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Election roundup: Kid gloves come off in governor's race
By adamg on Fri, 10/03/2014 - 7:59am
Martha Coakley doesn't cotton to PAC ads attacking her on child protection. The PAC is funded by the Republican Governors Association.
The required-sick-leave question could hurt Baker.
Michelle Obama appears at Dorchester's Strand Theater tonight for a rally for Coakley, who trails Baker in fundraising. Adjust your travel plans accordingly. Mayor Walsh will endorse Coakley. Shocking, we know.
Meet Jeff McCormick, one of the three independent candidates for governor. Scott Lively, another one of the three, discusses his reasons for turning Masssachusetts back into a theocracy.
Meanwhile, out-of-state anti-gay groups want national Republicans to repudiate Richard Tisei because, you know, teh gay.
Ads are turning voters against the bottle-bill expansion question. Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll, though, posed with a giant, moving bottle to support the measure.
Question 1 would roll back gas-tax increases.
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Comments
It's earned sick time - a
It's earned sick time - a fundamental point. Probably why it's polling so highly. The people working at Dunkin Donuts deserve a day off when they or their child is sick. How Charlie Baker can be against that is beyond me, however he tries to couch his opposition...
Charlie is all for Dunkin Donuts
just not the low wage worker manning the coffee pots.
He's a smart businessman
Passing laws like this on a state level drives biz out of state. I know a lot of small biz owners that are struggling - and a law like this would be very expensive for them. Eventually it gets passed on to the rest of us anyway and we have to cut back somewhere. In fact - one area I've economized since the financial crisis is I either drink my coffee at home or work when I used to buy a cup or two almost every day.
Not saying I'm against the proposal - just that these kinds of labor laws are best on a national level. Retailers, as a further example, already have to compete with tax-free NH. This is one more cost advantage they will have over us.
He's a shrewd businessman who
He's a shrewd businessman who leveraged his connections in government to get state aid for Harvard Pilgrim. He says preschool hasn't been shown to have long term benefits, so will he attest that he never sent his children to preschool? He wouldn't have done something that has no benefit would he?
Will the state stop giving sick days to its employees if he becomes governor? You say you aren't against the proposal but also detail how bad it is for the state? That is a confusing set of stances, Baker-eque even, something his idol Romney would be proud of.
A lot of Coakly supporters
are quick to bash Baker but have little to say as to why they support Coakley.
A lot of Baker supporters
A lot of Baker supporters like to change the subject instead of defending their candidates positions on earned sick time, preschool, corporate welfare, their running mates homophobia, his role in the big dig funding scheme....
Nonsense
First off, there are exemptions for businesses with less than 11 employees. Also, small businesses are community businesses. They aren't swapping states for more lenient work laws. Nobody escaped Connecticut when this law went into place there. You don't see boarded up windows with "Closed due to paid sick time" on them in spray paint when you drive through Hartford. You also don't see increased prices or a reduction in employment either.
All of your theoretical doom-saying is bullshit that sounds plausible, but doesn't get borne out in the marketplace time and again when people try to suppress improving worker rights. All of the benefits (reduced healthcare needs, happier/more loyal employees, increased worker efficiency) are borne out and they in turn improve the economy raising all boats to accommodate whatever minor expense is felt by the employer because they make more money in the long run.
Name one retailer that has left Boston to be in NH instead to gain all that lucrative "tax-free" purchasing power. The cost of gas alone is enough to convince people that 6.25% of their purchase doesn't equate to the lost time and fuel of driving to NH unless they live north of Haverhill already. Your arguments are old and proven false by time and every other location in the world that provides these sorts of worker rights already. Hell, there are countries where a woman gets nearly a paid year off if she has a kid and their economies aren't collapsing into the sea the way you'd probably portray them given your arguments for a few hours of sick time a year.
If your supposition that this would need to be national to be appropriate were true and all of your other predictions held, then all our businesses would run to Canada.
I think we all know Dunkin
I think we all know Dunkin Donuts sure as hell isn't leaving Massachusetts for one thing.
Ever been to NH?
Funny thing - you drive up the big roads in Mass and there are all these little mom/pop operations, lawyers, accountants, insurance companies, etc. Cross the border into NH and there are enormous shopping centers with big box stores and the parking lot is filled with cars sporting Mass plates. My guess is that you'll find fewer and fewer big box stores as you approach NH.
As for the local stuff - I'm not going to go to NH for my lunch. But if my daily lunch starts costing more, at some point I start bringing my own, as I've effectively done with my coffee habit.
This is not a free lunch and if it's just in Mass - you are going to see fewer jobs - it may not be a decline - it will just mean slower growth. Money is like electricity - it finds the path of least resistance - sooner or later. Don't believe that - go ask the thousands of people that work just over the border in those retail stores and all the people that work at the jobs that support them as well.
