By Dave Wedge Boston Herald Chief Enterprise Reporter Friday, January 19, 2007
Gov. Deval Patrick is calling on lawmakers to limit pork spending, just days after he reinstated millions for a moth worm study, Victorian street lights, a pricey gazebo and dozens of other taxpayer-funded pet projects deemed wasteful by his predecessor. One of Patrick’s first official acts as governor was to restore $384 million in funding slashed by former Gov. Mitt Romney. Romney was assailed because some of the cuts were crippling to essential social services, but a large chunk of the spending was for questionable projects such as a $150,000 moth worm study, $200,000 for Victorian lights in Melrose, $100,000 for a Braintree gazebo and $250,000 to repair a New Bedford schooner.
Patrick, who is now calling for a limit to legislative earmarks and for his department heads to trim up to 10 percent from their budgets, summarily reinstated all of the pork spending, angering some Republicans. “My biggest disappointment is he showed an inability to prioritize spending,” said House minority leader Rep. Bradley H. Jones (R-North Reading). “By restoring them all, he said they’re all of equal value. I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.” But Patrick aides defended the restored spending, saying it’s unrelated to the governor’s new calls for belt-tightening in the cash-strapped state. “It really wasn’t up to the current governor to pick and choose what should be restored,” Patrick spokeswoman Cyndi Roy said. “If he was going to restore some (of the cuts), he was going to restore them all.” Mike Widmer of the nonprofit Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation agreed, saying, “I thought it was inappropriate for Romney to make the cuts in the first place. He’s an outgoing governor making arbitrary decisions about where to cut.” Widmer acknowledged that the money saved under Romney’s cuts could have gone back into state coffers, but said the savings would have had little effect on the looming budget crunch. “Restoration of (the funding) just brings us back to where we were and where we should have been in the first place,” he said.
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