Brian Shortsleeve for Massachusetts BOSTON, MA – Today, Marine Corps Veteran, successful business leader, and proven government reformer Brian Shortsleeve, Republican candidate for governor, released a transcript of his “pre-buttal” to Maura Healey’s State of the Commonwealth Address, which will be given tonight:
“Tonight, Maura Healey will deliver her fantasyland State of the Commonwealth address. She will try to paint a rosy picture of life in Massachusetts and claim that state government is running well. If Healey concedes things aren’t perfect, she’ll blame Washington DC instead of her own policies.
Let’s be clear: the buck stops with the Governor, plain and simple. So let me tell you some important truths.
The truth is that under Maura Healey, Massachusetts is the most expensive state in the nation to raise a family.
The truth is that Maura Healey has increased state spending by billions of dollars, and our people pay more, more, more.
The truth is that we pay the second highest electricity costs in the country, second only to Hawaii.
The truth is that under Maura Healey, we’ve lost 5,000 businesses and 12,000 private sector jobs even as the national economy is growing.
The truth is people are fleeing Massachusetts for better opportunity and more affordable lives elsewhere, especially our young people. A person leaves our state every 11 minutes.
Let’s look at more of the Healey record.
Last year alone, the state budget increased by a whopping 11 percent, nearly five times the rate of inflation. Did you get a 11 percent raise? Probably not, but you are picking up the tab for Healey’s spending.
Where did all the money go? Billions of dollars spent on expanding a bloated state payroll. Millions were spent providing free housing, free health care, free meals, free transportation and free education to illegal immigrants she welcomed in.
Millions more were spent providing free phone calls for prisoners, and free needles to drug addicts.
A bloated state payroll, free benefits for migrants, free calls for convicts, and free needles for addicts. All paid for by the hard-working people of our state who are struggling to pay their mortgage and their property taxes, pinching pennies to afford electricity, downgrading their health insurance to get a cheaper premium, and putting off that well-deserved vacation until they can get a little more breathing room.
The truth is that Maura Healey knows that her policies are causing our affordability crisis.
We know she knows because she keeps forming task forces and blue-ribbon commissions to investigate what’s driving up your electric bill or making Massachusetts less economically competitive with our neighbors. She knows it is her policies that are causing those things, but she can’t admit it before voters go to the polls, so she forms a commission and kicks the can down the road instead of solving the problem for us.
The truth is we don’t need another task force. We need a new governor who will take action to solve problems – not create them.
If Healey truly wanted to turnaround our state, tonight, she would end her proposal to triple the auto excise tax. She would move to dramatically reduce property taxes by increasing aid to cities and towns – aid that has been held stagnant as the state budget has ballooned by tens of billions of dollars.
Tomorrow morning, Healey could eliminate her state-mandated fees that have caused our utility bills to skyrocket. Let’s call those what they are – climate taxes disguised as energy costs. She could end the pain at the plug tomorrow if she wanted to.
Healey could reverse her policy of blocking new natural gas pipelines into Massachusetts, just like New York’s Democratic governor has done, in recognition that they are essential to bringing affordable, reliable energy to our region. While she’s at it, she should lift the ban on new gas hookups meant to force homeowners into paying for more expensive sources of energy, making it nearly impossible to build affordable new homes.
Speaking of housing, she could immediately call for the full repeal of the MBTA Communities Act – an unfunded mandate that punishes local communities who desire local control by denying them funding for essential services. She will tell us that the bill was passed under the last administration and that the regulations were written by one of my Republican primary opponents. She’s not wrong about that, but it’s no excuse for her continued efforts to dictate local zoning from Beacon Hill.
Healey could also demand an audit of every agency and program in state government to identify the waste and abuse we know is happening. Just a few weeks ago, the US Attorney for Massachusetts discovered over $7 million of fraud in the food stamp program. The state auditor identified millions of dollars of waste and abuse in the emergency shelter program.
I know we’ll find more where that came from because I found it when I was brought in to fix the finances at the MBTA 10 years ago. We audited everything, found millions in waste, inefficiency, and even fraud. So, we made fundamental reforms, put the people who scammed the taxpayers in jail, and balanced the budget for the first time in 15 years. It hasn’t been done since I left, and now, under Healey, the T’s finances are worse than ever.
Maura Healey could order those audits across state government tomorrow, but she won’t, just like she won’t support the audit of the legislature that 72 percent of Massachusetts voters demanded.
Those are just a few of the things you won’t hear coming out of Beacon Hill tonight. Maura Healey refuses to put taxpayers, ratepayers, and working families first. I will as your next governor.
I’m running for governor because I want my kids and yours to be able to use whatever God-given gifts they have to chase their boldest dreams and make them real right here at home. We were that kind of place not long ago, and we can be again.
Join our mission for Massachusetts at upu.c25.myftpupload.com/. Let’s make this Healey’s last State of the Commonwealth address.”