Tom Keane

Mo Cowan’s adventure

Massachusetts’ Senate ‘seat warmer’ is anything but stationary

The bookshelves that line one wall of Senator William “Mo” Cowan’s office are empty. Former senator and now Secretary of State John Kerry once occupied this same elegant space in the Russell Senate Office Building. He left, taking all of his books and memorabilia with him, and Cowan arrived, bringing very little. There was no reason to: He knew his time would be short.

Cowan was sworn in on Feb. 7, and he’s scheduled to leave by the end of June. Five months in the Senate isn’t enough time to accomplish much, and people in Cowan’s position — temporary appointments to the job — are derisively called “seat warmers.” They’re there to take votes and make sure the state they represent isn’t forgotten, and on those fronts, Cowan has acquitted himself well. But think of this too as the grown-up equivalent of a college student’s semester abroad. Or, perhaps, Mo Cowan’s excellent adventure.

The day we meet, one top staffer, inherited from Kerry, is leaving; Cowan’s days in the nation’s capital are winding down. “It’s been exhilarating,” he says, “the thrill of my life.” He is the seventh African-American ever sworn in as senator. Raised in rural North Carolina (he recalls Ku Klux Klan members burning crosses and marching on his high school), he made his way to Massachusetts via Northeastern University’s School of Law. He’s only 44, and his career has been meteoric: partner at the influential law firm of Mintz Levin, legal counsel to Governor Deval Patrick, governor’s chief of staff. His wife and two young children live in Stoughton, and he commutes, flying to D.C. on Mondays and heading home Fridays. “The toughest part,” he says, “is being away from my family.”

Cowan’s role as a placeholder makes him, he says, “either the most irrelevant or the most dangerous” person in the Senate. The Senate cares a great deal about seniority and Cowan is at the bottom of the list. On the other hand, he says, “I’m not constrained by dollars or donors.” In a city where job one is running for reelection, Cowan has an unusual degree of freedom. He’s had the time to become a student of the legislative process. He’s met other congressional members and staff, developed relationships around town, and been able to think about what works and what does not.

He acknowledges the partisanship that now grips the Capitol. Yet the Senate, he says, “is truly a club.” Every member — Democrat or Republican — “has been warm and welcoming.”

“Outside of votes,” he says with a smile, “true collegiality.”

There have been moments of disappointment, such as the failure to pass gun background checks. And he laments the effect of the Senate’s 60-vote procedural rules, which often mean a super-majority is needed to pass legislation. “Majority rule ought to mean something.”

He contrasts the slow-moving Senate with its long time horizon to the rapid-fire decision-making he saw in the governor’s office. He observes the differing political pressures politicians from around the country face, the way that votes on the Senate floor really are dictated by politics at home. Senators from the swing states — “the purple states” — fascinate him for their unpredictability and the opportunities they have to reach across aisles. (The better politicians, perhaps, are the ciphers.)

Still, for all of the perceived faults of Washington, he disagrees with those who claim the system is broken. “The solution is elections,” Cowan argues. Things will change “when people decide they want to work together.”

Cowan, a classic inside player, was largely unknown to the public when Governor Patrick first named him. Now with a higher profile — he’s spent much time in office traveling the state — he insists the next step is not political office: “I love serving, but I think I’d loathe running.”

Perhaps. There is wistfulness is his voice as Cowan talks about leaving the Senate. He’ll be back in Massachusetts just in time for summer and plans to spend a few months relaxing and playing with his kids. He says he might rejoin the private sector. From there, he could easily fade away, getting well-paid by clients eager for his smarts and connections. But Cowan doesn’t strike me as the type inclined to waste adventures. Expect more from him. Much more.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on May 14, 2013.

Speaking of which...

Some random thoughts about last week’s news:

Former Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is traveling nonstop around the world in his new job as secretary of state. It’s hard to tell, though. He seems just as present and connected to the Bay State as he ever was.

I’m glad those three women in Cleveland were able to escape their captors after 10 years, but think that next time a kidnapping victim calls 911, the operator at the other end shouldn’t say, “We will get someone there as soon as we get a car open.”

By the way, when three girls disappear in quick succession from the same area, it might make sense for police to at least wonder about run-down households occupied by three brothers with bad hair who refuse to answer the door.

And now I guess we all know what happened to “My Three Sons.”

Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was finally interred somewhere outside of Massachusetts, but not in Russia. When Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev said “We will bury you,” it apparently wasn’t a long-term commitment.

Kudos to South Carolina voters for electing Mark Sanford to Congress. With the Jodi Arias trial over, we need new material.

Analysts say that the problems with the new Windows 8 operating system are so overwhelming that they caused a 14 percent decline in computer sales so far this year. Even so, Microsoft says it’s really pleased with the new software. Kind of like Republicans explaining how happy they were with Mitt Romney’s nomination.

The Cuban government announced a significant donation to the Kennedy Library of thousands of Ernest Hemingway’s letters, telegrams, and other documents. However, access to them is strictly limited to Beyonce and Jay-Z.

State officials have approved new regulations for the sale of medical marijuana. They received over 190 comments on the proposed rules, according to the Department of Public Health. Most of the comments arrived late. Really late.

Chinese officials are upset over a new Pentagon report that directly accuses them of mounting cyberattacks on US military installations and businesses. But there’s an easy solution to that. The Chinese can just change the report.

The Markey-Gomez race is in full swing. AFL-CIO president Steven Tolman says the choice is simple. “One is to be a partner for Elizabeth Warren and another to be a disciple of [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell.” I have two questions. Does Mr. Warren know? And also, is Jesus worried about the competition?

Speaking of which, Markey has vowed not to allow spending by super PACs in the race but he’s fine with getting money from regular PACs. That’s an important distinction because . . . umm, well. OK, never mind.

For years the Red Sox have told us they couldn’t make their seats wider and more comfortable because they needed all of them to accommodate their fans. I think now they have their chance.

The newest casino plan to be proposed would convert a Holiday Inn in Boxborough into a $200 million gambling parlor. I’m OK with that as long as they keep the pool. And kids stay free.

Police say they couldn’t understand anything Worcester Bishop Robert McManus was saying when they stopped him for suspected drunken driving last week. But it’s possible he was just speaking Latin.

There are 24 people running to be the next mayor of Boston. If you want to know whom to vote for, just ask which has a “Plan B.” That’s the one to pick. The others need a better grip on reality.

Reader’s Digest just came out with its surprise ranking of the top 100 most-trusted people in the United States and Tom Hanks is number one. The surprise isn’t Tom Hanks. It’s Reader’s Digest. Who knew it was still around?

The Dow Jones just hit 15,000, its highest ever, and still recent college graduates are complaining because they don’t have jobs. Didn’t they learn to understand graphs in school? Things are great.

And finally, to all of my friends who were so angry with me because I told them not to buy Apple at $600 and then two months later it was at $700, your apologies (Apple today is around $460) are now accepted.

  This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on May 12, 2013.

Good with the bad

In library’s McKim, Johnson buildings, the best and worst of public architecture

STAND ON Boylston Street across from the Boston Public Library — a spot of considerably more emotional weight than ever before — and examine the two buildings that together are the city’s central library. The contrast is striking. To the left is the ornate and lovely McKim Building. Built in 1895, it is massive and delicate at the same time. To its right is the 1972 Johnson Building, simplistic and gloomy. The McKim is one of the city’s most beautiful buildings; the Johnson, one of its ugliest. It’s like evolution running backwards: Over 77 years, we went from good to bad.

In the waning days of his administration, Mayor Tom Menino of Boston has vowed to launch a revamp of the Johnson Building, promising in a recent speech that he’ll replace its granite walls with glass, transforming a fortress that seems designed to repel, like an old-time castle, into an oasis of activity and light that beckons people in.

Menino’s ambitions are more than some speechwriter’s last-minute invention. Task forces involving library advocates and community members have been meeting for months to figure out what to do with the so-called “new” library building. Its multiple failings, inside and out, are apparent to all who visit. Aside from the off-putting exterior, the interior — poorly kept up — feels like wasted space. One controversial idea is to convert much of the entry-level space to commercial use: The money received could keep the library open longer and would bring life to an often empty area. On the other hand, many recoil at ceding over public space to private use.

Something, I expect, will happen; there’s money for it in the city’s proposed budget. But whether the improvements include a radical re-presentation of the Johnson Building to the outside world, well, count me a skeptic. We’ve seen this story before. Boston has its fair share of ugly buildings, and many — including the current mayor — have been thwarted in their plans to tear them down or make them over.

