I wrote a couple of days ago about an anti-bullying bill coming before the Massachusetts Senate that contained unrelated language adding “hate speech” about sexual orientation to the legal definition of libel. If passed, it could conceivably have opened up ordinary folks writing on web sites and in other places (people like me, in other words) to being used for holding Catholic views on homosexuality.

Fortunately, the offending language was removed just before the vote when the bill was re-written by the Senate Ways and Means Committee. The new bill, S2313, does not have any of the libel language in it.The bill, which passed unanimously, now goes back to the House for another vote.

Thanks to MassResistance for sounding the warning on this one.

Charlestown is a neighborhood of Boston, just north of the city across the Mystic River, which was once known as a tough place (whenever a bank robbery or armored car heist appeared in the news, it seemed inevitably to involve a “Townie”), but in recent years has been gentrifying, especially along the waterfront. Many of Boston’s wealthy professionals have purchased homes and condominiums in the area, joining one of the oldest residents already present there: The USS Constitution.

Of course, the Constitution—also known as Old Ironsides, an 18th-century ship of sail—is the oldest commissioned warship in the world and is on active duty in the US Navy. She is berthed in the Navy Yard in Charlestown and each day she follows Navy tradition by playing the National Anthem and firing a cannon in salute.

Last November some of the Constitution’s newer neighbors decided that the Old Lady was not being a good neighbor and asked that her ceremonies be altered or ceased. This week, the ship’s commanding officer refused their request. The neighbors had asked that the charges for the cannon be reduced and the volume on the anthem reduced and even eliminated completely on the weekends. They had complained—and I’m not exaggerating—that the noise disturbed houseguests’ sleep on the weekends and their ability to enjoy a glass wine on their balconies and patios in the evenings.

It’s not like the existence of the Constitution was a surprise to anyone moving into Charlestown, but like someone who moves near railroad tracks and is surprised at the blowing of whistles by passing trains in the night, all we can say is, that’s your own fault for failing to do due diligence. Caveat emptor!

The Constitution’s traditions are more than mere show for the tourists. They are an integral part of the ship’s mission, which is to serve as a reminder and a connection to our nation’s naval history in war and peace and to preserve our heritage and traditions, so we will never forget the sacrifice of blood, sweat, and tears of those who gave their all for freedom and liberty.

A few years ago, I was privileged to ride aboard the Constitution during his annual Fourth of July cruise in Boston Harbor, a day I won’t soon forget. While aboard I recorded the 21-gun salute to our nation from belowdecks.

Charlestown’s blue-state swells should remind themselves of Admiral Boom from “Mary Poppins”, the retired British man of the sea who fired off a cannon from his home on the square each day at noon. Although the blast nearly turned the neighbors’ home upside down each day, no one dreamed of asking the admiral to end a tradition that connected him to the sea and symbolized his long and distinguished service to King and Country.

Of course, I’m also reminded of another movie scene, one which expresses my attitude toward those who would cast aside our heritage and history so lightly. I’m thinking of Col. Jessup from “A Few Good Men”:

I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom I provide, then questions the manner in which I provide it. I’d prefer you just said thank you and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post.Either way, I don’t give a damn what you think you’re entitled to.

Photo by Domenico Bettinelli. All Rights Reserved.

MassResistance brings to our attention today a new anti-bullying bill about to be voted on in the Massachusetts Senate on Thursday, March 11, the day after I post this, but perhaps already past by the time you read it. The legislation is a response to some widely reported instances of bullying in local schools, including one where a poor girl who recently immigrated from Ireland was hounded and ostracized to the point of suicide. The cases are universally awful and heart-wrenching, but cry out for local remedy. If parents and educators took responsibility for what’s going on in their own schools, such incidents could be reduced in number or eliminated all together. But, as usual, legislators of all political stripes must earn their paychecks, as it were, and propose new legislation every time something bad hits the news.

In this case, more than a dozen anti-bullying bills had been advanced in the House and Senate this session and they have all been whittled down to one bill being voted on by the Senate tomorrow: S.2283 (PDF).

But as is also very usual, such public and demagogued legislation often has unrelated bits and pieces—stuff that might be unpopular with a lot of people—tacked on so as to present a quandary to politicians. Do they vote against the bill because of these unrelated provisions to which they object and appear uncaring? (“Think of the children!”)

“Hate” speech code

MassResistance points out that S.2283 has one of these poison pills embedded within it, a provision that amends current libel law to expand the list of groups it’s unlawful to speak against. Chapter 272, Section 98C of the Mass. General Laws currently reads:

Whoever publishes any false written or printed material with intent to maliciously promote hatred of any group of persons in the commonwealth because of race, color or religion shall be guilty of libel and shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

(Ironically, Chapter 272 is titled archaically, “Crimes against chastity, morality, decency, and good order”.)

The new version of this section proposed by S.2283 would say (emphasis added):

Whoever publishes any false material whether written, printed, electronic, televised, or broadcast with intent to maliciously promote hatred of any group of persons in the commonwealth because of race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, sexual orientation, or disability shall be guilty of libel and shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both.

So the question then becomes, “What does it mean to ‘maliciously promote hatred’ and what is the definition of ‘false’?” Note, as well, that in every other section, the bill addresses the bullying and abuse of students, this section casts a wide net and addresses and protects everyone who fits those categories.

Ladies and gents, is this a new speech code, like the ones we’ve been seeing pop up in Canada and Europe? But what about the First Amendment, you ask. Ah, but libel and slander are not constitutionally protected forms of speech. Will those of us who speak publicly about the immorality of homosexual acts and the whole homosexual subculture be labeled as “haters” subject to criminal prosecution? And while I can’t imagine the present US Supreme Court upholding this law if it’s challenged, I’m not so confident of future Courts, if the trend toward judicial activism continues.

I put the question to the lawyers out there: Is this something to worry about? In any case, it might be worthwhile, if there’s still time after you read this, to contact your Senator and express your distrust of this bill. Speech codes are never good for democracy.

Update: The Senate passed the bill unanimously yesterday.

Photo by Caveman (Kickin’ 66 with Pete Zarria) - http://flic.kr/p/5qoRbB

By state law in Massachusetts, employers must buy back some portion of employees’ unused vacation time when they leave their jobs, unless the employer stipulates a “use-it-or-los-it” policy up front. In my own job, I can bank up to 1.5 times my annual vacation time and carry it year-to-year and even sell it back when I leave my job. But that’s only at the end of employment and a very limited amount. And it doesn’t include sick time. That’s probably even more generous than most private-sector employers

Not so for employees of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. State employees can sell back up to 15 weeks of unused time and in some cases, such as Massport—which runs the seaports, airports, and some other transportation conduits— they can sell it back annually.

At the University of Massachusetts, they paid out $8.7 million in unused-time buybacks just last year. All told, the state paid $50 million last year, including $90,500 to departing employees of the Governor’s Office, which is notable because Patrick has been a critic of the practice.

Meanwhile, we have record unemployment and the state is crying poor-mouth as it cuts programs and aid to local cities and towns, while calling for increases in taxes and fees. Yet, a departing employee at Salem State College retired with a $151,000 buyback last year. The State Police force as a group paid $5.6 million in buybacks, while the Trial Courts paid $3.7 million.

I’ll believe their cries of empty pockets and threats to cut programs unless they raise taxes, when I see them start to cut these and other massive perks from the budget. They may claim that we’re in a Great Recession, but they certainly don’t act like it.

Photo by Kjetil Ree Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic license.

My colleague George Martell, an award-winning photojournalist, is in Haiti over the next few days with Cardinal Seån O'Malley, six weeks after the massive earthquake that left an estimated 300,000 people dead. Cardinal O'Malley was to arrive in Haiti on Monday to see firsthand the recovery efforts and to bring the love and concern of the people of Boston to their brothers and sisters in need. The Cardinal is a member of a recently formed Haiti Advisory Group that will assist the US Church in advising how best to provide for the long-term needs of the Church in Haiti. George arrived a day early to document what is going on there now. The devastation is still awful and we can't let it slip from our minds and hearts. The loss of life and destruction of society is on an unprecedented scale. George told me tonight that at St. Francis de Sales Hospital, part of the collapsed building still holds the bodies of 200 children who were patients. Yet the part of the building that stands is still being used as a hospital. Unbelievable. Stay tuned over the next couple of days because George will be uploading more photos.

Photos can be found at Flickr.com/BostonCatholic. You can also follow BostonCatholic at Facebook and Twitter. I run those social media outlets, by the way.

In this current recession, the fiscal pain is spread across the entire country, but some states are doing better than others. Forbes magazine has done a state-by-state analysis and found that states that vote liberal Democrat the most (i.e. “Blue” states)are suffering the worst, while Red states are doing the best.

The top 5 worst states—Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California, and New Jersey—and eight of the top 10 (add in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Wisconsin) are all very blue states. The top 5 best states are Utah, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia. While New Hampshire and Virginia are said to lean Democratic, New Hampshire is a very fiscally conservative state, which still doesn’t have an income tax and which doesn’t have a “professional” legislature perpetually in session.

(Solidly one-party means that the party has an advantage of 10 percent or greater in party affiliation over the other; leaning means a 5- to 10-percent advantage.)

Forbes’ metrics for each state included unfunded pension liabilities, changes in tax revenue, credit ratings, debt as a percentage of Gross State Product, debt per capita, growth expectations for employment and the state economy, net migrations and a “moocher ratio” that compares government employees, pension burdens and Medicaid enrollees to private-sector employment.

None of the 10 worst states are solidly Republican and only one, Mississippi, leans slightly Republican, i.e. less than 5-percentage-point advantage in party enrollment.

And why are we doing so much worse?

It comes down to stronger unions and a larger appetite for public programs, according to Kent Redfield, professor emeritus of political studies and public affairs at the University of Illinois’ Center for State Policy and Leadership.

Strong unions, by their endorsement power, create an incentive in Democrat politicians to throw pork in the direction of union members, like big construction projects and more social services. And Democrats generally like Nanny Government that creates a program for every human need, not to mention the rampant nepotism, patronage, and corruption that overwhelming one-party by either party typically brings.

We shouldn’t discount the effect that differtent industries have on the rankings. Many of these bastions of unionism are also big manufacturing centers, which are doing the worst in this recession. Agricultural Nebraska is going to do much better than automaking Michigan, for instance.

[Link via Bluegrass Pundit]

The Boston Herald reports today that clerk-magistrates in Massachusetts and their assistants get a little know perk of their job worth about $2.5 million last year. When a suspect is arrested outside of regular court hours, state law requires that bail be set within six hours (or denied) so one of the magistrates is on call at all times. The clerk-magistrate or assistant sets bail when a regular court hearing can’t be scheduled in time. If a defendant makes bail then the magistrate gets $40 directly from the suspect as a bail fee.

But critics are saying that direct payment to the magistrate creates a conflict-of-interest and diverts funds from the taxpayer-funded judicial system. The conflict arises because the magistrate only gets the fee if the defendants makes bail and thus there’s a financial incentive to set low bail.

Most of the clerk magistrates are appointed for life and their salaries start at $110,000. Most assistant clerks start at $84,000. On top of that base pay, 77 of the 210 magistrates and assistants collected $15,000 in bail fees, and 24 of them made $25,00 or more. The top earner made $54,000 extra in 2009. in 2007, it was $76,000. To earn this largesse, they must be on call one weekend and 11 weeknights a month.

Defenders of the system say that the direct payments are necessary in order to attract people to the jobs and compensate them properly. To that I respond, 10 percent unemployment. There are plenty of people who would do the jobs. But the defense is still particularly weak.

It’s “unrealistic to assume you should ask people to work beyond their normal hours of employment without any sort of compensation,” said Keith E. McDonough, clerk magistrate in Lawrence District Court and vice president of the Association of Magistrates and Assistant Clerks. McDonough earned $28,927 in fees last year.

No one is suggesting they work beyond normal hours of employment without compensation, but perhaps the compensation should come in a form that doesn’t set up a conflict of interest.

Experts point out that the system mirrors that in the private sector. Many private-sector employees, particularly those covered under union contracts, receive extra pay for working overtime, said Fred Foulkes, director of Boston University’s Human Resources Policy Institute.

That’s for hourly employees. In the Dreaded Private Sector, salaried employees, which the magistrates and assistants surely are, do not get overtime for extra hours worked. It’s part of the job.

And although the state may be missing out on millions in fees, at least the suspect-funded system does not strain the Massachusetts coffers, he noted. “From a taxpayer perspective, I think it’s a very good deal,” he said. “It’s not coming from the state’s budget.”

Which addresses the financial aspect, but not the conflict-of-interest aspect, neatly sidestepping the important part of this criticism.

State Bail Administrator Michael J. McEneaney defends the system, saying the fees were instituted to attract and retain employees who wouldn’t do the after-hours work otherwise. “Don’t trash it unless you have a better system you want to propose,” he said.

The classic defense of those who have no better defense. Better systems have been proposed, including one mentioned in the article. Unless, of course, when McEneaney says “better” he means better for the clerk-magistrates’ and clerk-assistants.

Photo by Joe Gratz - http://flic.kr/p/bkUna

Stunning photos in the Boston Globe’s excellent photojournalism blog, “The Big Picture,” of the earthquake in Chile, coming on the heels of Haiti’s earthquake it is a one-two punch. While Haiti has lost 300,000 compared to the 400 (so far) in Chile, the tragedy for those who lost a loved one is no less great.Plus there are so many who have lost everything.

I was particularly astounded by the apartment building that just toppled onto its side. At first, I thought it had split down the middle, but then I realized it had fallen right over. Incredible.

St. James the Greater, patron saint of Chile, pray for them.

May 20, 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary of the beatification of Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati by Pope John Paul II. So the Associazione Pier Giorgio Frassati— the Rome-based official association promoting his cause for canonization led by his niece, Wanda Gawronska— is organizing a celebration in Italy on that date during the Year for Priests for priests and religious who have a devotion to him as part of their ministry. The gathering will be in Pollone, near Turin, which is where he grew up. The timing is fortuitous because the Shroud of Turin will be on display at the same time. Here is the official announcement as sent out by the Associazione:

Our encounter will begin with welcoming the participants who arrive on May 19th at the Shrine of the Oropa and the accommodations in their Reception facility. The gathering of May 20th will be central, we shall exchange our experiences and visit the Frassati house in Pollone, pray in Pier Giorgio’s room, and in the afternoon a Eucharistic Celebration will be presided by S.E Mons. Mana, Bishop of Biella. On May 21st, there will be a visit to Pier Giorgio and the Holy Shroud at the Cathedral of Turin, as well as a Eucharistic Celebration to close our joyful encounter, to be held in the Church of Saint Dominic of Turin, near the Cathedral.

If you’re a priest or religious interested in attending, email Wanda Gawronska for more information.

I saw a link on Twitter to a post on Digg.com entitled What Happens After I Die?. Being a curious Catholic sort, I clicked on the link, which took me to another site, a completely black web page that scrolled down “infinitely”.

My first reaction: “Har, har. Oh, what wit. How clever you are. When we die we are annihilated. That’s hysterical We sure showed those religious types.”

But then I thought about the fear evident behind this web page and the posting on Digg (as well as the hundreds of comments and thousands of “diggs” on the web page). What would prompt someone to create this page? Where does this false bravado and antagonism? I recognize there could be legitimate anger against the excesses of some religious adherents. History is replete with people who have committed atrocities in the name of religion. They could merely be offering adolescent rebellion against the faith of their parents or grandparents or rebellion against the moral law they find so restrictive. Yet there might be something more as well.

If someone truly believed that after life was only nothingness and annihilation, I think they would live in terror of death and its inevitability. Like a gazelle being stalked by a pride of lions in the open savannah, death will come for all of us, sooner or later. If after death, there is nothing, how terrifying it would be to contemplate the abyss. But these people do continue to function in their lives. Certainly, denial is a powerful mental process that aids all of us to continue down some paths at one time or another. (Every habitual sinner is intimately familiar with denial.) Still, I believe there is also in them an innate knowledge that death is not the end. Knit into the very fabric of our being is an understanding that we are immortal, a knowledge that lives in our breast beside the natural law.

Melanie reminded me that C.S. Lewis wrote that, unlike the lower species like animals, we experience time because we are ultimately meant to live outside of time. (I’m paraphrasing her parphrase, so excuse my imprecision, if you will.) A fish does not contemplate the water he lives in, but we experience the time we live in many ways. We are observers of time. Time flies and it drags. We mark time and take time. One day, we will see time as God does, from his vantage point. We live in time for a time, so that one day we may live timelessly.

I pity the fearful who mock the darkness with the semblance of a brave front. If only they knew that on the other side of the veil of life is a new life. Not darkness, but light and joy and Life. I pray for them that one day, before it’s too late, they will embrace the Light and Life. Because the alternative is not nothingness, but something worse.

Last fall, Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby wrote about the “Myth of the underpaid public employee,” in which he detailed how those wokring in the private sector not only got plush benefits like padded pensions and other perks, they also just got plain more money.

Consider the lucrative lot of the men and women who work for Uncle Sam. In 2008, according to data from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, the 1.9 million civilian employees of the federal government earned an average salary of $79,197. The average private employee, by contrast, earned just $49,935. The difference between them came to more than $29,000 - a differential that has more than doubled since 2000.

When you compared total compensation — income plus benefits— the disparity was even greater. In 2008, the average federal civilian employee earned total compensation of $119,982 vs. $59,908 in wages and benefits for the private sector worker. Federal employees are compensated $2 for every $1 paid to non-government workers. Of course, Jacoby points out, this disparity isn’t limited to federal jobs. Especially in Massachusetts.

Fattening up at the state trough

In an article this week, the Globe reported that there are 1,295 Massachusetts state employees who earn more than Gov. Deval Patrick. His salary is $136,000, which isn’t high when compared to private-sector CEOs, but is comparable to other elected executives within the the states. Even so, how much are we paying in salaries to all these others?

The top salary goes to the executive director of the heretofore little known Massachusetts Biologic Laboratories at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst who earned $649,324 in 2009. The lab makes vaccines for distribution in the state and does research. That seems like something that should be put out to bid for private-sector companies to compete to do. After that is the “executive deputy chancellor, provost, and dean” (yes, that’s a single job) of UMass Medical School: $623,594. And, surprise, third in line is the chancellor of the medical school and senior VP for health sciences (also one job) at $608,674. In fact, 33 of the 34 people in state jobs who make more than $300,000 work at the University of Massachusetts. Three-hundred fifty-two workers made more than $175,000. More than 90 percent of the top 100 work at University of Massachusetts. Nearly all of them work in a state college or university.

And as I said above, it’s not just their salaries that are out of control. More than 100 state workers or their survivors take home pensions of $100,000 or more, as of a Globe report last year.Again, the top earners are former university professors and administrators, but also State Police officers as well. The pensions are of the most expensive kind, which most private-sector employers have abandoned because of their cost. And because of the way they are calculated, they are indeed very costly. Some workers get a 100% pension after 23 years of service, regardless of age. Some have retired while in their 40s and then double-dipped while working another state job. Another costly perk allows workers to earn credit for a full year of service after serving just one day of a calendar year. So, the pension is calculated based on the last 3 years of salary, but that number can be calculated based on the guy working 2 years plus one day past his annual anniversary. If he got a raise in the last two years, that’s a major bump.

No reform on the horizon

Last year, Gov. Deval Patrick promised pension reform and some lawmakers made the usual bluster but nothing happened. Even what they proposed was fairly tame and nothing addresses the out-of-control patronage jobs and salaries in the first place. And don’t look for a change in occupancy of the corner office in the State House to bring radical change. Legislators have a long tradition of giving themselves sweetheart perks for pensions and at least one of Patrick’s two major opponents, independent Tim Cahill, the state Treasurer who most recently was a Democrat, has been known to garner sweetheart pension deals for his well-connected cronies.

It’s going to take some charismatic newcomer and outsider to sweep into office and bring with him the outrage and mandate of the people to bring about wholesale change to the corruption and cronyism on Beacon Hill. I just wonder if there’s even a hope of such a person on the horizon.

Update: The Boston Globe is reporting today that the number of state pensioners receiving more than $100,000 per year rose between 2003 and this year from 33 to 145. At that rate, how long before we realize how ridiculous this is?

Photo by Office of Governor Patrick - http://flic.kr/p/7cxv3G

Two new and very different purchases arrived in the mail today.

The first was the book, “The Sources of Catholic Dogma” by Denzinger. This is a classic resource of theology, so classic in fact that Vatican documents, including papal encyclicals reference it as a source and have done so for 150 years. It is also known by its Latin name, the “Enchiridion Symbolorum”. The book catalogs all the creeds and articles of the Catholic faith and every dogmatic definition, every magisterial decree, every papal bull, every major pronouncement of the Vatican up to 1957 when this particular edition was issued.

This is an indispensable work of theology, which should sit on the shelf next to the Bible and the Catechism. Which is why it surprises me it took so long to get one, although I do have other less authoritative, but no less valuable compendiums of Catholic doctrine, such as Ludwig Ott’s tome. So when I saw a tweet from Aquinas and More recently about having the book at a reasonable price, I decided it was time to complete my theological library.

The other purchase couldn’t be more different. It’s the Gorillapod Mobile by Joby. Joby makes a kind of articulated, grippy tripod of all shapes and sizes that attach to just about anything. The legs are made up of a series of connected spheres, each with an equator of a rubber-like grippy material. This combination allows you to place the Gorillapod in every conceivable place. Not only can you just stand it on a table, you can wrap the legs around anything whose diameter isn’t larger than the length of the legs.

This particular verison comes with an iPhone case, a screw mount for a camera (although only a point and shoot is small enough not to tip over this model), and a couple of adhesive backs for other random items. I plan to use it on my desk as an iPhone stand, but also in the summer to attach to the handle of my lawnmower as well as the baby stroller. I think I may also use it when I donate blood platelets to watch movies on my iPhone. Right now my free arm gets mighty tired holding the phone up the whole time.

The Gorillapod is very versatile and I look forward to finding many uses for it.

There you go. An eclectic duo of items whose only connection is that they both arrived at my house today.

To think, Martha Coakley almost become our US Senator. The erstwhile Senate candidate and current Massachusetts attorney general wants a federal judge to declare by fiat that the federal marriage protection law is unconstitutional. And she wants him to declare it without even the pretense of a trial.

Coakley argued that regulating marital status is traditionally left to the states. She said the federal law treats married heterosexual couples and same-sex couples differently in determining eligibility for Medicaid benefits and whether the spouse of a veteran can be buried in a veterans’ cemetery.

The law forces the state “to engage in invidious discrimination against its own citizens in order to receive and retain federal funds in connection with two joint federal-state programs,” Coakley argued. “Massachusetts cannot receive or retain federal funds if it gives same-sex and different-sex spouses equal treatment …”

Except, it’s only “invidious discrimination” if you’ve decided a priori that two people of the same sex can be married. But since the duly-elected representatives of the people of the United States have declared otherwise then by definition it’s not discrimination for the federal government to deny funds intended for married couples to people who aren’t really married. In addition, because of the “full faith and credit” clause of the US Constitution, the federal government can’t make an exception for Massachusetts or any other state that has decided to ignore human nature and the realities of thousands of years of human culture and civilization on the subject of marriage. And even more, since the people of Massachusetts have been denied their right to address this topic either through their representatives or through direct referendum—instead having it forced on them by, not coincidentally, judicial fiat—Coakley’s ploy here is more of the same liberal agenda to force social engineering over the objections of the governed, by deciding for the “proles” what’s best for them.

I can’t wait until this fall when we can finally put Martha out to pasture once and for all. Hopefully we can finally find someone who will actually uphold both the Massachusetts and US Constitutions against all these attempts to undermine them and attack the foundations of our republic.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons under a Creative Commons license.

Liberals like to use taxation and regulation to bring about social engineering. Unfortunately, they also use those tools as an opportunity to expand the reach of government through new programs funded by those new taxes. Thus they tax cigarettes, for example, rather than outlaw it, so they can fund health-care for poor kids, which is one of the ways they sell the tax to voters. But when the tax has its effect, as in reducing the number of smokers, the liberals cry that these “vital” programs created by these taxes are under-funded, and so another new tax is born.

The latest example of this round-robin is the gas tax in Massachusetts. Years of increasing gas taxes, plus increases in the cost of oil, have forced taxpayers to buy more fuel-efficient cars—whether those cars are otherwise the best car for them or not—or to ride public transportation. This led to decreased purchase of gasoline and lower revenues from the gas taxes, which in turn led to shortfalls in funding for road maintenance and whatever other less necessary pork projects the solons on Beacon Hill dreamed up.

And so, they’re dreaming up new ways to tax us like Gov. Deval Patrick’s idea to create open-road tolling or tracking the mileage you drive and charging you a mileage tax. Open-road tolling means cars drive at highway speed through places on the highway where receivers in the road pick up radio-frequency transponders rather than forcing cars to slow down to go through electronic booths or to stop to give money to a toll taker.

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