Boston Herald columnist whacks Turnpike plutocops and other racketeers

Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr has a humdinger of a column on how union rackeeters including the Turnpike's plutocops are "busting out" the Massachusetts Turnpike and its transit equivalent the MBTA having looted them for years. Busting out is Mob talk for destroying and abandoning the business once it has been so thoroughly looted it has nothing left to steal.

Carr sees the Turnpike's plutocops, formally named Troop E as the biggest of the racketeers who ran the Turnpike into the ground:

"Next time you’re driving through Framingham on Route 9, glance over at the parking lot at MSP (Massachusetts State Police) headquarters. It looks like a high-end new SUV dealership, Lexus or Escalade."

TOLLROADSnews had listed the number of plutocops who took home more than the Turnpike CEO, chief financial officer, head of operations, chief engineer etc.

Carr compares the plutocops take from the Turnpike to the state governor's $140.5k salary.

He writes:

"In Troop E, (at) the turnpike, 115 state troopers last year made more than the governors $140,500 salary. The average salary in Troop E in 2008 was $149,666."

Carr has something of a fixation with the Mob as the model for racketeering unions and other 'hacks' in so-called public service in Massachusetts. But sometimes the Mob analogy does seem to gel more with reality than other models.

More usual is the political science model of government as a market in constituency building and favor trading, all wrapped up in PR 'spin.' Then there's the hopelessly naive idealist civics model of government as simply doing the people's bidding since the people voted for them in elections, and can vote them out whenever they transgress.

Anyway Carr's take makes for a fun read:

A classic hack-door bust-out

by Howie Carr  |   BOSTON HERALD Sunday, July 5, 2009  |  http://www.bostonherald.com

I finally figured out the end game - the public-sector unions are busting out the commonwealth (state) of Massachusetts.

You know how a bust-out works. The Sopranos did one in season two. The bust-out scene in “Goodfellas” was even better.

You don’t have to be a gangster to bust out a joint, just crooked and greedy. What happens is, shady parties worm their way into a legitimate enterprise and then slowly strip it of all assets, reducing it to a hollow shell, driving it into bankruptcy . . . busting it out.

Sounds a lot like what organized labor (not to be confused with actual work) is doing to Massachusetts. It’s no longer enough to feed at the trough. They lick the plate.

Teetering on the edge of insolvency, the state timidly tries to impose a few modest restraints on the payroll patriots’ grotesquely bloated perks and pensions. How do the pinky-ring unions respond?

Old-time hoodlums would toss a stink bomb through the restaurant’s front window on Saturday night. In the modern bust-out, the unions go to court to keep their free ride going. The hacks’ latest lawsuit scam will eventually reach the SJC (state high court), where all seven justices expect to retire with a six-figure kiss in the mail after contributing zero - that’s right, nothing - to the state pension system.

You know the old State House saying: Nothing on the level, everything is a deal, no deal too small - even if it’s just a free Charlie Card (transit payment card)  for MBTA (transit agency) layabouts.

Any bust-out starts small. First rule, you can’t have the muscle loitering out front in the lobby. They’ll scare off the squares. So you need a frontman - in this case, the Legislature. Senators Marc Pacheco and Ken “Double Dip” Donnelly come to mind, among scores of union stooges in the (state legislature).

See, they’re not fighting to protect the unions’ money grabs. No, they’re battling for the people who “gave you the weekend,” wink wink, nudge nudge. Doughty jakes and the thin blue line. Why do you suppose the public-safety unions are the lead plaintiffs in this lawsuit to keep the feeding frenzy going? Even drunk and refusing random drug tests, they’re more sympathetic poster boys than Paul “the Cook” Moccia and his fellow Pike toll collectors.

(Moccia a cocaine dealing Turnpike toll collector is up on murder charges allegedly having shot, dismembered and then cooked the bodyparts of his cocaine supplier to erase a $70k cocaine debt. TRnews)

A bust-out begins inauspiciously. A Quinn bill (legislated bonuses) here, a few police details there. It can take years to really bust out a place right. Look how long the State Police have been at it. In 1978, their wives were shadowing Gov Mike

Dukakis on the campaign trail, picketing him over their husbands’ abysmal salaries.

Fast forward to now, with the unions in almost total control of state government. In Troop E, (at) the turnpike, 115 state troopers last year made more than the governors $140,500 salary. The average salary in Troop E in 2008 was $149,666.

Next time you’re driving through Framingham on Route 9, glance over at the parking lot at MSP headquarters. It looks like a high-end new SUV dealership, Lexus or Escalade.

As the bust-out progresses, the frontman begins to run out of cash. It can happen - when a Boston cop gets to count his annual $850 clothing allowance toward his pension, and the carmen of Local 589 still cash out at age 43 on a full boat after 23 years at the T (Boston transit agency).

The credit lines max out. The rating agencies fret. The frontman borrows more and more or, in the case of the state, peddles ever junkier bonds.

Hey, it’s for . . . the infrastructure. It’s an investment in the future. We’ll fix the roads and bridges. Then when the latest loan arrives - well, here’s Henry Hill in “Wiseguy” to describe the next step:

“You take the money and forget about the improvements, because you’re expecting to bust the place out anyway. . . . And no sooner are the deliveries made in one door, you move the stuff out another.”

Sounds a lot like the transportation “reform” bill Deval signed last week. You change the name of the Turnpike but don’t even think about tearing down the tollbooths. The marks’ll never catch on.

On Beacon Hill, as the unions’ 30-year bust-out picks up speed, there’s not much left beyond a pile of IOUs. It can only end one way now - with a can of gasoline followed by a bolt of hack lightning. Does anyone have Frankie Flame’s phone number?

Will the last hack leaving Massachusetts please remember to toss the match?

END Howie Carr column from Boston Herald

see http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/view.bg?articleid=1182999&format=text

TOLLROADSnews 2009-07-07