Tom Keane

‘Taxachusetts’ is a misnomer, at least for now

Massachusetts is not, in fact, “Taxachusetts.” Rather, the Bay State is right in the middle, neither high nor low, imposing less of a burden on its citizens than certain other states filled with anti-tax braggadocio (ahem, that would be you, New Hampshire). But “Taxachusetts” is also less about reality than it is a state of mind. We may not tax heavily now, but we used to — and if certain folks had their druthers, we would once again.

The financial website WalletHub just released its ranking of the best and worst states to be a taxpayer. On top was Wyoming (with average annual taxes of $2,365) while Massachusetts ($6,884) came in at 21. Some states with greater tax burdens defy stereotypes. South Carolina, for example, was 23rd, Georgia 26th, and the aforementioned Granite State was 28th ($7,419). That seems a puzzle. With no sales or income taxes, how can New Hampshire be worse off than Massachusetts?

Because politicians are crafty people. New Hampshire crows about the taxes it doesn’t have even as it finds other ways to reach into pocketbooks; its property taxes, for example, are among the highest in the nation.

In fact, the myth of Taxachusetts has been widely reported. The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center observes the Bay State takes 10.4 percent of its citizens’ incomes as taxes, less than the US average of 10.6 percent. The nonpartisan StateMaster looked at taxes as a percent of GDP and ranked Massachusetts right in the middle, at 25. The Tax Foundation notes that, when it comes to taxes, Massachusetts is a “beacon of moderation.”

The Tax Foundation’s comment was made in 2007, by the way. So why does everyone still think of us as Taxachusetts? Perhaps it’s just that we all like clever wordplay (Connecticut has higher taxes than Massachusetts, but “Connectitax” just doesn’t have the same ring). Perhaps, as your mother likely once told you, a bad reputation is hard to shake. Or perhaps, like a trained tiger, the impulse to bite is never far from the surface.

We used to bite hard. Thirty-plus years ago, Bay State taxes really were among the highest in the nation. So what changed? Many deserve credit, but at the top of any list would be Barbara Anderson, founder of Citizens for Limited Taxation. She created CLT in 1974 to battle against a graduated income tax and then won a major set of victories in the 1980s that sharply limited property taxes. Anderson was irascible then, and she remains that way today, earning a good share of liberal wrath. Yet she helped usher in an era of significantly more responsible spending and — not coincidentally — a strong and sustained economic boom. A 16-year parade of Republican governors and substantially more tax-averse legislators (especially in the House) helped keep things in check.

But the tiger is getting restless. Last summer, Governor Deval Patrick led the charge for a major tax boost. One that passed — a tax on computer-based services — would have cost the state’s high-tech firms perhaps $500 million annually. After a threatened referendum and a raft of bad press, a chastened Legislature eventually repealed the measure. Earlier this month the Tax Fairness Commission, set up by the Legislature, released a set of recommendations to make the tax code “fairer.” I have much sympathy with the commission’s argument that lower-income families pay too much, but many of its proposals are worrisome. One, in fact, harkens back to CLT’s founding: It wishes to amend the state constitution to allow income taxes to be graduated.

This report, last year’s services tax, and a stream of other tax-hike ideas suggest we’ve become a little complacent about taxation. Granted, there are always good projects out there that deserve spending. Who wouldn’t like better roads, increased social services, and the like? The demands for more are insistent, and they are pushed by those with a strong interest in getting them through. The interests of taxpayers are more diffuse (remember Patrick justifying a gas tax increase by saying it was merely “the equivalent of one large cup of coffee a week?”) and the benefits of stable taxation harder to see. Like a movie monster that just won’t die, Taxachusetts could rise again.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 30, 2014.

Make it greener to drive

Last Friday I took the Green Line to Faneuil Hall to listen to five gubernatorial candidates talk about energy and the environment. They were unanimous in their enthusiasm for transit-oriented development, subways, buses, and other policies to get us out of our cars, cut energy consumption, and save the world from global climate change.

Turns out, they had all arrived by automobile.

Oh, they were appropriately sheepish about it. And defensive too: Staffers rode with them, some explained, so really it was a car pool. Others made sure we knew they weren’t in SUVs or that they were driving particularly fuel-efficient models.

