And that landscape has changed dramatically. We have entered, as Patrick recently described it in understated terms, “anxious economic times.” Residents and businesses have serious and immediate worries on their minds: layoffs, rising prices, foreclosures, falling property values, and unknowable impacts of a national recession.
Patrick has now made serious and worthy proposals in response, including those for a bond bill that could jump-start construction projects this summer, expedited workforce-training grants, a revolving acquisition pool to turn around foreclosed properties, and energy assistance for companies.
But these come late to the table, and we can’t help thinking that they would have come sooner had the governor not been banging heads with the legislature over so many of his previous proposals.
Nevertheless, Patrick has unquestionably succeeded in reframing the very nature of the public discussion. As Steve Crosby, former finance and administration secretary under Jane Swift, noted at a recent public forum (as reported by State House News Service), the last time Massachusetts has seriously discussed big, new programs and revenues was during the education-reform debate of 1993. Today, the discussion is about which new revenues we will have, and which big programs we will undertake.
In this and other ways, Patrick has provided a refreshing departure from 16 years of Republican rule. More important, he has brought bright, talented people into the administration, and set them to the task of finding ways to improve the state government, and through it, the people of the Commonwealth.
Perhaps this would have been true of any Democratic governor. But we do know that Patrick appears to have found winners in, among others, economic-development secretary Daniel O’Connell, health and human-services secretary JudyAnn Bigby, environment and energy secretary Ian Bowles, administration and finance secretary Leslie Kirwan, transportation secretary Bernard Cohen, labor secretary Suzanne Bump, and newly named education secretary Paul Reville. Long-neglected agencies — the Department of Social Services and Department of Correction being just two obvious examples — have vigorous new leadership in Angelo McClain and Harold Clarke.
Running these departments and agencies is, after all, the main job of the governor, though it often goes unnoticed, and under-appreciated, amid the noise of the battles over corporate-tax loopholes, same-sex marriage, casinos, auto-insurance reform, and all the other high-volume clashes.
From what we can tell, the government is being run better now than in a very long time, and with significant cost savings, bureaucratic improvements, and refreshingly few disgraces and disasters.
But that, and bold ideas, are not enough. We need to see more focus, more willingness to work hard at the challenges, and less readiness to lay blame on legislative leaders and the media.
It is time for Patrick to break into a sweat.
