Massachusetts Expenditures

Every tax is a pay cut. Every tax cut is a pay raise.
Citizens for Limited Taxation

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Expenditures
Source of Financial information

2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2008

Commonwealth of Massachusetts Expenditures Source of Financial information
2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006		2008

General Comments on the Commonwealth ( your wealth is their wealth ) of Massachusetts Expenditures

The fiscal year ends on June 30th and is always designated by the year it ends. Thus, fiscal 2005 ends on June 30th, 2005.
The 2007 General Fund for the state of Montana was $1.8 billion and $3.8 billion for the state of Wyoming. Keep these numbers in mind as you examine Massachusetts numbers.
After 300 years of budgeting, the Commonwealth still obfuscates their spending of our tax monies. I was able to round up this information only because I can write software to round up this data more easily than most people. The Department of Revenue spends $130 million. Why can't they have a Department of Expenditures to document how they spend our monies. Still technically incompetent after 300 years. Heavy SIGH!.
Beyond these expenditures, there are those items that are off budget (a weasel word for an expense). The legislature is merely convoluting and obfuscating the entire field of accounting. Besides, it makes their bloated budget appear smaller.
Beyond the $32 billion General Fund of the state, there are the major quasis as they are sometimes called that add about $2 billion. Given Massachusetts population of 6.4 million legal residents, this comes to nearly $5,400 per capita (for every man woman and child). We are fast becoming victims of creeping and swarming socialism.
A billion here, a billion there and soon we're talking about serious money.
Everett Dirksen
If you review the state budgets over the years carefully, it will make you think about future contributions to charities. Governmnt is the mothership of all charities, the big enchilada or the Big Kahuna. And your contribution is not voluntary. If you could make a choice as to which charity you could give your money to, would it be the same choice the Commonwealth makes on your behalf.
In doing my analysis of Massachusetts expenditures from the legislative web pages, I was amazed in how many ways you can spend $30 billion (with a B). All told, there are some 2500 different ways (so far) and some have hilarious names. Casually look through the expenditures, top to bottom to have some chuckles. If you immerse yourself in these expenditures, you will feel your common sense has come under assault.
I was not surprised that this is a welfare state that serve those that fail in life quite well. There is not much the Commonwealth offers to those that succeed in life, except of course, the state government employees themselves. There seems to be an awful lot of $90,000 employees who manage the state welfare dependencies of others.
When state taxes or revenues rise, chances are that someone else's life will improve, but, with high probability, it will not be yours. Here in Massachusetts, we reward failure, not success.
These budgets are clearly created by true income redistributionists who prefer high taxes as a matter of idealogical dogma regardless of revenue consequences.
Providing a 10 year history of Massachusetts expenditures provides you with a view of the metastasis that occurs in state government. When money becomes available, new programs are started and seemingly funded forever more (long past your death). They become cancerous financial tumors on the body politic.
Some expenditures are repeated year after year even though there are no known metrics on their success or failure. A classic expenditure I kept running into was drug use prevention programs. Do they work? How do we know? What metrics are used to support continued funding?
I was astounded to see how much we spend on state police, sheriffs, district attorneys, trial courts, superior courts, district courts, probate courts, family courts, juvenile courts, housing courts, state prisons, county prisons, even environmental law enforcement for what constitutes a small percentage of the overall population. If we measure expenditures by the number of people they serve, the criminal justice area ranks as the highest per capita.
We spend more for State Corrections (8900-0001) than we do for the University of Massachusetts (7100-0200). Why do we not document the expenditures of individual Massachusetts Correctional Institutions (MCIs)? We'd love to see how much was spent on Bridgewater State Hospital for the alledgely criminally insane as documented by the movie Titicut Follies which was subsequently banned in Massachusetts. Has anyone ever really been corrected by State Corrections or has been reformned at the Concord Reformatory? Oxymoron? You can bet on it!
It's a mighty shame that they don't spend some monies to control expenditures but they seem to spend about $115 million per year (1201-0100 Department of Revenue) on revenues.
Clearly, some of the larger expenses in health, elderly affairs and mental retardation should be broken down further. All amounts over $10 million should be broken down. Any department that feels that it is not worth documenting such expenditures should simply not be so funded. It is after all, our collective monies, not theirs.
You can use your browser to search for entries.
On Firefox, CTRL-F will open a small Find line at the bottom of the browser window.
On Internet Explorer (IE), a CTRL-F will pop up a small search window to do the same.



