Healey's list
POLITICAL NEWCOMER Deval L. Patrick scored a dreamlike victory in Tuesday's Democratic primary for governor. But his Republican opponent, Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey, wasted little time yesterday trying to point out his abstractions by releasing her own detailed list of specific proposals to wake up Massachusetts.
Healey knows she can't compete with Patrick's charismatic oratory. Instead, she offered a list of 50 ``tough, smart solutions to change Massachusetts." It's a good way to kick the campaign off on a substantive footing.
Twelve of Healey's 50 proposals focus on public education, an area in which the Romney administration has advanced some innovative proposals, though it has been weak on funding. Democrats, in general, have been better on funding, but, influenced by the state's powerful teachers' unions, resistant to some reforms.
Healey proposes to raise the mandatory age of school attendance from 16 to 18, introduce merit pay for proven educators who are prepared to teach in the state's underperforming schools, and test children at the beginning and end of the school year to measure student performance and teacher effectiveness. Patrick, the only Democratic candidate for governor who opposed lifting the cap on charter schools, needs to flesh out his education positions. For instance, like the unions, Patrick opposes merit pay for individual teachers. But he does support it for successful schools, raising a question of whether this is a promising innovation or an attempt to straddle the two camps.
But Healey's list includes some bad ideas, too. What she tries to pass off as a plan to increase competition in the auto insurance field could increase the number of uninsured drivers by pushing the rates of urban motorists beyond their ability to pay. And her insistence on rolling back the state income tax to 5 percent could force cities and towns to increase property taxes even more, to counter stagnant state aid. Her better idea for tax relief would allow taxpayers to deduct charitable donations from their state income tax returns.
Healey is the point person in the Romney administration on local aid to cities and towns. Yet her list is disappointingly short on ways for the state to support essential local services, such as police and fire.
The Romney administration compiled a poor record on creating and retaining jobs. Yesterday was an opportunity for Healey to assert her independence from the governor by advancing creative ways to promote job growth. But she settled on creating a directorship for the state sales force. Patrick has pledged to undertake that role himself.
On balance, Healey is a good list maker. But voters are looking for a rainmaker. 