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Permalink Reply by Chancy Yardbird on June 9, 2012 at 7:14pm

A Brief Financial Overview of The Romney Administration (2003-2007): From Debt To Surplus
Getting the state in financial shape was an absolute priority for Mitt Romney. When Mitt entered into office in 2003, he was a left with a massive deficit of approximately $3 billion. However, he was able to balance the state budget for each year of his administration and got the state out of debt by implementing a mixture of aggressive reduction in the size and cost of government along with bold strategies to spur economic growth.

By 2005, Mitt Romney had a budget surplus of $1 billion and by the time he left office in 2007, he left the state had a $ 2 billion surplus. When Mitt Romney walked into the Governor's office on January 2, 2003, the state's financial health was not looking good:

Assuming office midway in the fiscal year, Romney's team inherited a fiscal meltdown requiring immediate steps to close a potential $650 million shortfall. Worse, budget writers for the incoming governor discovered the projected deficit for the following year was exploding - from $2 billion to $3 billion in a $23-billion budget.
Now that we know what the financial picture looked like on the first day Mitt Romney took office, let take a chronological tour of how Mitt brought the state back to financial health.

2003-2004
In order to confront the immediate problem of the state's shortfall of $650 million, Romney had to act fast and petitioned the state legislature for help:

Upon first taking office in 2003, Romney got the legislature to give him emergency powers to cut spending without their permission and, if elected president, he has said he will ask Congress to give him authority not to spend all the money they authorize in the federal budget.
What powers did Congress give to Romney?

Under the measure, Romney can reduce funding for any state program, except for the 14 percent of the state budget which supports constitutional officers, the Legislature, inspector general, comptroller and the judicial branch and debt service.

The expanded fiscal authority, which extends through June 30, gives the governor the power to reduce the $5.5 billion set aside for local aid and the $950 million for public higher education, which includes the University, state college and community college systems.
Mitt Romney then proposed a $22.858 billion spending plan for Fiscal Year 2004 which introduced major spending cuts and a restructuring of government to make it more lean and efficient.

2004-2005
18 months later, during the summer of 2004, Mitt Romney had some good news for the state of Massachusetts; the spending plan he proposed worked. He announced that by the end of the fiscal year of 2004, the state would have a surplus of approximately $500 million dollars. However, when the final figures came out in the fall of 2004, the surplus was actually $724 million with a total of $1.2 billion in reserves.

Mitt Romney also announced his budget plan for the Fiscial year of 2005 with $22.402 billion in spending plans and which kept the state budget's in balanced without raising taxes. Mitt Romney also used his veto power to reject $108.5 million in earmarks proposed by the Democratically controlled Congress.

Now that the state was out of the red and into the black, the Democratically state controlled Congress wanted to go on a spending spree by dipping into the rainy day fund. Mitt Romney used his veto power limit their spending binge. He also enacted a stimulus plan focus on revitalizing the state's infrastructure with a supplemental spending bill costing the state around $439 Million. As a reward for reducing the cost of administering food stamps, making the distribution of those stamps faster and more efficient, the Federal Government awarded the state of Massachusetts $1.25 million award for getting food stamps to needy families more quickly than any other state in the nation.

2005-2006
In January of 2005, Mitt Romney began the new year by instituting welfare reform which required recipients to go back to work. He also proposed a $23.22 billion spending plan, reduced the income tax from 5.3%. to 5% and filed a 93.7 supplemental spending bill to fill up the money that was used for snow and ice removal. In March, Standard & Poor’s raised the state’s credit rating one notch, from "AA-" to “AA”.This was good financial news since it has impact on the interest rates the states pays for its bonds. The change in credit rating also helped to improve the financial health of Massachusetts. By 2005, the state had a surplus of nearly $1 billion.

2006-2007
Mitt Romney proposed a $25.19 billion budget for the fiscal year of 2007 and announced that the state was projected to have a surplus of $2.3 billion in its rainy day funds which is the highest level in state history. Mitt's aggressive style of reducing spending, maintaining fiscal responsibility, administrative and structural reforms helped the state rake in $1.924 Billion in January alone and got a total in $10.385 billion in year to date collections which broke the state's record in collecting revenue.

Having spent the previous two years nursing the state's budget from red to black, Mitt Romney decided to go ahead with welfare reform. Having a budget surplus of $1 billion in 2005 allowed Mitt Romney to confidently to unveil his health care plan in 2006.When Mitt Romney introduced his health care plan on Beacon Hill, he made sure that his proposal wouldn't undermine all his hard work of whipping the state into financial shape.

Thus, when his plan was presented, it was estimated to cost less than 1.5% of the state budget.

In fact, the common complain that RomneyCare has ruined the state financially is simply not true. In 2009, Mitt Romney explained how his healthcare plan stayed within the budget and helped Massachusetts save money:

"The plan that I proposed was a “break even” plan, meaning it didn’t cost the state any additional funding. The legislature decided to make it a more generous plan than the one that I proposed, and as a result the cost which they forecast for this last fiscal year was $725 million, as I recall. The forecast for next year is about $723 million, so it’s pretty much on plan. The net cost to the state is about $350 million."
In July, he proposed a $25.249 billion budget and reduced spending by $573 million in the form of vetoes to keep the state's budget in the black. The linked article makes the following note:

"With Romney’s vetoes, the growth from FY 06 to FY 07 is kept at 5.6 percent, as opposed to 7.5 percent under the Legislature’s budget."
Later that year in November, Mitt Romney withheld $450 million from the Democratically controlled congress after they transfered that money from the rainy day fund with the intent on spending the rainy day savings.

