Sunday Herald column ping. btw if Howie, Sandy, or
Happy are reading this, you gotta get the sound off of
the 3 YouTube videos of the Hillary supporters at the
DNC rules & bylaws! GREAT sound!
Robbin’ hacks steal from you, give to selves
By Howie Carr | Sunday, June 1, 2008 | http://www.bostonherald.com
It’s only natural that Sen. Marian Walsh would want to jack up state pensions by maybe $6 billion: She may end up collecting as many as three kisses in the mail. She could end up a triple-dipper.
I kid you not. At the State House, they used to call the West Roxbury hackette “Maid Marian,” after Robin Hood’s girlfriend. Now she seems to have morphed into Robin Hood himself, although she’s a little confused on the plot line. Robin Hood stole from the rich to give to the poor, but with her budget buster, Sen. Walsh is brazenly stealing from the poor, the taxpayers, to give to the rich, namely, the public employees.
This bill started out as a multi-billion kiss payoff for the state hacks, by jacking up their COLA’s (cost-of-living adjustments). The reverse-Robin Hood then added the municipal retirees to the frenzy.
So about those possible three pensions. First of all, she’ll be 54 next month. From 1979-’85, she was an assistant district attorney, but when she left she took a refund of her contributions. In 1988, though, she got elected to the House, and then in 1992 to the Senate.
The solons have a very sweet pension rule for themselves. If they’re in office one day in a calendar year, they get a year’s credit on their pensions. Nice “work” if you can get it. So after 19 years, Marian’s got her 20 years in. That’s pension No. 1.
Marian’s problem in the Senate is the fact that there can be only one queen bee, and that is the president, Terry Murray. Which brings us to the judgeship. Marian was one of Gov. Deval Patrick’s early supporters, which seems to entitle her to a $130,000-a-year no-heavy-lifting state judgeship.
A couple of months ago, she was on the runway, ready for takeoff to the bench. Her would-be Senate successors were scurrying around, pulling nomination papers.
But something happened, and she withdrew her name. But I predict that sooner or later she’ll be back before the JNC, cup in hand. So let’s say Sen. Walsh eventually takes the judgeship and puts in 10 years. That would be pension No. 2 - 80 percent of what will by then be at least $150,000.
Finally, her elderly husband, Paul V. Buckley. In an amazing coincidence, this husband of a politician was handed a judgeship. Yep, another nationwide search. Alas, Buck got his black-robed, early-retirement package at age 64, too late in life to vest his 10 years for a judicial pension. He had to retire two years ago, at age 70.
Judge Buckley had enough time in for a regular pension - 15 or so years as a Bristol County prosecutor, plus six as a judge. But before he could take his pension, Buck was once again the beneficiary of a . . . nationwide search.
Gov. Deval Patrick appointed Buck to the Industrial Accidents Board, where at age 72 he now makes $113,050 a year. When Buck finally does cash out, he can designate his much-younger spouse to collect survivors’ benefits.
Paging Marian Walsh . . .
This is what happens in a one-party state. The hacks are utterly brazen. One of their mouthpieces last week brushed off the potential $6 billion price tag of this new pension grab, saying, “It’s $10 a damn month, that’s all it is.”
Funny, when they’re looking to stick their hand into our pockets, it’s “only” a sawbuck they’re stealing. When people with real jobs ask that the income-tax rate be cut back to 5 percent and say that it’s “only” three bucks a week, the payroll patriots explode in outrage and tell us they can’t “afford” to part with the three bucks - our three bucks, by the way, not theirs.
This is Mafia economics. What’s theirs is theirs, and what’s ours is theirs.
Nobody would have any great objection to giving a little more to retirees who are collecting the average $22,000-a-year state pension. But it would have to be capped, so as to prevent the Billy Bulgers, the David Bartleys and, yes, the Marian Walshes from yet more raids on the public purse.
The problem is, the big-time hacks would sue, claiming they’re discriminated against. They’ve done it before, they’d do it again.
Don’t blame me, I voted for Muffy.
Article URL: http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1097824
Did anyone have Harvey Korman in the dead pool?
A shame. The more we forget 9/11, the more "Sportscasting" takes over the Information Highway.
Because frankly he's been fallin' down on the job lately.
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What a freak.