Will Boston residents be left holding the bag for Michelle Wu’s political grandstanding?
That’s an actual query now that the Boston mayor has put federal funding in danger in her battle with the Trump administration over town’s sanctuary metropolis standing.
Wu could also be benefiting politically in her reelection marketing campaign however Boston residents may very well be reaching for his or her pockets once more to pay for extra tax will increase if President Trump follows by way of on his guarantees to freeze the funding spigot. It’s a steep value for her grandstanding.
She has put Bostonians in danger from the federal cuts to schooling, well being care, social providers and public security as a result of she picked a battle for complete political functions.
And Wu doesn’t appear keen to chop metropolis authorities in any respect to stop extra tax hikes, judging by her current budgets.
Wu has a poor relationship with Beacon Hill management so don’t search for Democratic lawmakers to bail her out with extra funding to make up for the cuts.
The place will the cash come from to fill that hole? Is Wu going to boost taxes on Boston residents once more?
State lawmakers have already had discussions about dipping into the wet day fund to counter any federal cuts, however Wu might miss out on that due to her frosty relationship with Senate President Karen Spilka.
Wu overtly attacked Spilka after she helped block Wu’s industrial tax hike plan final 12 months, and her solely high ally on Beacon Hill seems to be funds chief Rep. Aaron Michlewitz.
Lawmakers this 12 months pushed by way of a legislation clearing the best way for an expert soccer stadium for the New England Revolution, which Wu additionally opposes.
And they’re already coping with a $1 billion a 12 months migrant disaster, which threatened to bankrupt the state, and cuts to Medicaid and different federal applications.
So the Legislature is unlikely to bail Boston out now. They’re speaking concerning the cuts in dire tones.
“The kinds of things we’re trying to preserve, we just won’t be able to save everyone,” Health and Human Companies Secretary Kate Walsh stated at a gathering this week. “We’re left with hard choices.”
Whenever you reduce by way of all of the drama and showmanship of Wu’s battle with President Trump, it comes all the way down to nuts and bolts and {dollars} and cents. There may very well be actual monetary penalties to her drama.
And the president holds the higher hand.
Wu insisted this week that the many of the metropolis’s $300 million in federal funding it will get yearly from Washington received’t be in danger.
“We do not believe that the vulnerability for the city of Boston is in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars,” she stated. And she or he additionally claimed she “tightened the belt” on town funds this 12 months to arrange for the cuts.
These claims will likely be severely examined over the following few months.
