractors, they can't give to me. They're giving to the two parties like you've never seen before- or political action committees. So, I'll take their votes but I won't take their money and that's the coercive effect of money that both the Republicans and the Democrats don't get.
Let me say one thing here because Deval did. I'm not saying that you've run a divisive campaign and you know that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that we need policies that are going to reach the most people, and right now, the policies the folks are talking about- and it's been a nice shift with my voice being in here and pushing the rest of you to talk about regular people's issues- but the fact of the matter is that this commonwealth is supposed to serve all of us and right now, 60 percent of us are in a recession and those issues are not in the forefront.
McKenna: As a small business owner, I think it's really important that the government step up and do whatever they can to attract business to come back to the state and also to keep businesses staying here in the state. What can you do as governor to work with the legislature to make this happen?
Well, I think it's really critical that we understand that at this point, all of the tax breaks and most of the property breaks are only going to the very large corporations. He is a small business owner and I want to speak directly to that. I've talked to small business owners. They're concerned about health care costs, utility costs, and the fact that there are people who they need to buy their services who don't have money in their pockets to do it. I dealt with the minimum wage issue, let me say this. We need real universal health coverage that's going to take the health care burden off of those of us who are self-employed, off of small businesses and off of our municipalities. It's a huge expense, it's spiraling out of control, and the existing health care plan that the legislature passed with the help of the Healey-Romney administration is not going to do it.
Well, I think you were right, that small businesses are facing an incredible challenge right now. When I talk to small businesses, they talk about how expensive unemployment insurance is- the highest in the nation- $688 per employee. When people are trying to expand, they can't do it. If we really are serious about job creation, we need to roll back the income tax. Many of our small businesses pay that individual income tax rate, so that would allow them to create jobs. Some folks have estimated that it would create 8,000 new jobs in Massachusetts, to roll back income taxes. And then finally, we need to work on our permitting process. Businesses can't expand if they don't know when they can get that shovel in the ground and we've had some success on that, but we'll continue to work hard to make it easier.
Richie, I'm a small business person. I run a company called Christy's Markets on Cape Cod. I know how difficult it is to run a small business, especially in the Commonwealth. It's so difficult. Really, it would demotivate a saint to run a business here in the Commonwealth, but the only way we're going to get people coming into Massachusetts and investing back in here- whether large business, small business, or whatever- is we've got to roll back the property tax and Christy's Proposition One does it. We've got to take the hurt out of living here. We can't afford living here. Whether we're business people, residents, whatever, but I agree with Kerry on these issues. That a lot of these small business issues are very, very divisive for small business to stay here and that's why we've got to roll back the property tax. Christy's Proposition One will do it.
Well, I will say to Richard, first of all, that we've got to speed up the permitting and approval processes- the lieutenant governor made this point- we will get it done if I am governor. I also think we have to do things to connect up good ideas with the capital they need to get started and to stay in business. Remember, it is small and medium businesses where most jobs get created and it's a good idea looking for capital in a neighborhood. We do investing now. We ought to invest some of that state money, combine it with private venture money, and make that available for small businesses. I also think we've got to reinvest in our infrastructure, because if the roads and bridges are falling apart. businesses will leave- it's true all over the world.
Folks, you were all talking briefly before we got to the voter question, about the Big Dig. Let's discuss that in some depth- where government could've done a better job and where we go from here. Mr. Mihos, you served on the Turnpike Authority Board when the I-90 tunnel was built. Did you ever raise questions about it then and what responsibility, if any, do you bear for the Big Dig problems?
Thank you. From the very beginning of the administration, back in January of 2003, we filed a budget that would merge the Turnpike Authority with Mass Highway. Why was that? Because we knew reforms were needed. We wanted to have control, finally, over this autonomous agency that was overseeing something that was so out of control in terms of cost- we had no idea about the safety concerns at that point, although we were beginning to see that it was beginning to fall apart, even as it was just being opened. We have tried again. We went to the legislature repeatedly and asked them to merge these two entities so that the governor could have control over it. Finally it took a tragedy to have them allow us to do that. We're finally getting that stem to stern review done.