They can have their plagues
The main reason for those big box stores is the lack of sales tax makes things "cheaper".
Meanwhile, I'd prefer that people who were sick could afford to stay home - including not serving food, including not being on the T where they will make me sick and lose work time, etc.
i don't disagree with you
Which is why this should be a national law.
It's just one more reason why someone on the margin won't open a biz in MA or hire those extra heads they need to expand
It would be interesting to see the statistics
I mean, you seem pretty sure that benefits = not hiring or benefits = business failure.
One would think that this would be tracked and quantified, no?
Not exactly
It's the cost of the benefits. Long term you have only a few choices:
a) eat the cost (not always doable depending on the owners and the business)
b) raise prices (which hurts you meaning customers go elsewhere or choose an alternative)
c) become more efficient (for example - self checkout or automated ordering in restaurants)
d) close (extreme - and not likely due to just one cause like this - but benefits contribute)
I doubt this is tracked or quantified - I think the methodology would be far too difficult/expensive. For example, how does the state determine that I don't go to Dunkies for my morning coffee - I make it at home? And what specifically do they attribute that to? Lots of moving pieces that they probably can't figure out, even in the aggregate.
Again - I'm not a soulless right wing Republican. I support the concept. I just think one of our Congresspeeps should get on this rather than go it alone.
Tom Harkin filed a bill in
Tom Harkin filed a bill in the Senate last year on this and there was a House counterpart. I think we both know the chances of something like this ever getting past a GOP-controlled House...
Not going it alone
Connecticut has had it in place for 2 years now. So have a number of major metro areas like San Fran and Seattle (even MORE in danger of businesses leaving, right? They only have to go to the suburbs!). Guess what impact this has had.
Must be why it's been all over the papers about all the jobs leaving CT....
Actually, CTs
Labor force participation has been shrinking, while employment numbers have been stagnant. Meaning the true unemployment rate is increasing.
http://www1.ctdol.state.ct.us/lmi/laborforce.asp
Must be the price of bananas in China
Because it's not the paid sick leave.
http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/gov-why-connecticut-paid-sick-la...
Wait, you're telling me we
Wait, you're telling me we could treat employees like humans, AND get rid of big box stores?! PASS IT NOW.
Ah, the old "business friendly" chestnut
If retailers and other businesses are competing with NH, why can't that state provide more jobs for its residents, so they don't have to come down here to work and pay MA income tax? I invite you to do some comparison shopping in the Burlington Mall and Nashua's Pheasant Lane Mall. You'll find that you pay the same in both places, probably because NH property taxes are higher.
Try looking at the sick-time law as a public health measure. Do you eat in restaurants? Consider that food workers who don't get sick time go to work sick, and prepare your food while sick. By doing so, they make lots of other people sick.
Excellent point
On the public health issue.
Pheasant Lane Mall
While we are talking differential tax rates, has anyone else noticed that the Pheasant Lane Mall property is mostly in MA?
The stores are in NH, the parking lots mostly in MA.
Gee, I wonder why?
Not true
None of the store buildings are in MA - not even a corner. When the place was built, they lopped a corner off one of the big stores, because it would have crossed the border and allowed MA to force that store to charge sales tax. You can see it on Google Maps, which will also show that less than half the parking is on our side of the border.
Now I see that's what your link went to, and your Google maps misplaces the border like mine does. Nobody parks in that Southernmost parking lot except at Xmastime.
Reread
The stores are in NH. Much of the parking lot is in MA, because the property tax is far lower than in Nashua, NH.
Did you notice the additional lots to the south? That's probably where they have the employees park - and land for that parking costs money and gets taxed, too.
Yes
Did you notice there are zero cars in those lots?
Does your town tax your driveway
... only if your car is there?
Reason
The reason the lots are there may have something to do with taxes, but it's mostly because they wanted to use as much of the space north of the border for buildings. Home Depot, Petco, the (since moved) Barnes & Noble, etc. The lots to the south are overflow for peak demand, and most of the year, they gather dust. Someday, they'll be built on, by some business not taken in by the "tax free" BS. Note that there are a fair number of shopping complexes just to the south of the P.L. Mall. They are quite healthy. Trader Joe's moved from one to Nashua a year or so ago, but the reason given wasn't taxes, it was so they could sell wine. Tyngsborough wouldn't give them a license.
O_o "teh gay" ?
typo or actual phrase? lol
Actual typo phrase
Teh gay.
No mention of the Coakley
No mention of the Coakley staffer caught illegally coordinating with a nonprofit?
Link?
I must've missed that.
Link
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/10/martha_c...
Saw it on the local news the other day as well.
http://www.bostonherald.com
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/10/martha_c...
Have you
read the Herald, listened to WRKO or watched Fox news. Martha's campaign is little league compared to what the GOP does in coordination with "non profits" or "non partisan" think tanks.
