yes no yes no, sounds like john Kerry answering a question

“None has suggested turning your capital city into the sort of place that people visit for hookers.”

Uh, Howie, that sounds like a description of Everett and Chelsea RIGHT NOW..

Why is it that certain people (SEIU) assumes, the government has the rights to tell business owner what they need to provide in a benefit package. Sick,vacation and personal time are benefits not a right.

Because if they didn`t you wouldnt get any. You Like benefits and vacation time? Thank a union for it.

Like paying higher prices and taxes? Thank a union for it.

Utter rubbish. The old non-union General Radio Company invented paid vacation and profit sharing. And it was Henry Ford who single-handedly created the concept of a middle class when he paid his employees $5/day, an unheard of wage back in the early 1900s. The unions had absolutely nothing to do with inventing benefits and vacation time.

I work for a non profit now who provides me with sick, vacation and personal time off as part of my benefit package .I was a member of local 4 I need1200 hrs to get insurance, I had no sick or vacation time. So tell me who do I owe thanks too.

your wrong buddy, companies began to offer benefits to attract the best workers. Health insurance and vacation time were just a couple of them. Unions have long outlived being needed for the workers,and today they represent the financial wing of the democrat party and themselves.

Right, it's like revisionist history here. People died to get worker rights, it was the unions that started it all.

Unions do far more harm than good these days because they've ventured far beyond their purpose for existing - to mediate between employer and employee. It should have always been illegal for a union to either donate union dues to or even endorse a political party or candidate.

As far as public unions are concerned, Carter didn't go far enough in eliminating federal bargaining rights. That law should have applied to all public employees. These people work for us, the taxpayers, not some profit-hungry private company.

Paid vacation time isn't the biggest problem. That BY FAR would be the overly generous pensions far too many public employees either are receiving or are slated to receive upon retirement. Unfunded liabilities are said to have exceeded 100 trillion dollars. Either the money or the expected value of that money simply won't be there when due. Something has to give. We had better hope one of these two destructive things don't happen - an economic crash or a bout of hyperinflation.

You grow the number of private sector jobs. As seen here n MA mini me has increased the number of government hacks

In MN when the i- 35 bridge collapsed it was rebuilt and opened in a year. Here in Boston just to refurbish the Longfellow bridge it was closed for 3 years. That because the union thugs policy of "don't kill the job" And of course no politicians will say anything as most of them have been bought and paid for by those same unions.

Have they finished the Rt 128 road work in the Dedham stretch? That job has been going on for, what, 20 years, 30 years. Talk about not killing the job.

I live in a small town of 2500 people. We had one small bridge that needed replacement, it's probably about 100 feet long and the road it was on had to be closed. It took over TWO YEARS to do it. We called it the Little Dig.

happyday, let me add a fact to the "Union not killing the job." Yes, the job could be longer than estimated due to changes, etc, but here's another aspect on "not killing the job." The Volpe Construction Co built UMass in Boston in the 70's. Not that far into the job, Volpe saw that he might have a problem with the project's finish date. If the job is not finished by a certain date, he would be financially hit with fines, and he didn't want that, so he kept an extra attendance book for the minorities, which he saw could affect his deadline (I knew the timekeeper). Payday was on Thursday, and a good portion of the minorities were out on Friday. He couldn't fire them because he had to have a certain percentage of minorities on his work force. Fast forward to the deadline, which would not be met. In court, he presented the attendance book of the minorities to the judge, and explained to the judge that he was powerless to correct the attendance issue - if he fired a minority, he/she had to be replaced by a minority, by Law. The judge saw that he had a point, and he was given an extension on the deadline, and UMass was finished before the new deadline.
That was 40 years ago, and certain circumstances have been addressed since then, but some people, of all races, will take advantage of anything they can. Period.

happyday, I replied on a factual construction project here in Boston in the 70's, but Disgust wouldn't post it. I guess that's Freedom of the Press - the freedom to post what they want to post. Will this post?

Way to go, Howie. I can't ever remember seeing a column like this spelling out multiple ballot questions and exposing the trickery our corrupt legislators use to derail the public's intentions, like wording it for a "yes" vote when people really want to vote "no". This one column should be clipped out and saved for the elections, no telling how many THOUSANDS of people won't be fooled and vote instead for what they really believe. This is using the power of the press for good. Nobody else is doing this.

The New York Times has trained their liberal readers to vote the way they report, so it's been done before, only in a different way. Sometimes the Editor will just tell them to vote for so and so and that's it; or vote for this referendum and that's it. Of course, the owner of the NYT is so stupid he can't write all that well. He would be unable to string together a few words, let alone an entire paragraph detailing WHY and exposing his friends.

You can not give one shred of evidence to back this claim up. I dare you, prove it.

I think the state logo should be the orange highway barrel

The reason I will vote to repeal the casino law is that the last thing we need in this state is another useless state agency loaded with connected people making obscene amounts of money (and the associated pensions) to oversee what all of what 6 sites?
Now if the lottery commission was to oversee all state gambling I might go for that but no to the way it's set up now.