A good “gotcha” moment you might think, but not really. I rode the T because it was convenient, not because of some high-minded scruples. And as my ride illustrated, there were good reasons the candidates drove automobiles. Including waiting time, my trip from Kenmore Square to Government Center took almost 45 minutes. The return was slightly longer. But I wasn’t as pressed for time as the candidates. They were all coming from events scattered about the region, and afterwards they’d be going to other events. To keep to their schedules, traveling by car was a necessity.

All of which underscores a key point. The automobile is a great way to get around, perhaps the best and most convenient form of transportation ever invented. Most of us have one. So why are we so embarrassed about it? Cars speak to freedom and independence; we can go wherever we want. Mass transit, on the other hand, speaks to, well, the masses: We’re all in the same boat — or bus or train — together. Metaphors for politics and life? You bet. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the animus toward the automobile is rooted in a left-wing preoccupation with the collective and the community, just as right-wing rhapsodies over the open road have a libertarian bent.

Metaphors notwithstanding, though, there are real problems with automobiles. The big one, of course, is that they consume energy. But that is not a problem mass transit solves.

According to the US Department of Energy, for instance, a car consumes on average 3,364 BTUs per passenger mile traveled. A bus — the most common form of public transit available — consumes more: 4,240 BTUs. As the DOE notes, these figures can be tricky. Energy consumption per passenger mile traveled varies depending on how full a bus is. The same with a car. If two or three people are in your automobile, then the energy consumption numbers improve dramatically. So too if you’re driving a plug-in Toyota Prius (50 miles per gallon) instead of a Honda Odyssey (22 miles per gallon).

My point isn’t that we should stop investing in public transit. But the purpose of subways and buses is to reduce congestion on crowded city streets. If we want to solve the energy issues posed by cars, we won’t get there by berating people for getting behind the wheel. Rather, we need to make it easier and greener to drive.

A few examples. Crowded roads should be widened and on- and off-ramps improved. Clogged highways with stopped cars just waste energy. We should get rid of archaic laws, such as the automobile dealership system, that discourage innovative carmakers like Tesla from selling their wares. Rather than defending the old taxi medallion system, we should promote ride-sharing applications. The state could help build an electric vehicle charging infrastructure around the Commonwealth. And we should consider incentives for people to buy or lease newer, more energy-efficient vehicles.

None of this will appease the anti-automobile crowd. But most of us — including gubernatorial candidates — need, use, and enjoy our cars. Good public policy should help us continue to do so.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on March 25, 2014.

Scott Brown should ditch ‘People’s Pledge’

Scott Brown eagerly signed on to the “People’s Pledge” when, as sitting senator, he faced a challenge from Elizabeth Warren. Now, one state away, he’s set to take on New Hampshire’s Jeanne Shaheen, and she’s urging him to once again take the pledge. He’d be smart to refuse, letting pragmatism trump principle. Very few care about the principle anyway.

The pledge is largely a Massachusetts invention. Thanks to a 2010 Supreme Court decision loosening campaign finance restrictions — Citizens United v FEC — concerns about spending mushroomed. So in 2012, Brown and Warren pledged to restrict third-party involvement in their race through what looked like self-flagellation: They would punish themselves for any outside expenditures, donating half the amount spent to a charity of the other candidate’s choosing.

Common Cause sang praise for the pledge. In an analysis after the race, it claimed that the level of outside spending was far less than in similar races across the country. But, in truth, it’s not clear the pledge accomplished much good. And Brown very likely ended up regretting the idea.

One supposed benefit of cutting outside spending is that negative ads are reduced. But as the Globe’s Jeff Jacoby has noted, the Brown-Warren matchup was pretty ugly anyway. (Remember the fake-Indian gibes?) Not only that, but there’s no reason to believe outside money has to be negative. Third-party groups could just as easily pump up the credentials of the candidates they support. The reason they don’t, sadly, is not the source of the money. It’s that negative campaigning works.

In addition, the pledge can be pretty ineffectual. In the Brown-Warren race, for example, third parties such as the League of Conservation Voters still ran anti-Brown ads while the super-PAC America 360 urged votes for the incumbent. But they got around the pledge by mailing flyers to homes (the pledge only applied to TV and radio) or claiming these were get-out-the-vote efforts.

