Governor's Veto

My last post was concerning the $80 million supplemental budget that the House passed just prior to breaking for the summer. It was placed on the Governor’s desk and he has had ten days to sign, amend, or veto the bill. As this is a budget, the Governor may line item veto the sections he disagrees with.

Governor Patrick signed the bill this past week, vetoing $33 million in spending and keeping intact the $40 million for legal immigrant health care. He suggested that $40 million wasn’t enough for this item.

I agree with the Governor’s vetoes up to a point and had hoped he would veto the entire bill. I don’t believe that this level of spending is sustainable. That said, I am saddened that he had to veto food bank money as well as regional library elder health care line items. These are important to my district, but I could not see spending $80 million in order to spend $6 million or so on programs that I like. That is the math that gets us in trouble.

I am also troubled by the statement that $40 million is not enough for the legal immigrant’s health care program. I believe that legal immigrants should be treated just as native citizens or people who have moved here to Massachusetts from another state. They are treated as a separate category of health care spending because the federal government doesn’t split the cost of health care for immigrants. That means that we pay 100% instead of 50% for their health care. The administration’s statement, along with the original estimate of upwards to $120 million for this line item, indicates to me that the administration will be back for more money for this later on in the year and that doesn’t bode well.

It saddens me to have to vote against any worthwhile program in the budget, but we have to live within our means and we have to find more cost effective ways of doing things within our line items. Until we do, the budget just continues to grow.

I believe that next year’s budget will be even tougher. Cities and towns have exhausted their rainy day funds. Next year is an election year and that means that elected officials are not going to want to bring home ore bad news than is necessary. That limits flexibility. If we don’t start to control spending now, we are in for an even tougher time next year.