General Comments on the Commonwealth ( your wealth is their wealth ) of Massachusetts Expenditures
The fiscal year ends on June 30th and is always designated by the year it ends. Thus, fiscal 2005 ends on June 30th, 2005. The 2007 General Fund for the state of Montana was $1.8 billion and $3.8 billion for the state of Wyoming. Keep these numbers in mind as you examine Massachusetts numbers. After 300 years of budgeting, the Commonwealth still obfuscates their spending of our tax monies. I was able to round up this information only because I can write software to round up this data more easily than most people. The Department of Revenue spends $130 million. Why can't they have a Department of Expenditures to document how they spend our monies. Still technically incompetent after 300 years. Heavy SIGH!. Beyond these expenditures, there are those items that are off budget (a weasel word for an expense). The legislature is merely convoluting and obfuscating the entire field of accounting. Besides, it makes their bloated budget appear smaller. Beyond the $32 billion General Fund of the state, there are the major quasis as they are sometimes called that add about $2 billion. Given Massachusetts population of 6.4 million legal residents, this comes to nearly $5,400 per capita (for every man woman and child). We are fast becoming victims of creeping and swarming socialism. A billion here, a billion there and soon we're talking about serious money. Everett Dirksen If you review the state budgets over the years carefully, it will make you think about future contributions to charities. Governmnt is the mothership of all charities, the big enchilada or the Big Kahuna. And your contribution is not voluntary. If you could make a choice as to which charity you could give your money to, would it be the same choice the Commonwealth makes on your behalf. In doing my analysis of Massachusetts expenditures from the legislative web pages, I was amazed in how many ways you can spend $30 billion (with a B). All told, there are some 2500 different ways (so far) and some have hilarious names. Casually look through the expenditures, top to bottom to have some chuckles. If you immerse yourself in these expenditures, you will feel your common sense has come under assault. I was not surprised that this is a welfare state that serve those that fail in life quite well. There is not much the Commonwealth offers to those that succeed in life, except of course, the state government employees themselves. There seems to be an awful lot of $90,000 employees who manage the state welfare dependencies of others. When state taxes or revenues rise, chances are that someone else's life will improve, but, with high probability, it will not be yours. Here in Massachusetts, we reward failure, not success. These budgets are clearly created by true income redistributionists who prefer high taxes as a matter of idealogical dogma regardless of revenue consequences. Providing a 10 year history of Massachusetts expenditures provides you with a view of the metastasis that occurs in state government. When money becomes available, new programs are started and seemingly funded forever more (long past your death). They become cancerous financial tumors on the body politic. Some expenditures are repeated year after year even though there are no known metrics on their success or failure. A classic expenditure I kept running into was drug use prevention programs. Do they work? How do we know? What metrics are used to support continued funding? I was astounded to see how much we spend on state police, sheriffs, district attorneys, trial courts, superior courts, district courts, probate courts, family courts, juvenile courts, housing courts, state prisons, county prisons, even environmental law enforcement for what constitutes a small percentage of the overall population. If we measure expenditures by the number of people they serve, the criminal justice area ranks as the highest per capita. We spend more for State Corrections (8900-0001) than we do for the University of Massachusetts (7100-0200). Why do we not document the expenditures of individual Massachusetts Correctional Institutions (MCIs)? We'd love to see how much was spent on Bridgewater State Hospital for the alledgely criminally insane as documented by the movie Titicut Follies which was subsequently banned in Massachusetts. Has anyone ever really been corrected by State Corrections or has been reformned at the Concord Reformatory? Oxymoron? You can bet on it! It's a mighty shame that they don't spend some monies to control expenditures but they seem to spend about $115 million per year (1201-0100 Department of Revenue) on revenues. Clearly, some of the larger expenses in health, elderly affairs and mental retardation should be broken down further. All amounts over $10 million should be broken down. Any department that feels that it is not worth documenting such expenditures should simply not be so funded. It is after all, our collective monies, not theirs. You can use your browser to search for entries. On Firefox, CTRL-F will open a small Find line at the bottom of the browser window. On Internet Explorer (IE), a CTRL-F will pop up a small search window to do the same.

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