The real problems with the pledge run deeper, however. First is the assumption that outsiders should have no say in local races, that only the people of, say, Massachusetts, have a rightful interest in who they pick for US Senate. But such a parochial view of the world is simply wrong. Local races have a national impact. Democrats, for instance, enthusiastically try to defeat Tea Party candidates in distant states they’ve never visited. They can do so by sending money directly to candidates, shipping it to national Democratic groups, or contributing to pro-democratic super-PACs. Republicans use the same mechanisms to thwart candidates they don’t want.

The second problem with the pledge is the belief that it levels the playing field between candidates. Sometimes that might be true, but oftentimes the pledge simply becomes a way for one side to cramp the fundraising of the other. My guess is that Brown miscalculated when he proposed the pledge in 2012. Up in the polls, with a nice cash hoard and running against a relative unknown, he must have figured Warren would never match him financially. She was easily able to do so however, tapping into vast Democratic donor networks that were energized by the prospect of electing a true-blue liberal.

This time, Shaheen’s embrace of the pledge appears to be nothing more than a clever campaign tactic. Democrats nationally are facing a number of tight senatorial races (many, in fact, are predicting a Republican takeover of the body), and there’s fear there won’t be enough money to go around. Get Brown to sign the pledge, and Democrats can spend their money elsewhere while Shaheen faces a less well-funded opponent.

Still, how can Brown, who once trumpeted cleaning up campaigns, now reverse course? Won’t people care? Sure, a few will. They’ll be mostly journalists and good-government types who will wring their hands and mutter dark imprecations. But the imbroglio will blow over. In the scheme of things, campaign finance is no big deal; it doesn’t move votes. Witness, for example, Boston’s recent mayoral race, where John Connolly nobly turned down third-party by an education-reform organization. Marty Walsh, on the other hand, welcomed outside funders and relied on them to eke out a victory. The lesson for Brown: The pledge buys far less favor than does the money foregone.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 23, 2014.

The symbols of Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations

The run-up to Boston’s St. Patrick’s Day was worrying, filled with symbolism that hearkened back to long-ago days of intolerance and small-mindedness. Symbols of the day itself, however, were of a different, better sort. Perfect? Hardly. Getting there? Yes.

The focus was the neighborhood of South Boston, the heart of Ireland in America (New York City running a distinct second), which has witnessed its fair share of turmoil, from the sometimes violent protests of anti-busing marchers in the 1970s to the more recent real estate revolution that has seen old-timers making fortunes off of gentrifying newcomers. At issue were two events of great significance and long tradition. One was the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, an annual meal cum political roast. The second was the parade, first held in 1901 and sponsored by the Allied War Veterans Council.

There were two problems, one new, one old. The breakfast is traditionally emceed by Southie’s state senators who have always possessed four attributes: They were from the neighborhood, of Irish heritage, white, and male. But this year the senator hailed from neighboring Dorchester and possessed none of those qualities: She is Linda Dorcena Forry, she’s black, and her family comes from Haiti. Many, to say the least, were taken aback.

Meanwhile, there was the perennial controversy over gays and lesbians openly marching in the parade. The organizers don’t want them and their determination has been such that in 1995 they brought the issue all the way to the US Supreme Court, winning unanimously. The decision was absolutely correct, solidly grounded in the First Amendment. But just because something is legal doesn’t make it right, and for years a few politicians — former Mayor Thomas Menino most notably — had consequently declined to participate. In the years since, the matter had quieted down, but new mayor Marty Walsh waded in and things ratcheted up.

The breakfast was an alloyed success. And while Walsh didn’t get everything he wanted with the parade, he accomplished something.

Forry walked into the South Boston convention center amid enthusiastic cheers. In her opening lines she addressed both her color and her sex. “There is nothing wrong with the picture on your TV,” she said. “That is right, everyone . . . I’m a woman.” The morning featured skits with Southie polls such as former state senator Jack Hart and US representative Stephen Lynch touring Forry around town and indoctrinating her into South Boston lore. Speaker after speaker reveled in the diversity on stage, from the prominent women (including Senate President Therese Murray and US senator Elizabeth Warren) and the faces of color (not least of which was the Commonwealth’s governor).

