{"id":17533,"date":"2013-02-14T16:58:50","date_gmt":"2013-02-14T21:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=17533"},"modified":"2013-02-14T16:58:50","modified_gmt":"2013-02-14T21:58:50","slug":"why-massachusetts-needs-two-political-parties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=17533","title":{"rendered":"Why Massachusetts Needs Two Political Parties"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A one-<a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Political party\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Political_party\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">party political<\/a> system does not work, regardless of which political party it is. As Dr. <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Ben Carson\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ben_Carson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Benjamin Carson<\/a> stated in his address at the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"National Prayer Breakfast\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/National_Prayer_Breakfast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">National Prayer Breakfast<\/a>, &#8220;But, why is that eagle able to fly, high, forward? Because it has two wings: a left wing and a right wing. Enough said.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Anyway. The <a href=\"http:\/\/bostonherald.com\/news_opinion\/local_coverage\/2013\/02\/dta_glitch_led_to_ot_free_for_all\">Boston Herald<\/a> is reporting today that the glitch in the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Massachusetts\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=42.3,-71.8&amp;spn=3.0,3.0&amp;q=42.3,-71.8 (Massachusetts)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Massachusetts<\/a> <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Welfare\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Welfare\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">welfare department<\/a> has cost the Massachusetts taxpayers $3.4 million in overtime.<\/p>\n<p>The article reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>More than 900 employees in the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) \u2014 mostly caseworkers \u2014 shared in the $3.4 million OT bonanza between November 2010 and May 2011, the department acknowledged after a Herald public records request.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>DTA authorized the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Wage\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Wage\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">wages<\/a> \u2014 an average of roughly $3,500 each \u2014 so staff could address a backlog of 30,000 clients whose eligibility had to be recertified after the agency overpaid <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Supplemental_Nutrition_Assistance_Program\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">food-stamp<\/a> clients by $27 million in federal money.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I suppose we should be grateful that at least the overpaid food-stamp clients were paid with federal money. Federal money&#8211;are these the same people who keep telling us they can&#8217;t cut spending?<\/p>\n<p>The article also reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The welfare department has been undergoing a shake-up since ex-Commissioner Daniel Curley was forced to resign on Jan 31, after a devastating inspector general\u2019s report claiming another $25 million in <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Taxpayers' money\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Taxpayers%27_money\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">taxpayer money<\/a> is going to welfare recipients who aren\u2019t eligible.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the people who has been on top of this from the start is state Rep. Shaunna O\u2019Connell (R-<a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Taunton\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=51.019,-3.1&amp;spn=0.1,0.1&amp;q=51.019,-3.1 (Taunton)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">Taunton<\/a>). Her response to this mess was, \u201cThe governor recently called this leakage \u2014 I would call this an avalanche. This is an astronomical number to pay out in overtime for outright mismanagement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hopefully she will continue to hold the Massachusetts government responsible for their total mismanagement of taxpayer money.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=ed360a70-410e-4d51-96da-e8d397b3eca5\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A one-party political system does not work, regardless of which political party it is. As Dr. Benjamin Carson stated in his address at the National Prayer Breakfast, &#8220;But, why is that eagle able to fly, high, forward? Because it has &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=17533\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[295,439,142,4963,4991,164,4992,1484],"class_list":["post-17533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boston-herald","tag-democratic-party","tag-massachusetts","tag-national-prayer-breakfast","tag-political-party","tag-republican","tag-taunton","tag-welfare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17533"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17538,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17533\/revisions\/17538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}