The Hub of Politics

Massachusetts Democrats are raising an eyebrow overt the fact Governor Mitt Romney recently paid back to the Commonwealth roughly $5400 in travel expenses ($5429, to be exact). It's important to recall in this context than neither Governor Romney nor Lt. Governor Healey draw a salary for their service to the Commonwealth, and the Governor has in the past reimbursed the State Treasury for expenses that he believed were outside the normal bounds of his duties as Governor. In this case, the Governor took a day of vacation for some skiing.

"I spent one day out of state last week. I don't know that that's terribly excessive. It happened to be a vacation day and I got a chance to speak to a wide number of people and went to my home in the West and did some skiing. Hopefully, I'm allowed to take vacations," (Romney) said.

Still, because the Democrat Party in Massachusetts excels only in finding ways to produce bluster and noise while doing precisely nothing, they feel compelled to raise questions about the reimbursement. For example, the official mouthpiece for the state Democrats had this to say:

"What purpose do these out-of-state trips serve? The honest response is Gov. Romney's national ambitions. The taxpayers are really the ones being taken for a ride," (Jane Lane, MASS DEM mouthpiece) said.

Clever. Being taken for a ride, get it? Man, where do these folks come up with this A-list material?

Somehow, I seem to have missed all this angst when our Junior Senator was running around the country for two years running for President, missing Senate votes, not setting foot in the Commonwealth except to attend fundraisers.

Funny, isn't it.

Well, this is what I gather we can expect from a party that is too busy tying to pass a Cell-Phone User's Bill-of-Rights than to reform the bloated state bureaucracy. By the way, Steven Walsh of Lynn (Lynn, Lynn, city of Sin), the state rep mentioned in the Herald piece, who looks like he's about 25 and probably hasn't held a real job in his adult life, lists "Legislator" as his occupation. When you consider that our legislature is supposed to be a part-time gig, you get a feeling for the caliber of folks the Democrats recruit for service in the General Court of the Commonwealth.