A few hours later the parade kicked off. MassEquality, the gay advocacy organization that had for a tantalizing moment seemed close to agreement with parade organizers, did not march, and so nor did a chagrined Mayor Walsh. Yet in truth, much had changed. Two groups featured displays that spoke to the gay and lesbian controversy. One, the South Boston Association of Non-Profits, carried banners with messages about diversity and equality. A second from the St. Vincent’s neighborhood featured rainbow cannons and marchers tossing plastic necklaces to the crowd. Subtle? Hardly. A decade ago, probably neither would have been permitted. This year, both were embraced by the parade’s organizers. Next year, I suspect, the restrictions will loosen even further.

It’s easy to watch all of this and feel real delight about how far Boston has moved along Martin Luther’s King Jr.’s arc of justice. The optimism should be held in check, however. The fact that there was controversy on both events serves as a warning. And too, while it was easy to celebrate diversity, the reality is quite different. Of the 13 members of Boston’s City Council, for instance, only two are women and only four (including the two women) are non-white. And as much as Massachusetts has been a pioneer for same-sex marriage, far too often — and especially in high schools — homophobic insults continue to be heard.

Still symbols are important. And this St. Patrick’s Day, the symbols told us that even if we haven’t arrived, we’re on the right path forward.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on March 18, 2014.

Red flags, not red-baiting, on wage petition

Celebrity chef Paula Deen cooks up delicious dishes, but they tend towards the unhealthy — high calorie, high fat, and high salt. So if I were writing a book on nutritious eating, I probably wouldn’t be seeking her endorsement. We are, after all, judged by the company we keep.

Similarly, if I were advocating for boosting the minimum wage, I wouldn’t list as a supporter someone who bills herself as a “Marxist-feminist-anti-racist-ecological-economist.” That label doesn’t help make my case. Indeed, it undermines it.

The part that undermines it is “Marxist.” The economist in question, Wellesley College professor Julie Ann Matthaei, was one of more than 600 featured in a pro-minimum wage petition pushed by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The right-leaning Employment Policies Institute in turn attacked that petition, notably cherry-picking out Matthaei and few others for condemnation.

Righteous liberals are appalled, arguing that merely because a Marxist lends support doesn’t make illegitimate the case for increasing the minimum wage and, further, that attacks on Matthaei are unfair, amounting to some sort of modern-day red-baiting. They’re partially correct on the former and wrong on the latter.

If Deen did endorse my book on nutrition, that wouldn’t necessarily mean my advice was invalid. But it would subject me to a few raised eyebrows, some well-deserved mockery, and legitimate questions about whether I really knew my subject.

In Matthaei’s case, it’s worse. The principal arguments against the minimum wage are that it hurts economic growth and kills jobs. That’s the theory, and at some point, clearly, it’s true. If we suddenly increased the minimum from $7.25 to, say, $100, I guarantee we’d quickly see a horrific combination of high inflation and deep recession. But at the level being proposed by the Obama administration — a modest jump to $10.10 — there’s a good amount of empirical data that the negative effects would not be significant.

There’s room for legitimate disagreement on that, however. For example, the Congressional Budget Office in February predicted 500,000 jobs might be lost. Still, all of that comes in the context of folks debating the effects of a policy change on the US’s mixed-market, capitalist economy.

On the other hand, if your ideology is such that you favor the dismantling of that type of economy, then it seems at least fair that people might question the validity of your analysis and might wonder further whether there’s a hidden agenda at play: wage controls as the first step in eliminating free markets. Having Matthaei arguing for increasing the minimum wage doesn’t make everyone else wrong, but it sure doesn’t help.

More puzzling, however, is the dismissal of attacks on Matthaei as red-baiting, a claim the professor herself has raised. No question, red-baiting has an ignominious history, with dissenters often unjustly attacked for being Marxists and communists. Still, Matthaei doesn’t shy away from calling herself a Marxist, and it’s hard to understand why it’s wrong to point that out.

Actually, I do understand why. Marxism and its political system, communism, have been so thoroughly discredited that to denounce someone these days as Marxist seems overwrought and mean-spirited, kind of like piling up the score at a ballgame.

But once we worried about Marxists a great deal, and for good reason. They’ve been a source of misery for millions.