The Financial Picture At The End Of Romney's Term In 2007
As explained above, when Mitt Romney left the Governor's office at Beacon Hill, he left the state with a $2 Billion surplus for the state. And that is an impressive turnaround.

The Financial Picture After Mitt Romney Left Office
In order get a full picture of Mitt Romney's record, you'd have to see what the state is like after he left. And the picture isn't very pretty. Governor Patrick Deval has taken Mitt Romney's surplus and squandered it. Massachusetts is now back in debt with a $1 Billion state deficit and potentially facing a 1.5 or 2 billion dollar deficit. What's even more amazing is that Governor Deval has been receiving $7 billion in federal stimulus funds for the las two years and Massachusetts is on the fast track to being $2 billion in debt in the near future. When that happens, Govenor Duval will have taken the state back to the same level of debt before Mitt Romney became Governor of Massachusetts. What Duval has done hasn't improved the state financially but regressed back to the same old problems.
http://conservativesamizdat.blogspot.com/2011/09/part-v-how-mitt-ro...

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Permalink Reply by Doug Sowle on June 10, 2012 at 3:14am

Clancy

I agree with your post 100%. Romeny did leave a surplus that was squandered by our "good old boy" congress. The first thing our new Govenor did after his election was to redecorate the Govenor's office with all new furniture and purchased a Cadaillac as his new offical state vehicle. One thing that I would correct in your post is our current Govenor's name. It is Deval Patrick, aka Mini Me Obama.

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Permalink Reply by KENNETH LANGDON on June 11, 2012 at 6:31am

No we will have a Revolution that you can bet on. There is enough people to start one and the states will start it. Obama is a cancer that will be resolved one way or the other. Plus the people do not elect the President it's the Electoral Collage that doesn't that. If it were the people we would of had Al Gore as President. So in the lng run it doesn't matter whom we vote for.
WE HAVE THE BEST CONGRESS THAT MONEY CAN BUY!!!

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Permalink Reply by Rikki Heinis on June 8, 2012 at 6:03pm

I'm with you, girl! There's no way I will waste my vote on Romney or Obama. I will be writing Dr. Paul in as well. Casting a vote for either of the others is akin to casting a vote for crap over dung. Both of those two are only going to further the NWO agenda. Frankly, I have had enough chemtrailing, theft, murder, torture and war. I do not like inflicting abuse upon myself or my loved ones. Dr. Paul is the only candidate good enough for me and mine.

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Permalink Reply by usfrog on June 10, 2012 at 7:54am

Great videos. Please watch.
Although made from 2008 documents,they still can be applied to the situation today:

Third party is not a lost vote
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmXX3NuPQU8&NR=1&feature=end...
Spoiler : How a third party could win
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbF5loRF61U&feature=related

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Permalink Reply by usfrog on June 10, 2012 at 10:41am

Did you try pressing "control" and clicking on link? It's 1hr59 min long.

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Permalink Reply by usfrog on June 10, 2012 at 10:39pm

Try downloading on a computer and save. You will enjoy the video, very well documented with people like G. Edward Griffin, Dr. Edwin Vieira, Pat Buchanan, and more. We must get back to voting for true values and not a simulation of compassion.
GB

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Permalink Reply by Stacy on July 21, 2012 at 8:53am

Romney is so much like Obama it is sad. They have given us the lesser of two evils. If you really think about it, just for a min: They have chosen our prez candidates for how many years now?
At one point I read Romney was paying people to show up at his rallies. I believe it. Just look up his record, he has never been conservative, always liberal, including the judges he put into office in MA.
If we are too change the status quo WE MUST STOP VOTING. As they try to tell us anything is better than Obama, its not true. If people don't vote they can't have voter fraud. They have already decided who will win the election (if we have no). Remember the NDAA says Obama can post-pone the election in a time of crisis..........
Then you have Romney not fighting anything except the economy about Obama. It reminds me of the John McCain race against Obama. What about the birther issue, what about all these executive orders, etc.........Romney even admitted during a debate "he would have voted for the NDAA" the mainstream media never replayed that clip.............
This is a SAD year for America, we will go down without a fight at the rate this is going. Each passing day gets worse and worse.

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Permalink Reply by Worried Grammie on July 21, 2012 at 10:38am

Ron Paul, Ron Paul, Ron Paul! Let's get these thugs arrested and get someone in who can and will clean up our government.

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Permalink Reply by KENNETH LANGDON on July 21, 2012 at 2:14pm

I agree with you. Hang them all after the trial and I mean all of them. Ron Paul is right real money can not be control. Real Dollars made of silver and gold.
WE HAVE THE BEST CONGRESS THAT MONEY CAN BUY!!!

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Permalink Reply by david paul williams sr on July 24, 2012 at 9:48am

POLTICIANS ARE POLITICIANS,,SELECTED NOT ELECTED,,ALL CORUPT AND NEED TO FIND A NEW HOME...

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Permalink Reply by Betha Crew on July 24, 2012 at 6:33am

NO WAY!!!!!!!!! I'm an definitely voting for Ron Paul and besides he's the only one that meets birth requirements!!!! He BELIEVES in our Constitution!!!! How can anyone go wrong getting him in the office?????

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