Let's see... vote for a casino to further the expansion of an already corrupt, bloated government or vote against more corruption and then proceed to weed out the rest of the corruption by replacing Democrats with Republicans and then proceed to hold them to their promises to clean up the massive mess created by Democrats. This is just WAAAAAY too difficult a decision for you Marxachusetts voters. Independent thinking was just not part of the program administered by your Marxist mentors during your formative years.

Thanks Howie. Don't need a cheat-sheet now.

Nor do I, just vote the opposite of what Howie says.

Please explain what a Marxist is..... I don't think it means what you think it means.

Marxism is a form of Socialism, which is a form of Communism. They're all in the same category - government control.
In June, 2009, Pravda, THE Russian newspaper, ran an article on the USA (check it out on snopes, if in doubt). In summary, Pravda said that the US was racing towards Marxism like a runaway train; religion would be stifled; students know more about the "pop" world than history or civics; the public would complain about a screwed up order of McNuggets than complain about losing a Constitutional right; the topper was the election of Obama who will set a record of printing and spending more money in the world. It also said that taxpayers money will be misused to bankroll thefts, swindles, and losses - Solyndra ring a bell? And they printed that 6 months into Obama's first term. How did they know something like that when OUR public didn't?
(another post, or not to post, issue. This would be my second one today with Disqus)

OR,vote like me...left,right,left right,left,right with my feet in January. Off to Florida with my pensions,investments and my sanity.No state income tax,great weather and no bowtie bum kissers!

Have been in Central Florida for six years now but unfortunately I come back to this corrupt state in the summer to escape the heat. Best move you will ever make although I have learned that they got the "good old boy network" down there too. But with no state taxes and property taxes very reasonable you will never regret it.

Same here, February 2015-and NOt coming back.

Congratulations! You'll love it!

No, just Rick Scott and way more corruption than in MA. So sad to see yet another conservative leave our beautiful state, you'll be missed. I hear that Hillary will do well in Florida. Anyway, enjoy the nice weather.

I get a kick out of people who don't like Mr. Carr coming on these boards just to say what a jerk he is. I mean, that's intelligence bar none. If you don't like the columnist, don't read the column. If you want to disagree with the column, that's fine, but at least disagree half way intelligently. Saying the columnist is a jerk is so 'old'. Go read someone you agree with if you don't want to open your mind to 'new' thought.

It's not just the 'jerk" columnist who's a jerk, there's plenty of other jerks on here as well, jerk.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Does your whining ever end????

Suggestion, go over to boston dot com You can read about rainbows and unicorns and bad republicans all day.

I don't take suggestions very well. I'll stick around here and bash my fellow right leaning cohorts until they finally get it.

Why do the two photos with this story tell voters to vote no on the casinos on November 5th when the election is on the 4th? How much more f**ked up can this state be?

November 5th was set aside for ALL the "undocumented" to vote on that day .....

Ignore liberals, for liberals are Democrats and for the past 30 plus years
have done nothing whatsoever to benefit this once great nation.
Their answer to everything is more taxes, more regulations and of course
a bloated, inefficient bureaucracy. Of course the Reps. are often complicit
in the scheme, so be very careful for whom you vote.

Howie, I will not be going to any of the casinos ever, and they will not be hurting where I live and they are not going to be in Wellesley or Newton. I disagree with your vote for #3. Let them build their casinos. All of the neighbors have voted YES, build them. All of the locations need something to improve them. Yes, Atlantic City has had failures. Why, because they built too many in one location. It's called greed. If a certain segment of our population wishes to spend their money in a casino and some of that money will go towards improving the tax picture, then I'm for the casinos. Some of that tax money will go to the State's coffers won't it? I certainly hope that the hacks aren't getting it all!

Why does everyone compare Boston to Atlantic City? They are nothing alike. Plus why are people so concerned with casinos that have failed? It's private investment not public funds. No one worries about the opening of another gas station because four have failed. I am so sick of people deciding what's best for me. I won't even go to the casino but if I want to I want the choice. I laugh when I hear the do-gooders say "No, we can't have casinos, it will ruin the Lottery". Talk about something you don't have a chance.

Yes No NO No

I agree with three out of the four Howie. You're wrong on the casinos. First, we're not creating a Las Vegas; ever go to Foxwoods? No hookers there, no criminals, just people spending money on their choice of entertainment. Second, as someone like you who constantly talks about a free economy, well . . . . isn't it the casino's choice to decide to build and aren't they free to take the risk to fail? Or are you saying that government should protect people and businesses from themselves? You're oppose to the nanny state but you want the state to be a nanny state when you want? Sorry Howie that's the same hypocrisy you complain about which makes you twice the hypocrite. Think about Howie; you've become the hypocrite you hate.

Artie, you can be for casinos and against the legislation that Question 3 would repeal. This state should scrap the law and go back to the drawing board by creating a commission which has keeping organized crime out of casino gaming as its sole responsibility. All of the baloney about licensing and deciding how much communities can extort from casino operators should not be any business of a hack-infested agency.

Bingo! Well said.

Same thing with politics, Howie only votes for liberals and RINO"S . HE'S never voted for a conservative.

Howie's a moonbat

Howie's a moonbat didn't you know?