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Plenty of hacking left to do on state payroll
By Howie Carr

Boston Herald Columnist
Friday, June 22, 2007

I’m not sure if this is good news or bad, but it now appears that Mitt Romney, in his first six months as governor in 2003, fired more Republican hacks than new, Democrat Gov. Deval Patrick has in his first half-year.

Let’s start with the 80 members of the Republican State Committee, and then throw in various assorted GOP coat-holders currently trying to duck for cover. Now let’s run all their names on the Herald’s Find-A-Hack Web site.

Guess what? Almost every last one of those rascally Republicans is still there on the state payroll, at least for the time being.

This may be good news, because Deval is a moonbat. So you could argue that it’s a positive development that his minions are too incompetent to actually root out these pachyderm payroll patriots.

On the other hand, the bad news is that nature abhors a vacuum. So if the governor can’t walk and chew gum at the same time, at least in the political sense, then someone is going to move in and take over.

And the guy who’s going to muscle everybody else aside is someone whose client list used to include gents with such charming monikers as Vinny the Animal and Joey Y.

Say what you will about Mitt, but in his first year, he iced Whitey Bulger’s brother, and even before that, a number of Jane Swift hacks. I count at least three of them still on the GOP State Committee. One is the son of a local mayor, and another quickly found gainful unemployment in the Bush federal hackerama.

But most of the GOP state committeemen have thus far managed to avoid the Democrats’ ax.

Like Cynthia Stead, from the Cape and Islands. She’s at the Highway Department for $37,266. Used to be an aide for ex-Rep. Tom George, most recently seen trying unsuccessfully to fatten his already bloated state pension.

Then there’s Deb Tucker, from the “Department of Workforce Development.” It says here at Find-A-Hack that she is still the “manager of inter-agency outreach” for $72,705.90 a year.

Not bad, but Ed Bertorelli from the Worcester & Norfolk Senate district can top that. He’s still at Mass. Highway for $83,852.50 a year.

Then there is Barbara McCoy, who makes $32,130 a year at the Registry of Motor Vehicles - you know, the agency where Deval tried to remove the Romney-era registrar, then had to rescind her firing.

Again, compare Deval’s fold with what happened to Mitt in the same situation. When Romney fired some hacks at the ABCC, the Legislature had to actually pass legislation taking the agency away from him.

Four years later, Deval wanders off the RMV reservation, and all it takes is a phone call from Mr. Big to Deval to say, Never mind. Hey, Anne Collins gets to keep her $128,750-a-year job.

Deval is taking plenty of bows this week for preventing the people from voting on gay marriage, so-called. But the fact is, if The Man isn’t with him on that issue, or anything else, Deval sleeps with the fishes.

Moving right along, we come to William McKinney, the state committeeman from Dedham. He’s in the Executive Office of Human Services for $93,633.80 a year. And he still couldn’t win the GOP nomination for state rep a couple of months ago.

Deval has been running around the state lately staging lovefests for “closing corporate tax loopholes,” i.e., raising taxes, and increasing “municipal revenue options,” i.e., raising taxes.

There’s only one way to get the solons on board for all of his tax hikes, and that’s by giving them jobs. I think I see a few potential openings, so perhaps it’s just as well that none of the above mentioned GOP hacks make any impulsive purchases this weekend.

As for you, Deval, don’t ever say I never did anything for you. I just gave you a hit list.