Oct 8, 2008 5:24 pm US/Eastern
Budget Cut Preview: Everything's On The Table
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
Governor Deval Patrick has called city and town leaders to the State House on Friday to talk about the financial crisis and how it will affect their communities.
WBZ's Ron Sanders went to the State House today to get a sense from lawmakers about the biggest concerns of their constituents and the legislature will do about them.
Except for our footsteps, the halls of the State House were quiet on Wednesday because the House and Senate were not in session. But with lawmakers looking for Ways and Means to stretch rapidly shrinking revenue, the silence seemed to be the calm before the storm.
Rep. Walter Timilty, (D) Milton, said "people are very, very much afraid that local aid's going to be touched and nothing's going to be sacred here, unfortunately."
The Speaker, who was unavailable today, said yesterday cities and towns should be prepared for local aid cuts.
When Sanderes went to the office of Majority Leader John Rogers (D) Norwood, he said constituents are alarmed, frightened about what will happen to education, seniors, veterans and long list of programs because of global and national economic turmoil. "The Governor has the opportunity, as he sees fit, to make 9C cuts; those are statutory, obligated cuts that the governors have to make when revenues do meet expenditures."
Rep. Robert Hargraves, (R) Groton, says he hopes lawmakers look at $300 million in earmarks for things such as new swimming pools and tennis courts. "People are going to get fed up with what they find out what's in that budget and those extra goodies while school districts are struggling to retain teachers they have," said Hargraves.
When Sanders asked the majority leader about earmarks, he said "everything's on the table."
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Reporting
