The barbs fly on Big Dig, taxes

The four candidates for governor sparred yesterday over the Romney administration's handling of the Big Dig, forcing Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healey to defend the administration's role in the project. They also drew sharp lines on issues of immigration, education, and taxes.

In the first debate of the general-election campaign, Healey targeted the Legislature, controlled by the Democrats, for refusing to approve Governor Mitt Romney's plan to merge the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with the state's Highway Department so he could take over the project sooner. ``Why did the Legislature stand in our way?" she asked.

Deval L. Patrick, Healey's chief rival in the four-candidate race, said the administration should have persuaded the Legislature to approve the merger and to let Romney take control of the troubled project before a Jamaica Plain woman was killed in July. ``It's your job to build those bridges," he said.

``And it took a tragedy . . . and that is a shocking shame," Patrick said.

Christy Mihos, the former Turnpike Authority board member now running an independent campaign for governor, and Grace Ross, the Green-Rainbow Party candidate, also targeted Healey on the Big Dig.

Ross said Romney and Healey should have called contractors into the governor's office the day after the Interstate 90 tunnel collapsed and told them: ``You all know where you cut corners. Deal with me now, or deal with the courts later."

``The folks who made hundreds of millions on cost overruns should pay," Ross added.

The 1-hour, 10-minute debate was broadcast live on WFXT-TV, which sponsored the event with the Boston Herald. At least three other debates are planned before the general election on Nov. 7.

Healey, the Republican nominee who is trailing in the polls, sought to show differences between Patrick and herself. She criticized him for opposing a cut in the state income tax rate and for supporting proposals to provide driver's licenses and in-state tuition rates at public universities to illegal immigrants.

She also mentioned former Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the last Democrat to hold the office.

But Healey was distracted by Mihos, the former Republican who is running an independent campaign. Patrick, the apparent front-runner, appeared conciliatory, praising Healey more than once. Ross played up her modest means, saying her opponents are wealthy and ``have no clue what the rest of us face."

Mihos's harshest rhetoric involved an assertion that Healey and Romney had failed to take charge of the Big Dig when they took office in January 2003.

``All the documents are right there, Kerry," Mihos said. ``It shows intentional indifference. You can't run away from your responsibility. I have the documents and you people did nothing."

``Two people are dead today because you did nothing," he said.

A campaign official said he was referring to the death of Milena Del Valle and a man who died when an ambulance transporting him took 50 minutes from Logan Airport to the Boston Medical Center. Officials said afterward that the delay may not have contributed to the man's death.

Healey challenged Mihos's assertions on the Big Dig. ``Christy, the facts are wrong," she said to her rival, who was at her right.

``The fact is that people are very pleased that today Governor Romney is in charge of this process, that he has gotten an independent investigation underway."

Healey sought to portray Patrick as a liberal in the Dukakis mode. ``I think it's very important to have balance," she said.

``The thing that concerns me most is that if Deval Patrick wins this election we will go back to the Dukakis era when there is only one party represented on Beacon Hill . . . We [the Republicans] are tenuously holding down the corner office."

Patrick pushed back, trying to portray himself as an outsider who would stand up to the political establishment.

``I actually don't think that's the balance people are looking for," he said of Healey's pitch. ``Most people do not buy 100 percent what either party is selling. I think the balance that people want is between a fairly entrenched, inward-looking establishment and an outsider in the corner office, someone whose experience is broadened, who didn't grow up in the Beacon Hill culture."

On immigration, Patrick said he understood both sides of the questions.

He said that his reason for supporting giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants was based on security, that the government should be able to keep track of immigrants. He also argued that they would be required to carry insurance, which protects other drivers from financial liabilities.

But Healey said giving illegal immigrants driver's licenses allows them to use the documents for fraud and ``to disappear into society."

``That's our most basic form of identification," she said.

Mihos, saying he opposes giving licenses to illegal immigrants, said he wants to increase the penalty for ``riding around without a license or registration or insurance" to a felony.

On taxes, Healey tried to press Patrick on his opposition to rolling back the state income tax rate from 5.3 percent to 5 percent. Patrick deflected the attack, accusing Healey and Romney of proposing $985 million in fees and tax increases.