[Vision2020] Why is Romney Running Away from the Massachusetts Miracle?

[Nicholas Gier]

Dear Visionaries,

Here is my column/radio commentary for the week.  Just in on the RomneyCare
front: When the health bill was being debated in the MA legislature it was
the Democrats (just like Obama in the 2008 primary) who were against the
individual mandate, but Romney argued vigorously in favor of it, and of
course he won.

The full version is attached as a PDF file.

 It's going to be a tighter race that the project electoral votes were just
a month ago.

Nick

*ROMNEY RUNS AWAY FROM THE BAY STATE MIRACLE*

*If America wants to be a healthy, smart, rich, globalized, high-tech*

*powerhouse, we arguably have no better model than Massachusetts*.

—Mark Vanhoenacker at slate.com



*Romney, pummeled by charges of “Massachusetts moderate,” *

*has run far from the state he once governed. Et tu, Mitt?*

—Vanhoenacker



When Michael Dukakis ran for president in 1988, he boasted about the
“Massachusetts Miracle” based on high tech and financial services. In an
article praising his home state, Mark Vanhoenacker reports that
“Massachusetts has the highest per-capita venture capital, patents, and
technology licensing of 10 leading high-tech states.”

In 1986 Dukakis was voted the nation’s most effective governor by his
peers, even though one could argue, just critics of Gov. Rick Perry do,
that his leadership and the legislature were only part of the state’s
success.

In stark contrast to Texas, the Bay State does not rely on oil, gas, and
other natural resources, but it relies on its people—highly educated and
highly motivated entrepreneuers.

After Dukakis’ second term (he was governor twice), moderate Republicans
such as Richard Weld and Mitt Romney governed Massachusetts for the next 20
years.  Massachusetts ran high surpluses in the 1990s, but by the time
Democrat Duvall took over in 2008, Romney left a budget shortfall of $400
million.  In 2011, even with the Great Recession, the budget deficit was
$273 per person, the 5th lowest in the nation.

 Weld and Romney cut some taxes, and much to the distress of the business
community, Romney raised corporate rates.  He also applied a modest Marxist
stimulus (gasp!) to the economy. Even with the GOP tax cuts, the Puritan
People’s Republic still ranks 11th in total taxes paid.

Nonetheless, the Bay State still ranks sixth as most business friendly by
CNBC.  As Massachusetts native Vanhoenacker reminds us, CNBC’s “calculus is
so ruthlessly focused on corporate competitiveness that it marked states *
down* for high union membership.”

Researchers from the Center for American Progress have calculated net
change in jobs minus net change in labor force, and found that Michigan,
New York, and Pennsylvania, based on 2009-2011 data, were at the top. Red
State North Dakota was 6th, Massachusetts was 12th, and Texas was last.

Bay State students lead the nation in math and reading skills, 82 percent
of freshmen graduate, and 53 percent have earned an associate degree or
higher.  Even more impressive is the fact that Taxachusetts’ students also
excel by world standards: 5th in reading and 9th in math.

In 2009 teen births in Texas were 63 out of 1,000 girls (15-19 years old)
in stark contrast to 20 for Massachusetts. One might guess that young women
marry earlier in Texas, but 91 percent of them giving birth were unmarried
in 2008.

At 6.1 percent Lone State girls younger than thirteen are more sexually
active than the national average at 5.9 percent and Massachusetts at 5.4
percent. All data are from the Center for Disease Control.

One might counter that there are fewer teen abortions in Texas, and that
number is indeed a low 13 per 1,000 girls. In 2005 there were 22
births/1,000 girls and 21 abortions for every 1,000 girls in the Bay State.
Collating teen pregnancies, births, and abortions together, as the
Guttmacher Institute has done, Massachusettes is 43rd lowest and the Lone
Star State is fourth highest.

In an article praising his home state, Mark Vanhoenacker states that
“Massachusetts has the lowest percentage of uninsured
residents<https://mail.uidaho.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparetable.jsp?typ=2%26ind=125%26cat=3%26sub=39%26sortc=6%26o=a>—5
percent (Thanks Mitt! Mitt? You there, Mitt?), compared to 16 percent
nationally, and a whopping 25 percent in Texas.”

This remarkable state leads the nation in prenatal care and lags only
Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Missouri in lowest infant mortality. Contrary
to widespread opinion, medical insurance premiums have risen at a slower
rate than the nation as a whole.

Vanhoenacker stacks up achievement after achievement: “Worker productivity
in Massachusetts (Gross Domestic Product per employed person) is the
third-highest in the world. And research and development spending as a
share of GDP in Massachusetts is higher than any country anywhere. If
America wants to be a healthy, smart, rich, globalized, high-tech
powerhouse, we arguably have no better model than Massachusetts.”

These are embarrassing truths for a former governor who cravenly turned far
right to get the GOP nomination.  Vanhoenacker  concludes his article by
observing that “Romney is already too far from home” to run on his
association with the Massachusetts Miracle.

Nick Gier taught philosophy at the University of Idaho for 31 years.
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