Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thank you officer

Thank you officer for putting on the uniform every day and going out into the night to face danger on my behalf.

Thank you to your loved ones who must worry about you responding to danger each and every day.

Thank you to the 126 families of police officers killed in the line of duty in 2013 for the sacrifice your family has made on my behalf.

Thank you for the restraint you show every day as you confront the worst among us.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Invest in Gateway Cities: Thinking Out of the Box Car

In 1858 Oliver Wendell Holmes coined the phrase “The Hub” by referring to the Massachusetts State House as "The Hub of the Solar System.”   The moniker now refers more broadly to the entire city. It is time to reassess the title and place greater economic development emphasis on the Gateway Cities of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

The Commonwealth designates 26 municipalities as Gateway Cities that serve as regional economic centers.  Governor Deval Patrick and his Secretary of Housing and Economic Development Greg Bialecki deserve credit for initiatives that directed strategic investment in infrastructure, job creation, and affordable housing to these cities since 2008.

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Economy disappoints voters

The stock market is at record highs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent last month, but exit polls from the recent mid-term election indicate voters have a negative view of the condition of the economy and the direction of the country.  Nearly half think life will be worse for the next generation.

The dichotomy can be explained, at least in part, by the need for more anti-poverty entitlements, a decline in labor participation (those who have given up looking for work), the predominance of part-time work in the jobs that have been created since the Great Recession, and by a growing income gap and more pronounced wealth gap that began opening in 1989 and continues to the present.

Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Mid-Term Election Opportunties

Republicans won federal and state elections last evening in a landslide.   Control of the U.S. Senate will shift to the Republicans in January.  The Republican majority in the House of Representatives will expand by at least a dozen.  Thirty-one of fifty states will have Republican governors.

Even Massachusetts elected a Republican, Charlie Baker, as its governor. Though the bluest of blue states retained a 100% Democrat congressional delegation that will have little influence in the 114th Congress.