Ugly persists.

Thus we have Boston City Hall (voted the world’s[!] ugliest building by the website virtualtourist.com); the massive, meandering State Health, Education and Welfare Services Center on Staniford Street; the three JFK federal buildings across from City Hall; and the behemoth, view-blocking Congress Street garage.

Sometimes it’s money that keeps them in place; tearing down and rebuilding is expensive. Sometimes ugly seems to become its own virtue (a piece not long ago in the Globe was titled, “In praise of ugly buildings”). Then too, preservationists and others who should know better treat buildings like inviolable artworks.

The difference, of course, is that a bad painting can be put in storage. There’s nowhere to hide a bad building.

If you’re familiar with the buildings in my list, you’re probably aware that most of them are from the 1960s and 1970s. They were designed by some of that era’s best-known names, including Gerhard Kallmann, Michael McKinnell, Paul Rudolph, and Walter Gropius.

Philip Johnson was also one of those talents. A productive designer who lived and worked well into his 90s, he created some great buildings — just not in Boston. To a degree, the BPL project forced some tough constraints on Johnson, including matching up the new building’s height to the much beloved McKim. What we ended up getting with Johnson’s building was a dumbed-down echo of its predecessor (it even uses the same shade of granite). One engages the eye and entrances the mind. The other stupefies.

So what went wrong? Blame the era, perhaps, one of turmoil and change that rejected the past and celebrated a coarse modernism. Blame also the power of government to force its will and a near-disdain for community involvement.

Architects have learned a lot from those days. Current design more consciously cares about users as well as the relationships buildings have to each other and the street. Then too, it’s hard to imagine any of the buildings on my list of uglies getting approved today; the outcry would be too much. That’s a good thing. It means we aren’t necessarily doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, it does seem our doom that the mistakes of the past are too often part of our present.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on May 7, 2013.

Breaking boundaries, but still indulging in gay stereotypes

Former Celtics player Jason Collins is getting a lot of attention for a much-hyped coming out. In the sports world, it doesn’t get bigger than the cover of “Sports Illustrated,” and that’s what Collins got, along with a lengthy, self-penned piece acknowledging his sexuality. Yep, Jason’s gay. But even as Collins supposedly liberates himself, he indulges in stereotypes that one would have thought were left behind decades ago. It’s being called a step forward, and it is, but it’s also a step back.

The big four professional men’s sports — baseball, football, hockey, and basketball — have never featured an openly gay active player, which is what makes Collins’s declaration significant. That announcement was the culmination of efforts in the works for a number of years, led in particular by former Baltimore Raven linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo — a straight player who has pushed the NFL to open up on gay-related issues. Indeed, Collins’s coming out is expected to be the first of many among professional athletes. Gay men, it turns out, can do sports as well as they can do hair.

That last sentence, by the way, indulges in a stereotype, and a pernicious one at that. And in his SI piece, Collins disturbingly appears to do the same.

“I go against the gay stereotype, which is why I think a lot of players will be shocked: That guy is gay?” writes Collins. Yet it seems clear from his piece that he buys into those same stereotypes, and admires himself for resisting them. He’s gay, you know, but not “gay.” Even after coming to terms with his sexuality, for instance, he says “I still had the same mannerisms.” And, he says, “Note to Shaq: My flopping has nothing to do with being gay.”

And, in particular, Collins latches on to the effeminate man stereotype. Collins has a reputation as an aggressive player. “I take charges and I foul — that’s been my forte.” And why is that? “Am I so physical to prove that being gay doesn’t make you soft? Who knows?”

Collins describes himself as deeply closeted, living a “double life” for some time. In fact, until Collins told him last year, even his twin brother didn’t know. He “never suspected.”

Which makes you wonder. While living his double life, did Collins have to hide a true love for Broadway show tunes? Did he refuse to allow teammates to his home for fear that might see how exceptionally neat it was? Did he have to dress down so fans wouldn’t pick up on his sense of high fashion?

These stereotypes cut both ways, of course. Self-professed straight men who like to cook, don’t follow sports, and are mild-mannered instead of hyper-aggressive are suspected of being closeted. And a guy who’s friends — just friends — with a woman? Well, per “Will and Grace,” you know what that means.

