Keller @ Large: Gov. Charlie Baker reflects on his most difficult decisions, future of GOP
BOSTON --Governor Charlie Baker leaves his office next month as one of the nation's most popular governors. He recently sat down with WBZ-TV's Jon Keller to reflect -- here is what he said:
Question: Why wait until the end of your time in office to issue pardons?
"I think part of the issue there is those are difficult decisions. Not just for us but people forget that this isn't the federal government. Pardons and commutations go through a pretty significant process and ultimately land in front of the governor's council, who has to make decisions with respect to these. We've done a significant number of these. And we didn't wait until the end of our administration we did the first two significant commutations that have been done in Massachusetts-- I think the folks at parol sent those up to us in the spring, and I think sometime in the summer we forwarded them with an affirmative recommendation to the governor's council.
I think they are just difficult decisions generally because, there's certainly some political issues there, but they're just difficult decisions, period. In many cases, you're wrestling with situations and circumstances in which somebody did something, usually early in their life and they've worked really hard to atone for whatever that thing was. But you still have all the issues associated with what actually happened once upon a time. We've done far more pardons and far more commutations, than any administration I think going back to the 80s.
Q: What's the toughest decision you made over the last eight years?"
"I would argue every decision that we made during the COVID pandemic was enormously difficult. I remember a reporter asking me at one point about one of the decisions I made early on and he said what do you think the reaction is going to be? I said some people are going to say it's a terrible decision and some people are going to say it's a great decision. I'm just going to have to live with every decision I make during the course of that period of time as one where probably nobody will be happy. I think those decisions, just given the scale and in addition to that the sort of constantly changing footprint on data and information and everything else -- which you and I have talked about -- just made those really challenging."
Q: In hindsight, any decisions from that era that you'd like a do-over on?
"There are a lot of them. But the one thing about public life in real time is you don't get a do-over, you basically have to play the hand and make adjustments as you go. And try to be really aggressive about making adjustments when you realize that you have a problem that you didn't anticipate."
WATCH PART 2:
Q: Remote work allows workers to hold good jobs here and do them just fine from places with better weather and a lower cost of living. How concerned are you about this going forward? Does the millionaire's tax play in?
"The cost of housing, which is something we've been working hard on for the past eight years and have sounded an alarm on. I think has a lot to do, if you look at the age of a lot of the people who left, they were literally that group who falls into the first-time homebuyer population, the 24 to 35. It's an enormous challenge for us. It's one of the reasons why we worked so hard, took us for years, but we got legislation passed to make it possible to build more houses, more housing more quickly. We sought billions of dollars from the legislature to kickstart housing. It was the main issue that came up in our post-pandemic research report that we issued in 2021 as the biggest single challenge the Commonwealth faces from a competitive point of view. I think it's an enormous challenge.
And the millionaire's tax, I don't think it's going to raise as much money, and I've said this before, as people said it would. It's going to be very easy to set up a trust fund to track dollars in and dollars out. I really hope the next administration and the legislature do that so people know exactly what they are getting. I do think it will affect the decisions that people make both about coming here and staying here."
Q: Are you worried that we're headed back to "Taxachusetts?"
"I think the combination of very high costs for housing and very high costs for certain kinds of investors and business owner-operators, now remember S corporations in Massachusetts are basically small businesses that are treated by the owner, for all intents and purposes, as a personal income. There's going to be a lot of consequences, I think, that won't be all that great, to some of the issues associated with the millionaire's tax. And I think it does send a message to people that the effective tax rate here if you sell a home, if you sell a business, if you run a business, even a small one, is gonna be nine percent."
Q: And what about Proposition 2½, the 41-year-old property tax limitation law that some on Beacon Hill have been trying to undermine for years?
"Prop 2½ has been on the radar every year for as long as I can remember, and I've said many times, I think Prop 2½ is probably one of the most important fiscal responsibilities and economic development pieces of legislation that ever passed in Massachusetts. I can go on at great length as to why that particular initiative petition changed the game in a hugely positive way for Massachusetts. It would take me a very long time. Yes, it's always on the agenda. I made very clear early on that Prop 2½ was sacrosanct as far as I was concerned."
Q: How about the incoming governor, does she feel the same way as best you can tell?
"I don't know, I don't think this is one people have been talking about because it is viewed by a lot of folks as "settled." But I think doing anything to Prop 2½ would be a huge mistake."
Q: What is to become of the Mass GOP and do you even care anymore?
"I care a lot about it because getting back to your previous point about Prop 2½ and some other things, creative tension, constructive engagement, between and among points of view is a good thing. That's why democracies in my opinion work. We need to have a healthy and engaged and competitive Republican party, we just do. And we don't know. I certainly plan to try to help right the ship on that one going forward. We won't get there unless people start to recognize and appreciate, especially in the leadership of the Republican party, that winning elections in Massachusetts is not about extremism, it's about just the opposite, tis' about being willing to accept and acknowledge the fact that there are a lot of points of view here and that's OK."