Nice curveball
Haven't seen that much spin in a while.
An employee of the Coakley campaign is a board member and VP of Communications for MassNOW. This isn't illegal.
MassNOW also has a PAC. The MassNOW PAC sent out stuff with the non-profit's VP of Communications name on it instead of the PAC media coordinator. That's what the Baker campaign and cronies are humping on.
Now, here is what an actual illegal coordination looks like: http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120313/NEWS/...
FLOTUS
is coming to the Strand TODAY and it is for a rally, not a fundraiser.
She'll stop by the
Governors office to anoint him with holy Obama water, that way its "official" business and we have to pay for her trip.
Can someone translate this
Can someone translate this comment from Republican into basic English?
I'll give it a stab
I'm a little rusty--I only do this a few times a year now, mostly at big family gatherings when Dad has a few chardonnays and doesn't notice Mom kicking him under the table.
"I find President Obama's brand of center-right politics personally offensive because I have been assured by many dapper men in expensive suits that he is secretly leading the country down to the road to socialism and ruin. Thus, I decree his political agenda to be religious, and assume that he has conscripted his wife into service of this false religion. Since the governor of this fair state also self-identifies as a member of that same political party-cum-apostasy, despite the vastly different meaning of that label on a state versus federal level, I also presume that Governor Patrick is involved in this ruse, and that he will be secretly communicating with this High Priestess during her ostensibly secular visit. Worse still, First Lady Obama's visit to this fair city will be made under false pretenses, thus obligating the trip to be financed by federal tax dollars. I myself pay taxes, and as such am entitled to act as sole arbiter of all financial decisions made anywhere by anyone. I therefore refuse to stand idly by while these miscreants continue supporting ideas I find personally offensive, such as paying for food, shelter, and medical care for those I find to be undesirable."
Though if you go based on the comma-splice and the missing apostrophe, one could also translate this as "I'm a middle class white guy who desperately needs to feel marginalized to validate my own feelings of inadequacy, so I will pretend that being a Republican in a heavily Democratic state means I'm a persecuted minority."
Bravo
(Too lazy to go find the Orson Welles clapping gif right now)
Get over it
Elected officials travel on our dime; Democrats and Republicans alike. Get over it.
Predictable
No mention of Coakleys' staffer illegally working with Mass NOW. But an outside group running an ad with out Bakers' consent is obviously a bigger issue than one of Coakleys' staffer working on her campaign while working for a supper PAC endorsing her boss.
Again, link?
I could be in Coakley's pocket. Or I could have just missed something. So tell me where to look, oh smug one certain that I am doing my best to throw the election to Coakley.
I found a few links.
The person's name is in the links below. I have no desire to name them so people will need to read through it for their own gratification:
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/10/martha_c...
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2014/10/charlie_...
http://dailyfreepress.com/2013/11/13/complaint-accuses-attorney-gen-mart...
Serious stuff!
Editorials in the Boston Herald! A year-old report on a complaint by the GOP that begins "Following an independent investigation by the Massachusetts Republican Party"!
The Herald quotes a professor at Indiana University as their authority on campaign ethics, presumably because she's thoroughly informed of the details of this Earth-shattering conflict. Or maybe the Herald couldn't find a local university that has politics professors.
I read the Free Press report, and could not find any details about who performed the "independent investigation," so I guess it really was "by the Republican Party." What could be more independent than that? There don't seem to be any followup reports, so I guess the FEC was not impressed by the MAGOP complaint.
Great, but
The first 2 are news stories.
And Herald readers are supposed to be the intellectually challenged ones!
Here
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_politics/2014/10/martha_c...
Thanks
Sweetheart.
Nice
Dog whistle hun!
Knock it off with the sexist
Knock it off with the sexist remarks.
Deborah Eappen
I can't believe Coakley is dragging her out as a campaign prop. What a manipulative piece of shit.
Well
Gerald Amirault was unavailable.
Republicans would never
use a victim or victims to score Benghazi..Willie Horton... I mean political points.
BS
Pat Smith (mother of Sean Smith) is looking for answers, as any mother would. However the only News platforms that will allow her on, happen to be right leaning. The Liberal media doesn't want to allow her to voice her frustration with the administration because it make them look bad.
The same can be said about James Foley's family who have voiced their anger at the administration regarding The State Dept threatening legal action against them for trying to free their son.
As for "victim"
Key medical witnesses have moved off of their testimony that implicated Woodward and cleared the parents as potential suspects.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-child-cases/interviews/patri...
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Michelle Obama came for
Michelle Obama came for Coakley? Charlie Baker should tell people that if Coakley wins, we'll all have to eat kale once a day. There's your landslide.
Landslide?
What, is the stuff some kind of laxative?
It's like broccoli , a vile
It's like broccoli , a vile weed !
http://youtu.be/X1snxhEdchY