Small town politics, another chapter in Blandford

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postaday2012

Tonight was Blandford’s informational mini-town meeting. The main issue at hand was initially the 9.5 percent increase in the school budget that the superintendent and the school committee was asking Blandford to pay in 2013. Our finance committee felt that to be fair to the Town’s other obligations, the town would only be able to pay for a 5.7 percent increase, which the superintendent, who just happens to be a Blandford resident, said wasn’t an option. The town couldn’t choose how much we were going to pay. That caused a stir which then degenerated into further acrimony when the subject of taxes and tax collection came into play. Our town has had a truly lousy record with its finances since the fiscal year 2003. According to the finance committee, the tax collector, the town treasurer and the town accountant hadn’t done their fiscal duties in reconciling the Town’s accounts on a monthly basis for all those years up until 2011 which is when the new tax collector was voted in. Therein lies the rub, all these positions are elected positions, they aren’t held up to as transparent or accountable standards as you would think. The board of selectmen can’t force them to do their jobs, they don’t answer to anyone except for when they are up for reelection, every three years.

So tonight became a heated accusatory debate of whose fault was it, the old tax collector, the auditors, the finance committee. It started to go into a free fall of blame being thrown anywhere it would stick. I confess, I left because I had all the figures from the proposed budgets and since my vote wasn’t required this evening, I felt that I had received all the relevant facts in order to render my decision.

Mitt Romney Deflects ‘Silver Spoon’ Criticism, Tells Voters His Grandfather ‘Went Broke More Than Once’

What Romney doesn’t understand and this is why he should not be president is that his grandfather benefited most probably under the policies of the New Deal after the Great Depression. Back then it was much easier to pull yourself back up from hard times, the unions were stronger, there were many programs that were there to help the masses because the economic tsunami was fresh in everyone’s mind. Until the 1970’s, when with the passage of time and fading memories as to why the financial regulations that were created due to the great depression, were getting weakened at the behest of banks and Wall Street, the politicians were lulled into thinking that the corporations knew best because they operated in the “market realm” where everything makes sense and all good is created there. Bunch of hooey. Four decades later we are back to the aftermath of an economic meltdown where if Romney’s grandfather had to start over again, this time he would stay poor and unemployed thanks to his grandson’s political and economic philosophy.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Mitt’s War on Mitt

I believe that Mitt Romney has lived in a glass bubble throughout his life, he was born into a life of privilege, the two years that he spent as a missionary in France didn’t exactly expand his world view in terms of how the cycle of poverty is quite difficult to break.My family is from France and I am very familiar with Bordeaux and Paris, the two cities where Romney spent his time doing his missionary work and what I define as missionary work, helping the poor, those two cities aren’t the places that need it. Romney was doing recruiting work for his church. When he returned stateside, he continued his life of privilege, he didn’t have to deal with student loans,( back then college and graduate school didn’t require you to offer your first born as collateral like it does now) his parents bought them their first house. I for one, know that Romney doesn’t have a clue as to how to redress the economic direction our country has headed towards, a banana republic, and I think that he really doesn’t mind it going that way, it is his class that dominates and benefits from the type of policies that he proposes.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost