brendan halpin

People say to me, Brendan, they say, you’re dissatisfied with Massachusetts’ leadership and say you want bold action, but you won’t say what you mean by that! What exactly do you want?

Well, I’m so glad you asked! Here are some things I would put forward if I were running for Governor.

We are in a climate emergency but our response hasn’t been urgent or bold. When climate disaster strikes, we’ll need to spend a lot of money to fix things, so let’s fix some things on the front end instead! I actually don’t think this should count as bold leadership as much as “the bare minimum required of competent leadership.”

• First and foremost: close Hanscom Field. It is unconscionable in a climate emergency that we operate an airport for private jets at public expense. If rich people want a private airport, let them build, staff, and maintain it. And then tax it at an incredibly high rate.

• Make all public transportation free in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Electrify the commuter rail. And run rail links from Worcester to Springfield. It’s absurd that the third biggest city in the Commonwealth is the only one of the 23 most populous cities inaccessible by rail. Ideally this line could stop in Amherst as well. Once again, it’s absurd that the flagship campus of the UMASS system is inaccessible by rail.

• This should do a lot to get unnecessary cars off the road in Massachusetts, but we can do more. Tolls should be put on 93 and 95 as well as on the Mass Pike. (I’d like to have special transponders for folks with mobilty or other physical challenges who have to drive that allow them to pay reduced tolls or no tolls at all.)

• Solar panels on every building owned by the Commonwealth. And on non-park property owned by the commonwealth as well. There’s a big solar array at the Framingham service area on the pike Westbound: where are the rest of them?

• Massive subsidies to get homeowners and other property owners off fossil fuels. Nobody should be burning oil to heat their home in 2026, and people using gas need to get off it. But we can’t leave this to individuals. The heat pump programs in effect are a start but are still out of reach for a lot of people. And why no solar subsidies?

• Masshealth for all. I’ve lost confidence that we will ever be able to get the federal government to provide health insurance for all citizens, but Massachusetts can and should be a model for how that can work. I’m not suggesting we abolish private insurance right away—let people who want private insurance pay for it. But we have a moral responsibility to offer no-cost health insurance to everyone in the Commonwealth.

• Proper ventilation for all public schools, K-University, in the Commonwealth. Keep everyone healthier and thereby improve attendance for both teachers and students and thereby have everybody get more out of school. I am actually dumbfounded that nobody is proposing this easy, common sense win for education.

• Raise the minimum wage to $30/hr.

• Baby box like they do in Scotland. Free period products like they do in Scotland. Free childcare like they do in Scotland. Hell, basically just look at Scotland and do as much of the stuff they’re doing as possible.

“Okay,” the liberals who don’t actually want this stuff will say. “But how are you going to pay for it?”

Well, first of all, this is a canard. Ten years ago, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston combined to offer General Electric Corporation 275 million dollars in public money to entice them to move to Boston, which, by the way, they never did. People like Deval Patrick were working to try to get hundreds of millions of dollars tax money funnelled to the IOC when Boston was bidding for the Olympics. The point is that when government wants to do something, it finds the money, and “we can’t afford it” is just a dishonest way of saying, “that is not something we want to do.”

But sure, I’ll play—we can institute a progressive income tax instead of the current flat tax. Single-payer health coverage will also save a lot of money—even just looking at the Commonwealth, it now employs people to adminster Mass Health and people to administer private insurance policies for Commonwealth employees. Getting cars off the road will mean fewer accidents, which will generate cost savings from a reduced need for first responders, tow trucks, and cleaning crews. It will also improve air quality, which will help people stay healthy and lead to less sick time, fewer hospital stays, etc.

Big ol’ tax on second and third homes. People who own vacation homes and empty tax-dodge condos in luxury high rises can afford to kick in some more for the public good.

Tolls and congestion pricing will add revenue, as would repealing the law that requires construction sites to have a police detail, a law that Massachusetts cops say is absolutely essential to public safety but exists almost nowhere else.

I’m not a public policy scholar. But I know these things are doable because they’ve been done elsewhere. And if any of these policies look like an unachievable dream, that’s an indictment of the United States, not of government policies that actually benefit ordinary people.

Here’s a copy of the letter I sent to Maura Healey, Michelle Wu, and my state senator and state rep. We are in for a deadly winter in New England if our state and local governments don’t start planning for an entirely foreseeable crisis.

I’m writing with an urgent concern for the upcoming winter. As I write this, the average price of heating oil among the companies I’ve checked is between $5.50 and $5.75 per gallon. This is about $1.50 more per gallon than I’ve ever seen before.

I’m aware that the price hikes are tied to the war in Iran, which is not a local issue. What is a local issue, though, is that these prices will almost certainly result in deaths this winter.

That may sound hyperbolic, but I don’t believe it is. Many people in old homes, especially those on fixed incomes, cannot come up with an extra $300 every time they have to refill their oil tank. I’m afraid that people will either freeze in their homes or die when space heaters start fires or perhaps from carbon monoxide poisoning from trying to start a fire in a long-disused and possibly-unsafe fireplace.

As I said, I know nobody at the local level is to blame for this situation. But we now find ourselves in a situation where our neighbors are at risk of dying this winter, and I believe we have a responsibility to prevent that outcome.

I don’t have a specific policy recommendation, but I would really like to see our elected officials talking about this and making plans before this entirely foreseeable emergency unfolds. I’m certainly hoping for a mild winter, but we need to be doing more.

Thanks for your attention to this critically important matter.