One can discuss forever the nature and truth of stereotypes. At some level, many are accurate. People within a certain subgroup will often develop ways of doing things that are different from others. Through much of history, homosexuality has been outside the norm, with gays often isolated and reviled by conventional society. Some jobs were more open to gays, while some behaviors were used as a way for one gay man to signal to another that they might be members of the same minority. Over time, subcultures developed.

But just as with the stereotype that men of Irish descent (and I count myself one) have a particular inclination to beer, these behaviors are fundamentally choices, not compulsions. There is no genetic link between the Irish and beer, nor is there a genetic link between sexual orientation and the limpness of one’s wrist.

If one looks at people as individuals, rather than groups, you’ll find that — straight or gay — there are a wide variety of behaviors that express themselves as masculine or feminine. One of the triumphs of feminism and gay rights has been to broaden and break down the pigeonholes we have used to define what it means to be a man or a woman. Yet even as the old stereotypes are fading away, Jason Collins seems to hold on to a constrained and outdated sense of what it means to be a man.

 This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on May 5, 2013.

A poorly attended election is better than no election at all

Last November, people stood in line for hours to cast their vote on Election Day. It’s a pretty safe bet we won’t have that problem today. Turnout for the special election primary is expected to be exceptionally low. As the Marines might say: the few, the proud, the voters.

It seems wrong that so few people should select the nominees to be the state’s next US senator. And it raises the question: Why have special elections at all? The obvious answer: It’s better to have a little bit of democracy than none at all.

We face two choices when politicians leave their seats early: Have an election to fill out the remainder of the term, or let someone appoint a successor. Massachusetts has done it both ways. Before 2004, governors had the right to fill the empty seat, a system that seemed sensible to the Democratic-dominated legislature as long as the governor in question was a Democrat. But with John Kerry the 2004 presidential nominee and Republican Mitt Romney the governor, suddenly the old ways didn’t seem that good. No one observing the process thought this anything but an unprincipled political ploy, but the genesis of the change notwithstanding, it was the right result.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 36 states still let governors make the appointments; Massachusetts is now one of just 14 with some version of a special election. The tight-fisted don’t especially care for them. Elections, with poll workers and police officers at each precinct, can be expensive.

Still, that’s only money. The real problem with special elections is turnout. It’s not only low but it’s skewed — it’s unrepresentative of the population at large. The result we get represents less the will of the majority than the will of those who bother to show up.

Voting isn’t some secret ritual that only a few have divined. Last year’s long lines proved that; 65 percent of Bay State voters made it to the polls, drawn in by the presidential race as well as the close contest between Elizabeth Warren and Scott Brown. But when there aren’t a lot of contests on the ballot or if media attention is lacking, turnout declines. People need to feel engaged to make it to the polls and this year, it seems, they do not.

When John Kerry resigned Feb. 1, political cognoscenti were salivating over the upcoming contest. But the race never got momentum. February’s blizzard shut down the state. Tom Menino’s late March announcement that he would not be running for a sixth term dominated political chatter for two weeks. And just as that buzz was dying down — and at the moment one would have expected people to start focusing upon the matter at hand — the Marathon bombings so consumed attention that the election seem to disappear.

A special shout-out should also be given to the national Democratic Party, which exerted extraordinary pressure to clear the field for Representative Ed Markey. It was shameful and anti-democratic but for the most part worked; logical candidates such as Representative Michael Capuano ended up bowing out. To his credit, Representative Stephen Lynch didn’t, but the damage was done: by portraying the primary as a done deal, the party helped turn it into a non-event.

The result? The folks who vote in today’s primaries will be the regulars and the party stalwarts, those pushed to the polls by each campaign’s get-out-the-vote efforts. Senior citizens will get rides. Union leaders will make sure their members vote. But a lot of others, occupied with work or family, won’t show up.

Still, the solution to bad elections isn’t no elections. It’s better elections. The final election, scheduled for June 25, may well be more hotly contested in any event, assuming the events of the last few months are not be repeated. There is, as well, a lot we can do to boost voter turnout: allow early voting, hold balloting over several days, provide simple access to absentee ballots, and even — if it can be made secure — permit online voting. And, of course, it would be nice too if national political parties backed off and stopped trying to stifle local competition.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 30, 2013.