The Soviet Union, the world’s best-developed example of a communist state, survived for the time it did only through a toxic mix of repression, dictatorship, and mass murder. On top of that, communism proved laughably ineffective as an economic system. When the USSR collapsed in 1991, it wasn’t terror and totalitarianism that did it in; it was impoverishment.

Nor do many envy life in the five remaining communist states — China (arguably no longer Marxist), Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam. Could there possibly be a humane form of communism? I’m with philosopher Bertrand Russell on this one: “The theoretical tenets of communism are false, and . . . its practical maxims are such as to produce an immeasurable increase of human misery.”

Granted, in today’s world concerns about communists in our midst can be readily dismissed. Except for obscure nooks and crannies of academia, few would advocate such a change. But the fears were once quite real. We forget too quickly, I think.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 16, 2014.

Is libertarianism taking hold of GOP?

For three days last week, an array of suitors postured, posed, and preened, hoping to win the affection of attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

One take-away from this year’s confab is that the right is in trouble, at risk of a schism between social conservatives and small-government libertarians and at risk also of an upcoming presidential nominating campaign reminiscent of the embarrassments of 2012. A different read, however, is that conservatives — and ultimately, the Republican Party — are coming to grips with a demographic reality that now favors Democrats.

The last GOP nominating process still stands out as an almost surreal event. It was obvious to everyone except Republicans that Mitt Romney would ultimately be their nominee. But rather than close ranks behind him, week after week saw one improbable candidate after another rising to the top — and usually doing so by ripping into Romney. And the candidates themselves were often little more than jokes; remember Herman Cain? What we were seeing was a party grassroots unwilling to accept the mainstream Romney (and, despite protestations about being “severely conservative,” he was mainstream.) They wanted someone more conservative, more authentic. The problem was that they really didn’t know what version of conservative and authentic they wanted.

Perhaps that’s changing.

News reports from CPAC describe the 2016 Republican field as “unsettled,” which doubtless is the case. At one point it had seemed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie might at least paper over the party’s divisions, but Bridgegate has made him vulnerable and few will be automatically ceding him the nomination. Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, brother of George W., possibly could clear the field, but he doesn’t seem interested. And so there is an array of names. Some are familiar from past campaigns: preacher and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and former US Senator Rick Santorum. Others are new, notably US Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal.

Folks like Huckabee and Santorum represent the party’s religious right, and in their speeches they seemed to give no quarter. “If this nation forgets our God, then God will have every right to forget us,” Huckabee warned. On the other hand, it seemed as if it was the libertarians who held sway. The highlight of the conference was its straw poll of candidates, and the fiery Rand Paul won it decisively, with a plurality of 31 percent. His words were a clarion call for reform: “Our party is encumbered by an inconsistent approach to freedom. The new GOP, the GOP that will win again, will need to embrace liberty in both the economic and personal sphere.” Moreover, three of the next top-four finishers were all more or less Paul’s ideological kinsmen, either mainstream Republicans like Christie and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, or firebrands such as Cruz.

So is some version of libertarianism taking hold of the GOP? Here’s another interesting indicator. In the same straw poll, a significant majority approved either legalizing recreational use of marijuana (41 percent) or at least making it available for medical use (another 21 percent). This is not, as they would say, your father’s GOP.

And indeed, it better not be. The big problem with the GOP is that its ideologies profoundly alienate vast swaths of the electorate. Gay rights and same-sex marriage — overwhelmingly supported by the young — are as thoroughly owned by Democrats as were civil rights two generations ago. Republicans’ harsh rhetoric on immigration puts off the rapidly growing Hispanic population. Democratic stances on choice and workplace equality attract women. And GOP opposition to a higher minimum wage drives working-class voters into Democratic arms.

Thus, the crying need for a Republican makeover. If the GOP wants to capture the presidency in 2016, it needs to shed its preachy moralizing and divisive rhetoric and come up with something new and all-encompassing. The old ideas just don’t sell anymore.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on March 11, 2014.

Could the new retirement age be never?

Should she be elected president in 2016, Hillary Clinton will start her new job at about the same age as Roderick Ireland is being forced to leave his.

Ireland is chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. Named to the court in 1997 by Governor William Weld, he was the first African-American to hold the post; in 2010 he became chief justice. He enjoys a solid reputation as a “practical moderate” whose rulings are “measured and balanced,” observes Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley.

