Gov. Charlie Baker leaves office after eight years proud of his accomplishments but aware that there is still work to be done for Bay State residents.
“The tax cuts, certainly, given how much money the state has and the financial position the Commonwealth is in,” Baker said of what was left on the table.
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ 72nd governor will end his second and final term in the corner office with one last full day Wednesday, after which he will walk out of the State House as its chief executive for the last time.
Ahead of that, he agreed to sit with the Herald for one of his final interviews.
When Baker began his first term, he said Tuesday in his office, his administration was confronted with a $1 billion deficit and an aging state infrastructure that had long been promised improvement which was never delivered.
He leaves office with a $5 billion annual surplus, and that’s even after giving $3 billion back to taxpayers and stowing away $7 billion in the state’s rainy day fund. Baker said his hope with the tax cuts, proposed this January at an about $700 million price tag but shelved after state law required the Treasury send billions back to overtaxed residents, was to help those who are most in need of support.
“Some of it was about our competitive positions, but some of it was also about being more aggressive about taxing lower income people than the federal government is, about giving a circuit breaker increase to seniors who have to pay property taxes that are going up because the value of their homes is going up, about giving an increase in the dependent care deduction because a lot of people are dealing with a lot of issues around those kind of things with their families,” he said.
Baker said that even thinking back to his time in state government under former Gov. Bill Weld no one could have ever imagined that the commonwealth’s economic position would be as good as it currently is.
“The current condition of the commonwealth, financially, is beyond anything anybody could ever have reasonably anticipated and, because of that, I think it is really important that the state send some of that largess back to the people,” he said.
Baker said he was proud of the infrastructure work his administration had managed, a task for which he often remarks he will get no credit despite the obvious need for the efforts.
His administration delivered high speed internet access to parts of Western Massachusetts which had been starving for it, for example, a project that took most of his two terms, he said.
“But for them it was a game changer,” he said. “We put 20,000 poles in Western Mass, we put in thousands of miles of cable, I mean, it was an enormous undertaking. But when you listen to the people who got the service, finally, after 20 years of waiting for it in some cases, it just changes their lives.”
Baker also listed work on the opioid epidemic and he and his Lt. Governor’s work with the 351 cities and towns among his chief successes.
“We got a lot of things accomplished that have been on the radar forever and just never happened,” he said.
Baker acknowledged that the MBTA faces difficulties, but maintained again — as he has in the past — that money isn’t the issue. He said the largest hurdle ahead of the state’s transportation system, as noted by the Federal Transit Administration, is hiring.
“I think the MBTAs biggest problem right now is headcount,” he said.
Following a fairly poor performance among the state party and a historically poor performance during midterm elections for the GOP nationally, Baker seemed more optimistic than grim about the future of Republican politics.
“Political parties go through ups and downs, and they go through turmoil, and generally speaking its voters who send them a message,” he said.
Baker will move on to lead the National Collegiate Athletic Association, where he said he will continue the work he’s done in office help protect vulnerable populations.
“One of the things that interested me in this very difficult and complicated job was the opportunity to try and make things better for student athletes,” he said. “These are kids, right, and we have to be in the business of doing what we need to do to look out for them, period.”
