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 struggle with the Trump administration over the 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 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 training, well being care, social providers and public security as a result of she picked a struggle for complete political functions.
And Wu doesn’t appear keen to chop metropolis authorities in any respect to forestall extra tax hikes, judging by her latest budgets.
Wu has a poor relationship with Beacon Hill management so don’t search for Democratic lawmakers to bail her out with further 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 yr, and her solely high ally on Beacon Hill seems to be price range chief Rep. Aaron Michlewitz.
Lawmakers this yr pushed by 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 yr 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 in regards to the cuts in dire tones.
“The sorts of issues we’re attempting to protect, we simply received’t be capable to save everybody,” Well being and Human Companies Secretary Kate Walsh mentioned at a gathering this week. “We’re left with arduous decisions.”
Once you lower by all of the drama and showmanship of Wu’s struggle 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 a lot of the metropolis’s $300 million in federal funding it will get yearly from Washington received’t be in danger.
“We don’t consider that the vulnerability for the town of Boston is within the vary of lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars},” she mentioned. And he or she additionally claimed she “tightened the belt” on the town price range this yr to arrange for the cuts.
These claims might be severely examined over the subsequent few months.