Remembering

As flowers and memories fade, Boston needs a true Marathon memorial

After jets crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania woods, a stand-up comedian I know stopped performing. In the face of such an enormity, he wondered, how could we ever laugh again? The aftermath of 9/11, particularly in New York City, was a surreal world of death and wreckage, an alternate reality from which there seemed no escape. Yet it’s natural — indeed, a profound human need — to want to forget, to want to get back to the routine of everyday life: work, school, kids, sports, and the myriad other activities that regularly fill our days. And so eventually (and quite soon in fact) we did.

Almost 12 years later, we are seeing that same impulse in Boston. The Back Bay portion of Boylston Street is the city’s main street, a 1½-mile stretch running from the Common to the Fenway. It is not only the finish line of the Marathon, but an extraordinary mix of colleges, churches, offices, hotels, the Boston Public Library, Copley Square, and all kinds of restaurants, bars, and retailers packed shoulder-to-shoulder. It’s the chic and the hick (a play on words that works better if not read aloud): L’Espalier, Marshalls, the Apple Store, Dunkin’ Donuts, Lord & Taylor, Supercuts, and dozens of others.

For nine days, the street was largely empty. On Wednesday, after cleaning crews had removed the blood, paint, and debris from what had been a vast crime scene, it reopened and, like a rubber band stretched and then released, people surged back in, jamming sidewalks and the roadway.

As one walked the street’s length, there was little left to mark the horrors of that Monday. Marathon Sports, across from the library, was the site of the first blast. A small crowd gathered in front, forming a semicircle and snapping pictures. Ten or so bouquets of flowers, some with notes of condolence, others with words of hope, were laid out on the pavement in a neat line. The scene was the same at the Forum restaurant, just one block west and the location of the second blast: Crowds, semicircle, pictures, flowers. Aside from a few boarded up windows, it was as if the bombings had never happened.

The physical traces of the tragedy are nearly gone. Can memory be far behind?

For five days, the Marathon bombings gripped the nation. It wasn’t just the casualties; two days later, an explosion at a fertilizer plant in Texas killed far more. But an accident is one thing; intentional is altogether different. The images played out endlessly on televisions and computer screens. As with the jets crashing into the twin towers, we saw — from multiple cameras and multiple perspectives — the exact moment terror was unleashed. And we saw it viscerally, at ground level, as bodies lay strewn on sidewalks, blood flowing from grievous wounds.

We saw courage too, as well as resilience and healing. We saw a city come together with extraordinary unity, a city that mourned, deeply and genuinely, the lives lost. We saw drama: a manhunt and the lockdown, an episode of “Homeland’’ in our backyards. There was more death, firefights, an overwhelming show of force, seeming failure, and then, by the luckiest of chances, capture.

There remain so many questions. How could such terror be unleashed, allegedly by two loners with (it appears) little money and no backing? How could two men with such promise have become so utterly twisted? How had they been able to shed their humanity to such a degree that they could place their bags on the street, look directly into the eyes of their victims, and still trigger the blasts?

Boston has endured and survived. A year from now, we’ll undoubtedly mark the anniversary in some special and somber way. But we need something more than that, something more than video clips, more than Wikipedia entries, more than plaques placed on building walls. We need something permanent, a memorial, something physical and significant built right in the heart of the Back Bay that honors victims, recognizes those affected, tells a story, and, most importantly, helps us understand. It’s the next task before us. Even as we forget, we must make sure we’ll always remember.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 28, 2013.

Surveillance and privacy

Cameras aren’t the simple solution they might seem to be

It was cameras on the street that led to the rapid identification of the Brothers Tsarnaev and it was cameras on the street that likely stopped them from killing even more. The effective use of surveillance in the Marathon bombings seems to make a compelling case for installing even more cameras.

Except that next time around, the terrorists might wear wigs, mustaches, and thick-framed glasses.

Or perhaps they’ll do their deeds in the dark.

Surveillance cameras seem like such a simple solution to crime and terrorism. Technology has advanced so that cost and data-storage issues are no longer a big deal. The cameras are easy to use and deliver clear, high-quality images. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg predicts that soon “there’ll be cameras everyplace.” Boston has quite a few already, including hundreds on subways and buses. So too do many other major American cities. The United Kingdom is held out as the most advanced example of their use, with at least 1.85 million surveillance cameras in place: one camera for every 34 citizens.

