Mitt Romney Massachusetts Budget Targeted Programs For Poor, Disabled

[jsr]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/01/mitt-romney-massachusetts-budget-_n_2051922.html

Mitt Romney Massachusetts Budget Targeted Programs For Poor, Disabled
By Zach Carter and Jason Cherkis

..."I was elected as a Republican governor in a state with a legislature that was 85 percent Democrat," Romney said last week outside a construction services company in Ames, Iowa. "We were looking at a multi-billion dollar budget gap. But instead of fighting with one another, we came together to solve our problems."

A detailed Huffington Post review of Romney's budget proposals from his first year in office, however, reveals that he advocated deep cuts to programs serving the state's most vulnerable -- even when those cuts had little effect on the state's fiscal position. Romney's aggressive reductions to social programs did not earn support across the aisle. The state legislature ended up overriding more than 115 Romney vetoes in his first year as governor.

"There was no magic in the Romney approach," recalled former Democratic state Rep. Dan Bosley. It was "cut as many social programs as you can." Bosley added: "If we didn't override every one of his vetoes, we overrode most of his vetoes. … There wasn't a bipartisan effort to run government."

Romney targeted many programs that had been historically supported by both parties. He pushed to eliminate or gut more than 20 state programs serving veterans, disadvantaged children, and adults with severe physical disabilities. He also sought to cut money for breast cancer screenings, suicide prevention and programs that assisted the blind and the deaf.