Deval Patrick
Says State Will Not Bail Out Lawrence
"...what we are looking
at in Lawrence is not an infusion of
capital, it’s getting at some
reforms that are sure that they get on
sounder fiscal footing and management so
that this sort of thing doesn’t
happen again.” - Governor Deval Patrick
in Exclusive Valley Patriot Interview
Tom Duggan,
January 5, 2010
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick,
Fifth District Congressman Niki
Tsongas and a host of elected officials
held a press conference in Lowell to
announce how Federal stimulus money had
been disbursed at the local level.
The governor bragged that he had spent
the money “ahead of schedule”.  Below is a transcript of
that press conference as well as an
interview Tom Duggan did with
Governor Patrick and Congressman
Niki Tsongas.
(AUDIO of Valley
Patriot interview where Governor Patrick
says that the state will not be offering
financial help for Lawrence)
"Deval Patrick: As the senator
said, we have had to close a
multi-billion dollar budget gap in the
last few years, nine billion dollars,
actually over the last 18 months and we
have done that responsibly and by being
true to our values.
We have delivered, now, 3 budgets that
were balanced responsibly and on time,
which is not something that many other
states can say. If you think that is just
an abstract bragging point, let me tell
you that the credit agencies, all three
of them, have re-affirmed the
commonwealth’s double A bond rating
and stable outlook, specifically sighting
our pro-active management, in partnership
with the legislature of this budget
crisis, which means that we continue to
afford the bond of borrowing that we are
doing to invest in ourselves. "
"To rebuild our roads, bridges,
expand, restore the public college and
university campuses. To invest in public,
affordable housing and to expand
broadband. It is enormously important and
it connects. This would not be possible
without the partnership of the
legislature and the leadership of Senator
Pangiotokas and it would not have been
possible without the resources and
partnership of the congress lead by
congresswoman Niki Tsongus and I thank
you, Niki. Sometimes, people think of the
recovery act as just an abstraction. They
say “Where are the results?”
“Who’s affected?” I ask
you to look at the folks here behind me.
The firefighters, the police officers,
the construction workers, the teachers,
the nurses at places like Lowell
Community Health Center that got a 9.4
million dollar grant just last week. Ask
them whether the Recovery Act matters.
Ask them whether is an abstraction. I’m
telling you that we are dealing with a
crisis unlike anything we have seen in 80
years in this country. The global
economic collapse and without the
Recovery Act, these good people and the
services they provide to us, all of us,
in all of our communities, would be up a
creek. So, there is value in this
Recovery Act, there is tangible help that
has come from the Recovery Act and we are
grateful for it. I, also, wanted to say
that here in state government to the
extent that we have had responsibility
for distributing funds, there is a sort
of urban legend we talk about all of the
time. If the Recovery Act represented a
blank check, payable to me, and you just
have to get me in a good mood and then,
we will disburse it. (People laughing)
In fact, it comes through very specific
programs with a tremendous amount of
controls, oversight and transparency
which is important and I want to
acknowledge Jeffrey Simon who is our
Recovery Act Czar who helps to make sure
that our reporting is thorough and
accurate and the oversight is rigorous.
We have had some choices to make and we
have tried to make those choices in the
nature of that “old adage” that
says that if you give a man a fish, they
eat for a day, if you teach them to fish,
they eat for a lifetime and so we have,
wherever we can, try to invest in ways
that leverage private investment as well.
Beyond the paving job for a given road,
as important and valuable as that job is,
that road opens up a developer’s
ability to create new housing, or new
commercial space, ultimately. We are
looking for those leverage opportunities
that we have found and I am please to say
that we will be ahead of schedule in
committing all Federal Transportation
money that has been made available to us
through the Recovery Act.
So, again special, special thanks go out
to Congresswoman Tsongas and all of the
members of the Congressional Delegation
and to the administration for making
these enormously important resources
available to us at a critical time and,
again, this is not an abstraction, these
are real jobs and real values, brought to
real families who are trying to find a
way forward in times of enormous
challenges to all of us. I am proud to be
with you and I look forward to continuing
to work closely with all of you, thank
you.
After Governor Patrick’s
statements he entertained questions from
the press. Here is the exchange between
Valley Patriot reporter Tom Duggan,
Governor Patrick and Congresswoman
Tsongas.
Tom Duggan: “When you ran
for election, talked so much about the
deficit and spending of the government, are you
concerned when this money... that is
borrowed, comes due, that we are going to
be back in the same position that we were
before this money was disbursed?”