So what crime, what outrageous scandal has erupted to push Ireland off the bench?

He got old.

Ireland turns 70 later this year. In Massachusetts, it doesn’t matter how good a judge you are, it doesn’t matter how effective. Three score and ten and you’re gone.

Mandatory retirement rules used to be common, covering about 40 percent of America’s work force. They were gradually dismantled during the 1980s although, as Ireland’s case shows, not completely. Public safety workers and those with high-skilled jobs can still be terminated when they celebrate the wrong birthday. Moreover, a growing number of voices, worried about jobs for the young, have been arguing we should bring back mandatory retirement. And legal or not, older workers face enormous pressure to retire, some subtle, some much more overt (such as getting laid off because one earns too much). The fact is, we still harbor bias against the old.

Part of that bias is grounded in the belief that older folks need to be shuffled off to make room for the young. That claim suffers from the same flaws as do all “lump of labor” canards. There is no fixed amount of work available that somehow has to be allocated between young and old. Rather, to the extent that any worker of any age is productive, that person creates more wealth than he or she consumes. Older workers don’t take jobs from the young. In truth, they ultimately create more jobs.

Then, too, our youth-obsessed culture is uncomfortable with age, even as what it means to be “old” has changed significantly. Back in the mid-1930s, when Social Security was first created, being in your 60s was seen as elderly. In 1940, for instance, only 6.8 percent of the population was age 65 or older, and those who hit 65 could expect to live, on average, for just another 13 to 15 years (the lower number is for men; the higher for women). But today, those numbers have changed dramatically — 13.7 percent of the population is 65 or older, and those who reach that age can expect to live another 19 to 21 years. Sixty is the new 50, 70 the new 60, and so on. And those longer lives aren’t sicker lives. To the contrary. Older Americans are healthier than ever, according to a number of US and overseas reports that find serious illness usually compressed into just the last few months of life. Indeed, one key attribute age does have is wisdom, a virtue born out of experience. Employers take note: While smart is good, wise is better.

All of which suggests we might want to re-think the whole idea of retirement. Granted, should people choose to stop working, by all means let them. But the assumption that retirement should inevitably happen — that it’s a natural next step of life — deserves challenge. A significant body of research suggests that the gold watch and goodbye handshake presage not some spectacular new chapter of life, but rather melancholy, illness, and boredom. One recent study, for example, found the risk of clinical depression among the retired increased by 40 percent. That’s not surprising. Most of us like to complain about our jobs. Yet work allows us to be productive and useful, to feel as if we are making a meaningful contribution to society. Retirement — especially when forced or urged — seems a declaration that someone is essentially useless.

I have no worry about Justice Ireland’s future. Massachusetts may not want him, but I expect that there will be plenty of law firms eager to have him on board. And at age 70, Hillary Clinton may be working from the Oval Office. Yet millions of others near their ages will be pushed into retirement. That’s wrong. Wrinkles or not, if people want to work, we should welcome them. It’s good for them. It’s good for all of us.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 9, 2014.

Boston’s ‘edge’ for the Olympics

Olympics fever is here. Boston 2024, the nascent organizing committee, excitedly makes the case, trumpeting Boston’s existing infrastructure, collegiate atmosphere, sports-mad populace, lovely parks, and long history. And a just-released report by a legislative commission backs it up. It may be an “enormous task,” but a 2014 Olympics in Boston is definitely “feasible.

All nice and all largely irrelevant. Every city putting itself forward doubtless will be able to generate a similar list of self-serving platitudes. It’s time to cut to the chase and address the five real issues the International Olympic Committee cares about — issues on which Boston has a significant edge.

Are you willing to impoverish your citizens to support the Olympics?

Absolutely! Russia just plumped $51 billion for the winter Olympics. Such breath-taking spending might scare off others, but as the $24 billion Big Dig proves, we’re up to the task! Consider our money-raising prowess: Crazy financing schemes, huge toll increases (you’ve got to love the genius of making east-west commuters pay for a north-south tunnel), and temporary income tax increases that mysteriously turn permanent. And for the Olympics? Perhaps another boost to the sales tax. Or maybe a surcharge on those living west of Worcester. Our motto: When it comes to soaking the taxpayer, there’s no such thing as too much.

Can you remake your city to fit the Olympics’ demands?

