To listen to Deval Patrick's inspirational State of the Commonwealth address last week is to remember why he was overwhelmingly elected governor a year ago. He is one great communicator. He can also be one great exaggerator.
To quote the governor:
"On the jobs front, let's both advance human healing and add another 250,000 jobs over the next decade by passing the life sciences bill next month," Patrick told the Legislature.
My Globe colleague, Todd Wallack, was the first to raise questions about Patrick's claim that his $1 billion life-sciences initiative, which stalled last year in the Legislature, could produce 250,000 jobs in a decade. That, Wallack reported, would be twice as many jobs as the state added from all sources over the past decade. The life-sciences sector currently employs 60,000 to 75,000 people in Massachusetts.
In October, Patrick claimed that Swiss drug manufacturer Novartis, which has about 2,000 people in Massachusetts, shelved its plans to "invest hundreds of millions of dollars . . . creating over 400 new, well-paying jobs" here because the Legislature had not acted on the biotech bill. Whatever the merits of Patrick's biotech bill, the Legislature's inaction didn't cost 400 jobs at Novartis, and its action isn't going to create 250,000 life-sciences jobs in the next decade.
There's more: "And with 20,000 good permanent jobs, 30,000 construction jobs . . . within our grasp, let's work together to pass the resort casinos bill," the governor said.
Thirty thousand construction jobs? The $15 billion Big Dig, the most expensive public works project in US history, peaked at 6,500 construction and related jobs, says the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority.
Robert Band, president of Framingham-based Perini Corp., the casino industry's go-to contractor, estimated it would take between 1,000 and 2,000 construction workers about 30 months to build a casino like the one the Wampanoags are planning in Middleborough. He said Perini is now building the $3 billion Cosmopolitan Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, which includes a high-rise 3,000-room hotel. Construction jobs peaked at 2,600, Band says. It would, indeed, take some fancy new math to get the three casinos the governor wants to add up to 30,000 construction jobs.
There's more: "And the Massachusetts economy is responding: creating 22,000 new jobs in 2007, out-performing the national average for job creation, and moving from 48th under previous administrations to 15th in the nation last year," the governor said.
The trick in all such comparisons is what period you pick to frame your argument. In 2007, Patrick's first year in office, Massachusetts was 32d in job creation, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. The state added 24,000 jobs, an increase of 0.74 percent, below the national average of 0.97 percent. In 2006, Mitt Romney's last year, Massachusetts was 36th in job creation, adding 31,000 jobs, an increase of 0.95 percent, according to the BLS. That was also below the national average.
Patrick is hardly unique among politicians who bend the facts to suit their needs. Some would call it a job requirement. Dan O'Connell, Patrick's economic development chief, says all the governor's numbers are correct. He says they were all drawn from various industry sources - occasionally using conservative economic multipliers - and from the experience of other states that have used similar incentives.
"We committed to adding 100,000 jobs in the first four years," O'Connell told me. "We feel comfortable we are going to attain that goal." (Adding 100,000 jobs over four years would represent less than 1 percent growth a year, a modest goal to be sure.)
Unlike the inspiring rhetoric of a State of the Commonwealth address, the numbers in a budget have to add up. Patrick's second state budget is counting on hundreds of millions of dollars from new casinos and corporate tax changes that the Legislature may or may not buy.
"Rest assured: We can afford everything we have proposed," the governor said.
It is the Legislature's job to check the governor's math, and check it twice.
Steve Bailey is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at bailey@globe.com or at 617-929-2902.
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