Congresswoman Niki Tsongas:
“Well, ... little did we anticipate
the extraordinary challenge to our
economy, [which] became so apparent last
fall, a year ago this fall. Every
economist virtually, that I spoke with
and I reached out to many because we had
a major challenge on our hands, they said
that we had to take a lesson from the
great depression and said that if the
government did not act, the situation
could become much worse and over time,
the way I have come to describe it is
that: our economy was here (doing a graph
with her hands) we were falling to here,
with our recovery package we brought
ourselves to here ... the work is between
getting to here and here (pointing to the
top) and if we had done nothing, we would
have gone down to here (pointing to the
bottom)."
"And, coming from Lowell,
Massachusetts, you see what happens when
government doesn’t react to a
different climb in industry, in this
particular community, but generally a
tremendous downfall in our country."
"If we do nothing, the climb back is
much steeper and takes many more years.
So, an economist supported that approach
and as a result, we passed a recovery
package and that is what we’ve been
talking about to date. It’s a
one-time, very extraordinary expenditure
of funds in order to save our economy and
get us back on the path.
Obviously, going forward we have work to
do. We have to address the
deficit and the debt. We are committed to
doing that, but the timing around that
still remains important because of our
recovery is still fragile and if we do it
too soon, we could compound the
challenges going forward."
"So, obviously yes, I am a
strong supporter of something called
“Pay as you go”. As we spend
certain funds we have to be sure we have
a way to either pay for it or by cutting
elsewhere or raising our revenue to
offset it, but this is a one-time
challenge that we have a responsibility
to address.”
Tom Duggan: “But, it is
borrowed money, right Governor?”
Governor Deval Patrick: “First
of all, ditto. It is borrowed money ...
but I’ll tell you, if you think
about the circumstance that we’ve
been in, if there had not been a recovery
act, we were looking at a full blown
recession, ... excuse me,
depression."
"With the banking industry
facing a total collapse and dragging the
rest of the economy into the hole with
it, a difference between a year ago and
now is that we are not talking about
whether we will recover, we are talking
about what kind of recovery and how fast
it will be."
"So, I think it was a very wise
investment in ourselves and our future. I
think there is more of that kind of work
that we are looking forward to working
with the Congress on as we go forward.”
Tom Duggan: “When this money
runs out, will the cities and towns have
to pay to continue the spending that is
being done now, or is there someway to
phase that back?”
Congresswoman Niki Tsongas: “The
goal was, as the drop in revenues were
taking place at the state and local
level, the recovery package already
started its work and eventually, the
revenues will start to rise again. Will
they rise again to the level they were
prior to all of this, that is still
unknown, but the revenues will start to
come back and hopefully will avoid the
most aggressive kind of cuts that might
have been necessary.”
Governor Deval Patrick: “As
a growth, for all of us, the solution to
the situation that we are in, the
recovery act provides a cliff, because
the money does run out on a date certain.
And I’d leave out something if I
didn’t say we will work with the
congress to get more of a “slope”
than “cliff” right now and I
also think that the hope was that the
economy would recover even faster than it
has."
"I think in the long run,
we will be good and we will be strong and
in many respects, we will be stronger
than we were as a commonwealth before
this recession began. It’s because
of a whole host of reforms that this
crisis has caused us to have to confront
and to implement.”
Tom Duggan: “Given that
Lawrence is in the position that it’s
in and in the last 20 years, billions of
dollars have been pumped into Lawrence
and it hasn’t really done much good,
what good do you see in pumping more
money into Lawrence to try to make it
better when that hasn’t worked for
15 to 20 years?”
Governor Deval Patrick:
“Well, first of all, I don’t
accept the premise of your question,
since a lot of that money …
Tom Duggan: “I like
when you challenge me.”
Governor Deval Patrick:
“But a lot of that money is
education money and, you know, educating
a child is not a waste of money or time,
um, I will say that what we
are looking at in Lawrence is not an
infusion of capital, it’s getting at
some reforms that are sure that they get
on sounder fiscal footing and management
so that this sort of thing doesn’t
happen again.” (audio)
Tom Duggan: “With very
little oversight into the money that has
already gone into Lawrence, even long
before you came on board, the more money
that, now, gets pumped in from this point
forward, is there going to be more
oversight, is there going to be more
accountability on the local city counsel,
mayor, etc.?”
Governor Deval Patrick:
“That is exactly the point. What we’ve
been talking about with the state
delegation and with the mayor elect, one
of the system’s fiscal and financial
management and controls an oversight that
have to be in place to ensure that this
does not happen again.”
Tom Duggan: (laughing)
“Can you just admit who you
supported between Willie Lantigua and
Marcos Devers in the last State Rep. Race
since you endorsed both of them? You can
admit it now, it’s over, (governor
starts walking away) the elections over.
I just need to know.”
(Laughter and Oh my gods in the crowd)…
Governor Deval Patrick:
“Gotta go, See ya! See ya!”
EMAIL TOM DUGGAN
HERE
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