You're going to talk about the state's contacts with teachers and nurses and the fact of the matter is that the state has not honored those contracts. The state also had contracts with all of these contractors. The day that tunnel fell in, the next morning you should've had every contractor, the CEO of every contractor, every sub-contractor in your office saying, 'OK, you all know where you cut the corners. Deal with me now, or deal with the courts later. Tell us now.' The people of Massachusetts have rights here and the folks who made hundreds of millions of dollars on cost overruns should be paying for that tunnel to be fixed. It shouldn't be coming back to a single one of us.
All the documents are right there, Kerry. You chose the intentional indifference. You ran away from your responsibilities. I don't understand- I gave you the documents and you people did nothing with it, and as a result, we're the laughing stock of the nation. Two people are dead today because you did nothing, you remained silent, you violated the public trust by doing nothing. You could've taken that over Day One, you chose not to do it.
The facts are wrong and the fact is that people are very pleased that today Governor Romney is in charge of this process, that he has gotten independent investigation underway, and we will make sure that not one penny of the tax payers' money goes to what should be taken care of by cost recovery.
Let me ask this question though, and actually, it's just the direction that I was going to head in anyway- Lt. Governor Healey, your administration has been in office now for almost four years and a lot of people say that Governor Romney was very late to coming to establish and take over oversight of the Big Dig.
-to see what was going on, to have control to be able to remove the leadership of the Big Dig. We got that authorization, we got that power the afternoon after this tragedy, but not a moment before. And I can tell you that there was no cooperation between the Turnpike Authority and our administration before then. They had to be compelled to turn over the information, to allow us in, and to show us those books. And it took a tragedy to do it and it's a sadness that it did do that, but we are on the right track now and we will make sure that all the information is completely transparent and laid out.
I just have this point. First of all, I commend the governor and the Lt. governor for taking control since June. What you were doing since the tragedy is hard to quarrel with- that's not my point. My point is that leadership means you take responsibility from the first day on the job and not explain it away because of not cooperating with the legislature. That's the job- is to go build those bridges and get the control you need to exercise the authority you should have to steward the public's money and the public's trust.
Well, you can argue about it with the reporters who did the research. So the thing is that this project has had cost overrun after cost overrun, after cost overrun. The Healey-Romney administration tried to get rid of the general inspector's office. What I want to know is Cashman (sp?) is right now trying to get permits for liquid natural gas in Fall River and for windmills off of New Bedford, and no one has said, 'no new permits for any of these contractors,' and that's where we should be until this investigation is over.
Chris, this administration has had all the reports, all the financial statements, they've had their people on this board since July of 2004. The Big Dig is the state's project. Every bill, everything that's done there has got to be voted on by their highway department. Every bill is paid for with state funds. They could've done something in January of 2003. This intentional indifference to blame everybody else except themselves is what has caused this mess.
All right, let me go to a related question. Mr. Patrick, we've heard for years about abuses at the Turnpike Authority- with huge buy-outs and sick time and very generous severance packages. It now turns out that MassPort has paid $6 million in sick time to executives and employees because of the generous leave policy. As governor, what will you do to stop all of these abuses?
Just that. Stop all of those abuses. Those kinds of benefits are entirely out of place in a public setting. And again, it's another one of these issues, where had there been stewardship and seriousness about the role of the governor governing, we wouldn't have these kinds of things. We have this kind of neglect and indifference and inaction from this administration and that has got to change. And that's the kind of change I want to bring.
Well, I mean, MassPort's an example of it, but I think we've got to go and review down the line. And I think we've got to look at you know, talking about whether to get the authority for the Big Dig or not from the legislature. One of the issues here is that we have moved away from a collaborative kind of leadership that understands that we represent the whole state and that in fact, we have to learn how to work with the legislature, whether they're part of our party or not. We have to work with the local officials and we have to work with the people in the cities and towns that know what's wrong and we have to learn to work with our workers, and all of that requires a complete review from top to bottom.
Chris, these independent authorities are the poster child for everything that's wrong with state government here in the Commonwealth. Of course I will stop what is going on at the Port Authority, but at the Turnpike Authority- after Matt Amorello resigned- this administration allowed him to go back for two weeks and do whatever he wanted there. He gave himself a $77,000 bonus for vacation time. He gave himself a $50,000 bonus for sick time. He gave all his patronage hacks the same type of thing. Instead of walking him out of that building with two state troopers like they usually do, they let him go back and do whatever he wanted with the documents.
