Wrentham native, Chris Doughty, is a candidate for the republican primary for Massachusetts Governor.
He appeared on the Paying Attention Podcast with Tom Duggan last month to talk about his views on running the state. To watch the video, visit the Valley Patriot Facebook page or listen on iHeartRadio, iTunes, or GooglePlay.
To watch video click HERE
Chris Doughty arrived in Massachusetts in 1987 when he went to Harvard Business School.
He lives in Wrentham, where he raised six children, all of whom went to public schools. He is now an “empty nester” with four grandchildren.
Doughty bought a small manufacturing company in the 90s producing metal and auto parts which is thriving today.
Doughty says that his business and manufacturing experience give him a good perspective on helping businesses in Massachusetts.
“Our state has focused so much on biotech and finance in Boston, but not nearly enough in these communities (in the Merrimack Valley) and that’s one of the things that I want to bring to Massachusetts as governor, good jobs, good benefits and long term employment for the citizens of this state and not just in Boston”.
How do you beat Democrat Maura Healey in the final election, Massachusetts is so liberal, so dominated by Democrats, it’s a one party state?
“Typically, in our state we do vote for Republican governors. For the last thirty years we’ve had Weld, Celucci, Romney and Baker, so I think our state really prefers to have one fiscally conservative person in The State House.”
“I think it’s been important for our state. You see how much taxing and spending would occur without a conservative governor. So, I think the public now, more than ever, would like a Republican governor in the State House to be a block, or a counterbalance to the spending and the taxing that the Democrat legislature is putting through.”
“Remember this, for 30 years we’ve had one major tax increase just one, it was the sales tax. And that happened with a Democrat governor and Democrat legislators.”
“I think people want a reasonable governor that can work on problems and solve issues with the legislature.”
Education
Do you have a plan to stop the political indoctrination and make our schools focus more on the basic subjects that they are not teaching now?
“I have three ideas that can all be implemented relatively quickly. One is a tip-line or call-line that is multilingual. So, if you speak Spanish, Portuguese, or English, you would call this number if your children are not being taught age-appropriate material in the class.”
“Then we can tabulate which districts are getting the most complaints from parents, then we could call in the administrators from these towns and districts and say, ‘we are getting a lot of complaints… so, we can implement a root cause and corrective action plan.”
“As we do in the business world if they don’t fix the problem, then we will continue meeting until they do.”
“Right now, the state controls the curriculum, if we need to, the state can come in and be more specific on the curriculum so that we can layout the things that need to be taught.”
“The last thing is this… there are two problems in education right now; one is, teachers aren’t earning enough money, to stay in their job. So, day one, I’m going to go in and make sure our teachers are being compensated adequately.”
“Right now, our teachers and our police officers need affordable housing. Inflation is at 7%, their wages have only gone up 2%, and a lot are leaving the industry.”
“The next one is this, I’m going to say to all of the teachers and parents, ‘I want your kids and your teachers in the classroom.’ The teachers are spending too much time out of the classroom doing other things. Education occurs inside the classroom, and we want them to stay there. So those are a few things we can do.”
“One last thing as a father of six, I have seen my children have done much better when they have had extracurricular, after school activities like; band, soccer, sewing, debate, anything that our children enjoy doing. I would really promote after school extracurricular activities. I would encourage it, and I would help pay for it. I think the social networks, the friendships, [that] the kids develop, the skills pursuing their own destiny are so important for children.”
“We have 900,000 students right now, 25% of the students are of Latin origin. These are my colleagues’ children. They speak Spanish; as governor I would really focus on that. I likewise speak Spanish, so I feel a real affinity toward those that are Spanish and Portuguese speakers. I think we should go right in on day one and let’s make sure we’re giving the best education to Latino students.”
“We can borrow from Texas and New Mexico and other states that have a large Latin community to make sure they have the best schools possible.”
Homelessness and opioid addiction
They estimate 90% of the fentanyl coming into our communities are coming across the Southern border. There are a lot of governors coming together to work on the Southern border problem. I would join them. The more governors to come together and say we’ve got to fix the southern border. That’s one thing.”
“The second thing is that … the state has done as much as they can, but we have to turn it over to the local communities. Right now, we are basically defunding our local communities and using all the money in the state house. I would say, listen, over the course of time I want to change that. I want to move more money to the local communities, because they are the ones that are closest on the ground to address this, not down in Boston.”
Doughty said that he would increase funding for local police and first responders. A few days after our interview, news broke about the upcoming Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Doughty’s sent the Valley Patriot a statement on the issue. See top of page 10.
To view the Paying Attention Podcast with Tom Duggan, visit the Valley Patriot Facebook page or listen to this podcast or previous shows on iHeartRadio, iTunes, PodBean, or GooglePlay. ◊
To watch video click HERE
To download or listen to the audio click HERE