I don't know Representative James O'Day, D-West Boylston, and until today I didn't know anything about his politics. Unfortunately he was unnopposed in the last election so we will never know if he would have admitted to being a typical Massachusetts tax and spend liberal. After reading an article in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette, (http://www.telegram.com/article/20110305/NEWS/110309765) , in which he proposed to increase both state income taxes and capital gains taxes on an electorate already strained by some of the highest taxes in the country, he doesn't have to. He just is one!
Still, this outrageous response to our fiscal crisis raises so many questions. Is Rep. O'Day so out of touch with reality that he can't even read a gas station sign as he commutes back and forth to Boston? Or does he just not care since he is reimbursed so much by the per diems our state reps get? Didn't he hear about our state losing a congressional seat because people are fleeing in droves. Isn't there one aide on his staff who could have mentioned to him that many companies are relocating out of Massachusetts because of the anti-business tax environment already in place. Is he so arrogant that he ignores stories about $100,000 per year union parking attendants at Logan Airport while he continues to file legislation on behalf of those same unions? (The same unions, by the way, who are desperately trying to stop Governor Walker in Wisconsin from bringing some sanity into that state's budget process.) Or is his proposal instead led by the leadership of the house in an attempt to placate the unions and special interest groups who donated so much money into the Democratic Party and their respective campaigns? It doesn't matter what the reasons are for these proposals. This behavior, in these times, is simply put, outrageous!
In typical liberal fashion he frets about the inevitable cuts to public safety, programs for the poor and neediest among us, not to mention housing and services for disabled residents if we don't pass his proposals. Rep.O'Day, are you serious? Really? If we don't increase the state income tax by almost 20% you would let disabled wheelchair bound folks get tossed out of their homes, or not get homes in the first place? Is that what you just said? It sure reads that way and unless the quotation marks put in by the reporter, John Monahan, are somehow misplaced, it is what you implied.
Rep.O'Day, like other Democrat politicians from this state, pointed out there are no more Federal Stimulus funds coming to replace lost tax revenue. Well Rep.O'Day, maybe you should have done more to secure a bigger chunk of the $780,000,000,000 Obama stimulus package of 2009. In an earlier blog, Where Is Our Money?, I pointed out the $7,000,000,000 our state received was less than 1% of the total. That was disgraceful and all the members of the Democrat Party from this state who hold elected office should be absolutely ashamed of those figures. Instead, we hear from the likes of Rep.O'Day that we need to pay more to the state just so we can keep disabled folks from being homeless and so we can get fires put out when they happen. Unbelievable dribble. I wonder what just a few billion dollars more from the 787 Billion Obama package would have done for our state?
I also found it interesting there was no mention in the referenced piece about how much money Rep. O'Day's proposals would raise or how long they would be in effect. This is another tactic used by the tax and spend liberals who infest our statehouse. They would most likely raise hundreds of millions of dollars and would never end, but we will never hear that from slick politicians like Rep. O'Day, will we? Just like we never hear about them being tax and spend liberals until after we elect them.