Independent authorities were supposed to take the politics out of administering important public works projects and unfortunately, they did exactly the opposite. They became havens for political patronage and were very connected with the legislature, and so there is a protection that exists between the legislature and a number of these independent authorities. I too, would make sure that we went through and made sure that all these benefits that were available that these independent authorities were the same as for regular government employees, not more generous. They have gotten completely out of control and I have to say that our record as reformers is strong. We removed Billy Bulger from the University of Massachusetts, we abolished the MDC and we will clean up the Turnpike Authority.
White: My question to the candidates is what will you, as governor, do to protect our farmers and fishermen while at the same time, promoting sustainable fishing and agriculture?
Well, number one is I will appoint a secretary of agriculture which will help our farmers, our fishing industry here, and I will work against Cape Wind so that those fishermen can fish out there and have a decent industry. Fishing has long been part of this commonwealth. I live on the Cape now, I know how important it is. I'll work with the hook fishermen and all of them to get this done.
Well, you know, we have to look at the agriculture in this state has suffered greatly. The fishing industry has also suffered greatly and these are key elements of the industry in this state and the jobs that need to be provided. I think that there's no question that what we're seeing is that those particular areas of economic development are not getting the attention that a bunch of more, citified maybe, forms of economic development have gotten attention to. And what we know as we look at rolling out our blueprint for the environment to deal with global warming, we have to increase agricultural and fishing and those kinds of things.
There's no one here who has worked as hard as I have to make sure that our fishing industry here in Massachusetts continues to thrive. I've been down in Washington fighting against the new regulations that are genuinely putting our fishermen right out of business right now. They are incredibly strict regulations that are going to ruin the fish industry and I share Jasper White's concern about that. I've been down in Washington- believe it or not, I agree with you on this one Christy- I agree with you that Cape Wind is a bad idea, it's in the wrong place. I love renewable energy and I like wind energy, but it's in the wrong place and it's going to hurt our fishing industry and that's why I oppose it.
Well, I will first say that I think we can all agree Jasper's cooking is phenomenal, really terrific. First of all, I commend the lieutenant governor for getting engaged in those regulatory fights in Washington. That is important, both to the Gloucester fleet and to the New Bedford fleet. The issues of protection of Georgia's Bank to the fishing opportunities in the areas where we're talking about LNG off of Gloucester are incredibly important. There are other social issues that are devastating the fleet as well. Drug and alcohol addiction is a very serious problem and making those kinds of treatment on demand opportunities available is also key for the human element in the fishing industry.
We have time for one final question and this might be a good one to end the debate. Mr. Patrick, you have called for an agreement to refrain from negative campaigning. As you well know, some of your opponents are already up with negative ads against you. As someone once said, 'politics ain't beanbag.' If you're going to be the governor of this rough and tumble state of Massachusetts, shouldn't you be ready to take on slings and arrows in a campaign and when you're in the governor's office?
Oh, well I'm ready for that. Listen, I was in Washington serving in the Clinton administration when the Congress changed to a very aggressive Republican Congress and I dealt with that. But I don't think the public is served by just hurling insults back and forth and by trading soundbytes. I think the public is served by collaboration, by coming together where we can, by putting aside this politics that says we have to agree on everything before we can work together on anything. That's what I believe. We should talk about differences in policy and differences in vision for the future, but we ought to do that respectfully and I hope that I have been and I mean to be respectful of the very fine people here with me in this debate.
I agree completely with Deval on this one. I mean, the fact of the matter is that when it becomes negative ads, it's one thing if those ads are talking about actual policies or about actually factual backgrounds of the candidates who are running. But I think that we border on, and I had put out a statement also about how I felt the rest of the campaign should be conducted, recognizing that given the backgrounds of all of us, we're all in a position where we could be, you know, baited for something, and I think that it's about time that it becomes about what the people of Massachusetts need and not whose ads are going to buy what for whom.
Well, as of tomorrow it'll be running 24 hours a day. But you're right, politics isn't beanbag, but what I want to do with this election is I want to give people a chance to listen to the issues. I'm sick of negative ads that the Democrats and Republicans throw up all the time. You know, the Karl Rove Republican ads that hurt John Kerry, a Purple Heart winner twice- more than twice, rather- didn't answer and it hurt him. I don't think anybody likes negative ads and let's just have a great discussion on the issues.
