-Caveat Lector- http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/339/metro/Mass_woes_called_worst_since_ 30s+.shtml
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING Mass. woes called worst since '30s Romney aide says shortfall may top $2b By Yvonne Abraham, Globe Staff, 12/5/2002 Next year's budget crisis will be the worst since the Depression, incoming Administration and Finance Secretary Eric Kriss said yesterday, painting the bleakest picture yet of the state's finances in fiscal 2004. Kriss said the state's budget deficit next year will probably be even larger than the $2 billion predicted by the most pessimistic assessments. He warned that state agencies will face cuts deeper than they have felt in years. ''We face the most difficult year in state fiscal history since the 1930s,'' said Kriss, who was an assistant administration and finance secretary under Governor William F. Weld. ''I say this as someone who had to grapple with the last major crisis of 1991-1992. We are in worse shape, in my judgment, than a decade ago. In some areas, much worse.'' Named by Governor-elect Mitt Romney on Tuesday, Kriss, speaking to members of the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, gave the incoming administration's first policy statement since Romney was elected Nov. 5. Kriss was not specific about how much bigger the deficit would be than projected by the Swift administration. Nor was he specific about how the looming deficit would be plugged, but he appeared to be laying groundwork for the wholesale consolidation of government programs that Romney proposed on the campaign trail. He said Romney's administration would not consider tax increases to help solve the problem. ''We will now turn our energy toward closing the gap not through gimmicks, but by fundamentally reshaping state government,'' Kriss said. ''The most serious fiscal crisis in 60 years deserves the most far-reaching reforms in 60 years.'' Kriss's address sparked skepticism among budget analysts yesterday, however. One critic said Kriss depicted an overly bleak economic picture to lower public expectations of the administration as Romney prepares his first budget, due at the end of February. ''There is a standard technique when you're just getting ready to take office, to make the problem seem even worse than it is,'' said Jim St. George, executive director of the Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, a group that has favored tax increases in the past to fund human services. ''If you solve the problem, you look like Superman, and if you haven't quite been able to fix it in a year, you say, `Of course we couldn't. Look how big it is.' I don't want to suggest it's not a very big problem, but the notion it's the worst since the Great Depression is a little overstated.'' Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom scoffed at that criticism. ''If Jim St. George had access to the same data we've been looking at, it would make his hair stand on end,'' Fehrnstrom said. ''This is not the time to be playing politics by downplaying the problems facing the Commonwealth.'' Based on Kriss's revenue projections, Romney's 2004 budget is likely to call for spending between $21.5 billion and $22.5 billion. That's well short of the $25.3 billion requested by state agencies to continue doing business. Not since the 1930s has the gap between resources and spending requests been so wide, Kriss said. He blamed the severity of the state's current fiscal crisis, driven by spiralling health care costs, partly on the fact that ''no fundamental spending changes were made'' when the economy began to show its first serious cracks in 2000, ''so the structural imbalances from [2001] were pushed forward and are amplified today.'' He said state government so far is ''barreling ahead like the freight train in the crash scene from `The Fugitive,' one of my favorite movies.'' ''Government costs are not fixed,'' Kriss said. ''Fundamental changes can, and must, be made. If we do not stop this train-track mindset, the gap we face will be perpetual and ever-growing.'' Kriss would not be specific about those changes yesterday. But Romney proposed some on the campaign trail, including merging the Massachusetts Highway Department and the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, and consolidating agencies under the Department of Health and Human Services. During the campaign, Romney said he could cut $1 billion from the budget by eliminating waste, mismanagement, and inefficiencies. Analysts lauded the incoming administration for its proposal to reorganize state government, but were doubtful that structural changes could make a dent in the state's fiscal problems. ''Having a reform agenda makes all the sense in the world, but it's not realistic to assume that will address the current fiscal crisis in a meaningful way,'' said Michael J. Widmer president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan watchdog group. ''It would be a huge achievement to squeeze out $500 million over a full term from reorganization, but it will take a full term.'' Widmer estimates that consolidating the Highway Department and the Turnpike Authority would save between $10 million and $20 million, and that reorganizing human services would yield $100 million at most over four years. The Senate Ways and Means Committee chairman, Mark Montigny, applauded the Republicans' proposal to reorganize government but called their refusal to consider increasing taxes irresponsible. ''The most irresponsible thing one can do, besides deny the problem exists, is to begin - even before you have started your administration - to take the politically unpopular things off the table,'' said the New Bedford Democrat. Kriss also said the state's immediate budget woes, which Acting Governor Jane Swift is trying to solve with emergency cuts of $99 million, may be much worse than expected come January, when revenues could fall even further short of projections for fiscal year 2003, which ends June 30. ''The risk of shortfall is substantial,'' he told the business leaders. ''It could occur late in this fiscal year, and the magnitude could be hundreds of millions of dollars.'' This story ran on page A1 of the Boston Globe on 12/5/2002. � Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
