Massachusetts state legislators are working on yet another bloated budget for fiscal year 2024.
With more than $55.8 billion in the proposed Senate budget (S.3) and various non-monetary provisions, the state does not look like it will be embracing fiscal responsibility anytime soon.
While the budget is less than the $56.2 billion proposal in the House (H.3901), it is still replete with pork.
Among other things, the Senate budget contains a proposal that would provide in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, as NewBostonPost has previously reported. Here is a look at five more bad elements in it:
1. Celebrating Easton
Should taxpayers across the state prop up a celebration of Easton’s 300th anniversary?
Or should Easton pay for Easton’s celebration?
State Senator Walter Timilty (D-Milton), whose Norfolk, Plymouth, and Bristol District includes part of Easton, wants the state to provide the town with $50,000 (Amendment 163) to help cover the cost of its 300th anniversary in 2024.
Easton is a nice town in Bristol County, Massachusetts that borders Brockton, Stoughton, and Mansfield. Jim Craig, the goalie who helped Team USA beat the Soviet Union in the Miracle on Ice in the 1980 Winter Olympics, and clinch Olympic gold by beating Finland two days later, is from Easton.
But the town shouldn’t need the state government’s help to fund its celebration. This money could go towards helping the less fortunate, providing funding to fire departments, or ensuring that residents have clean water to drink.
Instead, it will go to something that won’t improve the material conditions of anybody’s community and will celebrate one community’s milestone in a state with 351 municipalities.
2. Alternative Abortion Method
Abortion is legal in Massachusetts and there is no way to get out of paying for it.
You pay for it with your tax dollars and with your health insurance — and health insurance is mandatory in the Commonwealth.
But state Senator Rebecca Rausch (D-Needham) wants more. She proposed Amendment 564 to provide $500,000 to Ibis Reproductive Health Inc. to “develop and implement a misoprostol-only medication abortion pilot program and study.”
Misoprostol is a drug typically used to prevent stomach ulcers. It is also used in conjunction with mifepristone to perform chemical abortions. However, unlike mifepristone, it is not often used alone for the sole purpose of abortion. However, Misoprostol can cause a miscarriage. That is why the Mayo Clinic does not recommend pregnant women take it to treat ulcers.
So Rausch wants to see if misoprostol in itself can be an effective and reliable way to kill unborn children — and she wants you to pay for the research.
It is sad to see lawmakers push for more funding to destroy unborn lives. They should instead request funding for programs that help women facing unintended pregnancies who are open to giving birth, as well as programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies.
3. Race-Based Grants
Use state funding so an organization can provide grants to nonprofits?
Perhaps there is some merit to that since the private sector is often more efficient than the public sector.
However, state Senator Lydia Edwards (D-East Boston) filed Amendment 155 not to the benefit of all non-profits in the state — but just for those run by people of the correct skin color.
Her amendment would provide $1 million to the New Commonwealth Fund to expand grant opportunities for “Black and Brown-led non-profits across the Commonwealth.”
So if you are white or Asian and you lead a non-profit in the Commonwealth, good luck.
Government policy should not favor people based on race. Therefore, it should not provide funding for grant programs that discriminate based on race.
4. Transgender Emergency Fund
A budget amendment (Amendment 175) sponsored by state Senator Julian Cyr (D-Truro) would provide $50,000 in funding for something called the Transgender Emergency Fund.
It’s an organization that says it provides “Critical assistance for low-income and homeless transgender people living in Massachusetts.” One of those services: the program will pay to replace someone’s state identification if the person wants to change the person’s listing for gender on the document.
Great use of taxpayer money.
The organization does provide things like prescription co-pays, personal supplies, winter clothing, and other services, but why are we favoring one group over another? Why is our government giving special treatment to people based on gender identity?
5. EV Chargers
Most working people don’t drive electric cars.
But good news: the Massachusetts Senate budget provides a $50,000 subsidy to create electric vehicle charging stations in Tyngsborough, Massachusetts.
You can thank state Senator Edward J. Kennedy (D-Lowell) for that one (Amendment 932).
Let’s ignore that Tyngsborough has a median household income of about $132,000 per year and how this amounts to a transfer payment from poor people to rich people.
If someone wants an electric car, that person can have a charging station at his house. Or, a gas station can respond to the market and create charging stations. We don’t need working people subsidizing rich people’s new-age cars.
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