Yet there is scant evidence they do much to improve public safety.

The UK experience has been much studied and the overall conclusion (from 2002 and 2005 analyses of dozens of studies) is that the ubiquitous cameras have little impact on crime rates. There are many reasons why. Much crime is impulsive; people often aren’t thinking about cameras when they steal, hit, stab, or shoot. Then again, if potential criminals are aware that cameras are around, they’ll look for other times and places, or just figure out how to avoid being recognized.

All that notwithstanding, at times the cameras can help immensely — as the quick capture of the alleged Marathon bombers proved. Demands for more such cameras will be hard to resist. And in any event, public surveillance is expanding no matter what local officials do. Private businesses increasingly use cameras; the front desks of many apartment buildings, for instance, are constantly monitoring their grounds and even elevators. Then too, almost all of us have smartphones able to take stills and video at a moment’s notice.

In other words, cameras are inevitable. The real issue isn’t resisting their presence, but rather figuring out the rules for their use. How do we preserve privacy while still letting law enforcement do its job?

Two thoughts. First, even if the images are taken by government agencies, do not make them accessible to the public. Beginning in the 1960s, governments at all levels adopted various freedom of information rules that were intended to make the inner workings of politics and the bureaucracy visible to all.

The goal was worthy, but too often those rules have been perverted so that information the government collects about us is now public as well.

Every 911 call, for instance, is a public document. So too are the names of holders of some gun permits (something that prompted shock when a New York newspaper then took that data and published maps for all to see) and, for that matter, households that have security systems installed, meaning those without security systems are known as well. Laws need to be strengthened to make certain that surveillance data are confidential; with rare exceptions, government videos of a street scene, for instance, should be off-limits to the press or ordinary citizens.

Second, we need to put in place clear guidelines about when and how courts, law enforcement, and other government agencies can access the images and video they are collecting. Most of us would probably acknowledge that law enforcement should be able to use surveillance data in cases of terrorism or violent crimes. But how about minor incidents (such as casual drug use) or civil actions (a divorce suit, for instance)? That is where we should draw the line: Those should be off-limits. Off-limits as well should be the use of cameras for trolling — following someone around simply to see what they’re up to.

Cameras are here to stay. On occasion they may prove a boon to public safety. But even when we are in public, we should be able to expect that our private actions will, for the most part, remain private.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 23, 2013.

Touching the third rail of politics

Democrats balk at a new formula for calculating Social Security

Tea Partiers are accused of being the intransigent face of the right, the brook-no-compromise folks who’d rather accomplish nothing than give an inch on their principles. But the current dustup over President Obama’s new 2014 budget suggests the Tea Partiers have more than their fair share of counterparts on the left — with the Massachusetts congressional delegation prominent among them.

At issue is the president’s proposal to change the formula for calculating Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustments. Most of us are familiar with the Consumer Price Index — the CPI — which measures the price inflation of a “basket” of goods and services that people typically buy. The CPI is flawed, however. In the real world, it should be based not only on how much prices inflate but also on how we, as consumers, respond to that inflation. Thus, if the price of oranges goes up, I may decide to buy less expensive apples instead.

That “substitution” effect is poorly captured by the traditional CPI, and the feds have developed an alternative — called “chained CPI” — they think is better. Under chained CPI, cost-of-living increases are generally lower than under the traditional CPI. That makes sense. In that switch to cheaper apples as the price of oranges rises, I’m still getting my federally recommended servings of fruit per day. But my overall cost of fruit wouldn’t increase.

The Obama administration argues that chained CPI is “more accurate,” and so the budget uses it instead of conventional CPI to figure future increases to Social Security. You might think this is common sense. Yet that change has provoked a political firestorm.

Obama and Republicans like chained CPI because, since it shows a slower rise in the cost of living, it will save money over time. But for Democrats and advocates like AARP, the inaccuracy of the conventional CPI is, in fact, its virtue. Because the CPI overstates the effect of inflation, each year’s cost-of-living adjustment is a real (that is, noninflationary) increase in benefits. The president now threatens to take that goodie away.

