Massachusetts State Senator
Nationwide, we’re seeing a trend towards the militarization of community police forces. The President’s action takes a wise step back towards balance. Here in Mass., Rep. Mary Keefe and I have filed a bill to require local debate before military equipment transfers are allowed.
“Get off at Dudley Square, the diabetes rate is 11 percent; get off at Arlington, it’s just 3 percent.”
A bill I’ve filed would establish an Office of Health Equity to focus on reducing these types of health disparities along the lines of race, ethnicity or disability.
Massachusetts is one of only 16 states that doesn’t have a graduated tax on personal income. A bill I’ve filed would amend the state constitution to include one. Let’s balance the tax burdens of our citizens and narrow our widening disparities in income. A constituent from Chelmsford, Adithya Raajkumar, makes the case.
Food for thought: the NYT’s Paul Krugman suggests we can’t come up with good answers without asking good questions; such as, if there’s a shortage of educated workers, why haven’t the salaries of educated workers gone up?
Well, well. Things just got a little hotter for a recipient of funding to belittle climate change.
Global warming bell-ringer — a huge shift from the divided public of five or so years ago.
A good, simple explanation of why taxi medallions — and other means of restricting competition and consumer choice — need a rethink.
This just in. Yikes. For the urgent consideration of the new Mass. Legislature, I’m proposing “An Act Combatting Climate Change.” Pollution and health are huge expenses excluded from the prices of “fossil fuels” like coal, oil and natural gas; the taxpayer gets whacked with the expense later on. If you want to reduce emissions, clean the air and cool the planet, ask us Mass. state legislators to go where British Columbia has already gone — to honest full pricing for fossil fuels.
Stated plainly but well, the case for helping the planet by putting a price on pollution — meaning on “carbon.”
