Vacation Man vs. the Flip Flopper

OK I understand mistakes were made, and some people abused the pension system. I think we all agree on that!

I think the problem is this solution is take a contract (a contract some of these people made years and years ago mind you) and turning it on its head. It is one thing to say from now on, but to make these things retroactive, thats unfair.

I get a kick out of it, everyone always makes a big fuss about how much the legislators make. While I would love to make 60,000 a year it is not all that much money in the whole scheme of things, heck in some towns its not even average. Now I do understand that it is in theory a "part time job" but lets be honest here, look at when the mandatory meetings happen. Its always during the day, often times all day, sometimes just in the early morning and late afternoon. In addition to these meetings a good representative will go to community meetings, events, and informal meetings with other law makers. Let me ask this simple question, how many professions would allow an employee to skip out of work on a whim because a meeting was just scheduled for tomorrow? I can think of a few, mostly lawyers who work for themselves, thats it. In addition what about the lawmakers from the Western part of the state? How would they possibly hold down a normal job and this "part time" job. I think its time to lay the idea of overpaid politicians to rest, its when they move up into the actual machine (which is run by Deval Patrick BTW, at least right now) that the real money comes in, just ask Marian Walsh who was almost there.

If we want to treat them like part time employees then we need to cut their hours, cut their calendar and as a collective group be understanding when they do not show up to community events and meetings.

I'm still waiting for the "Patrick Agenda." The visionary guy who ran a transformative campaign and who won my support quickly morphed into someone quite ordinary.