Doctrinaire progressives such as the Daily Kos, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and MoveOn.org are howling with anger. So too are Democrats in Congress. It’s “the first proposal by a Democratic president to start undoing the New Deal” says New York Representative Jerrold Nadler. “Chained CPI will pull people down,” adds Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

The two Bay State Democrats battling to succeed John Kerry are also loudly opposed, portraying Obama as some hapless, witless tool of the right. “Tea Party Republicans may have pushed the president into many of these difficult decisions,” speculates Representative Edward Markey. Representative Stephen Lynch laments that “negotiations over taxes with the Republicans have forced [Obama] into a bad deal.” Meanwhile, in a posting on her website, Senator Elizabeth Warren says she “was shocked to hear that the president’s newest budget proposal would cut $100 billion in Social Security benefits.”

Overheated rhetoric notwithstanding, chained CPI doesn’t “cut” anyone’s Social Security. It just reduces future increases. Indeed, one would have thought Obama’s proposal far less draconian than other ideas, such as increasing the retirement age or means-testing Social Security. But those too, Democrats say, are off-limits: “We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits” reads an open letter to Obama signed by more than 36 House Democrats. That raises the question: If not Social Security, then where do any future savings come from? The answers offered up are the usual nostrums: undefined “common-sense reforms” and requiring “the rich and giant corporations to pay their fair share.” In other words, from nowhere.

“If we’re serious about deficit reduction, then these reforms have to go hand in hand with reforming our tax code,” Obama told NPR. But Social Security has always been the so-called “third rail” of politics, and Democrats (and a fair number of Republicans) have pandered to crowds for years at the slightest hint of belt-tightening. That’s what makes Obama’s genuine leadership on the issue particularly courageous, while the behavior of progressives and Democrats particularly embarrassing.

The left delights in ripping into Tea Partiers for refusing to negotiate, claiming they’re betraying the nation by making America ungovernable. Et tu, Democrats?

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 21, 2013.

E-tailers, meet the tax code

Greed is the motive behind government officials’ desire to tax Internet transactions. Fairness is the reason that causes many others — including me — to come to the same conclusion: We should treat online retail purchases the same way we treat those made from the corner store.

Internet sales aren’t subject to the sales tax because the legal world hasn’t caught up with the real one. In trying to figure out when a company might be subject to local tax rules, courts long ago decided the test would be whether the business had a “physical presence” in the state. That test created an exemption for mail-order companies and the like, but they were a trivial part of overall retail sales, so few cared. But then the Internet came along and, suddenly, a small exception became a giant loophole.

Nevertheless, those were the rules: no sales tax on items purchased from e-tailers. Or so we all seem to believe. In fact, we really are supposed to pay a tax. It’s called a “use” tax, and it looks and smells just like a sales tax — and, at 6.25 percent, it’s exactly the same rate. But rather than a retailer collecting the money and sending it to the state, you, the consumer, are supposed to send it off yourself.

Hands up if you’ve ever done that? I thought not. Me neither. The Department of Revenue doesn’t enforce the use tax. It’s far easier to go after a relative handful of retailers for a sales tax than it is to send out inspectors to track all of those UPS packages being delivered door-to-door. (Still, I half expect this admission means the next sound I hear is a DOR agent ringing the bell.)

So it’s been a pretty good life for us consumers and an even better one for Internet retailers, who have seen sales soar for all of the reasons they tout — convenience, product selection, accessibility — and the one they don’t: a built-in tax discount. Buy a television online for $2,000 and a Bay State resident saves $125 in tax. Eventually, as they say, it adds up to real money.

The good life is about to end.

Legislative proposals are now making their way through Congress that would set up a new system of rules for Internet sales. Last month, New York’s highest state court broadened the “physical presence” rule to include many online operations. Meanwhile, Amazon recently opened offices in Reading and Cambridge. That was just the hook the Commonwealth needed and indeed, come November and the start of the holiday season, Bay State residents buying from Amazon will now be paying a sales tax.

That’s the way it should be.

Local officials will sing the praises of retailers, and for good reason. Thriving stores make for thriving communities. They create jobs, especially entry-level positions that cater to the young and less-skilled. Strong retail districts bring in residents and drive out crime.

But praise is easy; retailing is tough. Rents are high, “shrinkage” is rampant, unpredictable weather and increasing gas prices play havoc, and local regulations can be crushing. Look at the saga of Restoration Hardware, which spent millions to renovate the historic but crumbling New England Museum of Natural History. The reward for its effort, from my perspective, was harassment from city inspectors who delayed its opening by weeks. Or how about the everyday annoyances: meter maids aggressively ticketing customers, special city permits to use a dumpster, neighborhood nabobs demanding signage no one can see.