Christy, I agree with you once again. I think that the impact of 527 organizations, these anonymous organizations that can come in from out of state, purchase air time without revealing who has contributed to them- certainly, I've had millions of dollars in negative ads run against me by these anonymous organizations on behalf of Deval Patrick and his Democratic friends, and I would like Deval to say right now that you will say that those 527s should not participate in this race in the future.
All right, on that rare agreement, it is time to end the debate. We have time for final statements from each of the candidates. Your camps drew names to decide the order in which these final statements would be made. Ms. Ross, you are first.
Well, my background is community organizer and I've spent over 20 years talking to regular people about the issues they're most concerned about and listening to people, not just telling people what the answers are. This campaign has to be about a reinvigoration of our democracy. We're all supposed to have a voice. It's not acceptable for the polling to only be of likely voters. It's not acceptable for the campaigns to only be of likely voters. There is about 75 percent of us who don't fall into that category and yet, we should have a voice in our government. And so I'm running because my skills are about getting people back involved and I think that the heart of Massachusetts is a just heart, it's a moral heart, it's a compassionate heart. You wouldn't know it by our policies and our policies have to become again about all of the people- making sure that we aren't struggling about whether to choose money for getting the food or choosing the money to get the gas so that we can go get the food. It can't be about worrying about whether we have a roof over our heads or whether our kids can go safely to school or not. The fact of the matter is this commonwealth has the third-highest per capita income in the states. We have the money, we can do it. Don't ever settle for less than you deserve.
Thank you Chris, and I'd like to thank the sponsors for giving us all this opportunity tonight and I'm particularly humbled by the opportunity to come here and talk about what kind of governor I would be. We have heard two very different views, different visions for what Massachusetts should be like here tonight. And I want to say that I see and I believe in higher standards in our schools, I'd like to see more charter schools. I'd like to see merit pay for our best teachers. Deval Patrick opposes those positions. And I also believe that we can and must lower taxes here in Massachusetts and under Deval Patrick taxes would only ever go up. I believe in tougher criminal laws and our own attorney general, a Democrat here, has said that Deval Patrick is soft on crime for good reason. And I believe that I can leave this state to be a more affordable, safer place, for all people who live in Massachusetts. I believe we can have great schools and I believe we can have opportunity for everyone. I ask everyone tonight to join me. Please join us and let's make history together.
Thank you Chris and thank the sponsors. Let's do this again. I love this state. That's the only reason I'm running for governor. I just can't take the way it's being managed right now. And I'm the only one on this stage here tonight that is from Massachusetts. I'm not just passing through like so many other governors that have gone before us. This state means something to me. It's been my home for 57 years. I was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. I went through the public school system here in the Commonwealth. I built a business here. Everything I have is here. This is my home. Massachusetts is worth the fight and right now, we've decimated the middle class here and people are moving out in record numbers. Go on my website at Christy2006.com and look at Christy's Proposition One. It'll show you how interested in and how I'm going to put a cap on property assessments and get more local aid back to your cities and towns. Massachusetts is worth the fight and for those of us who call it home and always will, I'll be there to fight for you. Thank you very much.
And Chris, I thank you and the sponsors as well and I thank my colleagues for making time for this. Every campaign, every election is about choice. And this time around it's a choice between whether we stay on the path we have been on or we make a change. The path we have been on has been about the politics or fear, about the politics and the leadership of inaction and neglect. I want us to be about the politics of hope, about action and collaboration. Every single candidate up here has a few good ideas, I have some of my own, but those ideas are going nowhere without leadership and I've had leadership in government at the highest levels. Not as a criminal theorist, but as a prosecutor. I understand how to do that. I understand how to get agencies to work together. I've led as an executive, in two of the largest and most complicated companies in the world. I've led in non-profits and in community groups as well. No one else in this race has that range of leadership experience. I have plans on how to move our economy, how to develop consistent excellence in the public schools, how to deliver on fair and affordable health care, and how to get the property tax right. I'm not asking anyone to take a chance on me, I'm asking you to take a chance on your own aspirations.
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