Still, the worst insult is the unfair competition from the Internet. Shoppers roam retailers’ aisles, play with the goods, and then use their smartphones to order them online. I don’t blame the customers — they’re acting rationally to save a buck — but I do blame a crazy tax system.

Here’s a solution that’s fair to all: Broaden the sales tax to cover everyone — online and on the street — while at the same time cutting the rate across the board (by my reckoning, to somewhat under 6 percent). It’s a three-way win: the state ends up with the same (or slightly more) money in its coffers, consumers benefit from a lower tax rate, and, most importantly, the brick-and-mortar stores that invest in our communities get a fighting chance.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on April 14, 2013.

Term limits would weaken Boston’s mayor

Tributes and encomiums followed Tom Menino’s announcement that his fifth term would be his last. But there’s been an undercurrent of discontent, too. It’s not so much over what the mayor achieved, but how some say he achieved it: by aggregating power and wielding it ruthlessly — “Boss Menino,” if you will.

There are those who fault Menino’s personality, saying he’s obsessed with score-settling, taking offense at the most minor of slights and holding grudges forever. Others look at the issue more broadly, arguing the problem is the length of the mayor’s tenure itself, which allowed him to obtain so much clout. The simple solution is term limits. What’s good enough for the president of the United States should be good enough for a mayor, right? Be wary of simple solutions however. They often have a downside.

No question, Menino dominated the town and brooked little dissent. Those who dared run against him became political outcasts. And their defeats were nearly assured; few in turn dared to contribute to a challenger’s campaign for fear they too would be outcasts. Developers and businesses out of Menino’s favor — Walmart, Niketown, Chick-fil-A, Karmaloop’s Greg Selkoe, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, parking magnate (and one-time Los Angeles Dodgers owner) Frank McCourt, to name just a few — found it hard or impossible to do business in Boston. Globe columnist Lawrence Harmon several days ago wrote about his personal experiences in that regard: A negative column about Menino got him cut off from City Hall.

Even so, the image of “Boss Menino” is exaggerated. Certainly, the mayor didn’t believe it. His near-obsessive outreach to residents (the joke was that, where two or more are gathered, Menino is in their midst) was driven by his belief that his strength came from knowing better than anyone else what they wanted — and if he was on the wrong track, he’d quickly adjust. And if Menino’s power really was so great, how then to explain his many notable failures? Look, for instance, at the multitude of plans he had for City Hall: rebuild it, put a hotel on the plaza, move it to the waterfront. All came to naught. And union negotiations? He never got what he wanted.

Still, he did get stuff done. By most measures, Boston has improved dramatically under Menino. It looks better, racial tensions have fallen, crime is down, the local economy is stronger, and urban flight has reversed. All of this didn’t happen solely because of Menino, but much credit is his. Would he have been able to accomplish all that if term limits were in place?

Probably not. Term limits come at a price: They weaken politicians.

Part of that is the “lame duck” problem.

Now in his second and final term, Barack Obama is feeling it; he’s finding it hard to persuade even Democrats to support tough gun control legislation. The same would happen at the city level.

Effectiveness in politics comes through the ability to lead and impose one’s will. While we might hope that would happen merely through the brilliance of one’s ideas, all too often it’s a fear of consequences that really get results. Yet a politician who’s headed out the door can’t offer up much in the way of consequences. Opponents would figure they could just wait him out. If Menino had been a lame duck, then unions, city councilors, neighborhood activists, and a host of others would have had a far easier time of stopping change.

Think NIMBYism has been bad during the Menino era? It would have been far worse with term limits. Indeed, Menino’s already finding that the case. He may have over eight months left in his term, but it’s now looking more like a nostalgic farewell tour than a time of bold initiatives.

Then, too, term limits can cut down politicians just as they are hitting their stride. It takes time to become versed in any job, especially one as complex as mayor. Menino’s later years were stronger than his earlier because he learned from mistakes, built coalitions, hired better people, and better deployed the levers of power.

Term limits would certainly avoid another imperial mayoralty. The tradeoff is the spectacular advances of the last 20 years would likely never be repeated.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on April 9, 2013.