The big problem any city faces is finding enough empty land to build the Olympic Village, support facilities, and needed new stadiums. But that’s not a worry for Boston. Back in the 1960s, when parts of downtown looked a little squirrely, we had just the solution: Bulldoze the West End! Replace it with anonymous, hulking buildings! The only question will be, where? In the Tom Menino era, it probably would have been Southie or Dorchester. But given new Mayor Marty Walsh’s roots, we probably need to look elsewhere. Hyde Park? Tempting, but too far. Fenway and the Back Bay? Possibly — most of them did vote for John Connolly. The best solution? Yet again, the West End. Tear down its ugly buildings and build some more ugly buildings.

Are you able to run rampant over the wishes of residents?

Yes we are, and we’ve already got the mechanism in place: the Boston Redevelopment Authority. This brilliant organization can get anything built as long as it finds an area to be “blighted.” And you wouldn’t believe the things that are blighted! Yawkey Way, Huntington Avenue, the Boston Garden — you name it. If need be, we can just declare the entire city blighted and that’ll give the Olympics the run of the place. Thoughtful planning, citizen review, and environmental sensitivity? Gone, gone, and gone.

Can you muster the authority necessary to make sure the Games go off without a hitch?

Ideally, the Games are held in nations where repressive regimes can simply force their will. You might think that a problem in the cradle of liberty and, admittedly, we’re not up to the standards of places like Russia or China. But consider. We have a one-party state, with Democrats firmly in charge. Party discipline is exacting, with troublemakers cleverly purged through caucuses and minimum vote requirements. And locally? If Menino were still in charge, there’d be no doubt. Mayor Walsh has made some unfortunate noises about sharing power, but let’s assume that’s for show. By the time 2024 rolls around and with 10 years under his belt, he’ll be cracking the whip, making sure everyone toes the line.

Are you desperately looking to prove yourself?

It’s not lost on anyone that the IOC sees itself as a kind of savior for cities and nations looking to gain some worldwide stature. How else to explain Athens (2004), Beijing (2008), Vancouver (2010), and, of course, this year’s games in Sochi? Some were just looking to restore past glories, others were looking to achieve them for the first time. Boston too! I think it’s fair to say that, with our constant obsession about whether we are a “world-class city,” we have one of the planet’s deepest inferiority complexes. The message we send to the IOC must be clear: We need the Olympics and if given the opportunity, we’ll do whatever it takes.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Globe on March 5, 2014. Illustrations by Chris Murphy.

Missing the train

‘Can we all get along?” was Rodney King’s plaintive plea in the aftermath the 1992 LA riots, and the answer today is the same as it was then. As long as we’re not strangers, yes. Otherwise, no.

The question is being raised anew after the publication of a Harvard report that looked at the reactions of Boston-area workers toward intruders in their midst. The research kicked off by asking suburban rail commuters about their attitudes toward immigration. It then seeded some of the train stops with Mexican immigrants and again queried the commuters. Almost immediately, opinions changed. The commuters were now more likely to oppose increased immigration, to believe that kids of undocumented immigrants shouldn’t be allowed to stay in the United States, and to think English should be the nation’s official language. In other words, the commuters became less tolerant.

After a week or so, however, the anti-immigration attitudes softened, leading some — including Ryan Enos, the study’s author — to speculate that merely having different folks intermingle might make everyone more tolerant. One theory Enos advanced was that increasing the availability of public transit could somehow get diverse groups to become more accepting of each other.

Perhaps, although I think that if you want to get more funding for public transit, it would be better to focus on its advantages in speed and convenience rather than some nebulous social goals. But more to the point, while it’s true the attitudes of the suburban commuters did soften over time, they were still less tolerant than they had been before the study began. In fact, Enos’s conclusion from his research was that “even very minor demographic change causes strong exclusionary reactions.” The interesting upshot of that, he argued, is that increased immigration will cause “a politically conservative shift.”

And it does. In general, the most strongly anti-immigration states are those where there are the most recent immigrants. Arizona became a hotbed of anti-immigrant zeal after experiencing a surge of illegal immigration (or “unauthorized” — a term I like much better). Massachusetts, on the other hand, has far fewer unauthorized immigrants. We’re also far less exercised about immigration issues.

So why is it that people become less tolerant when they encounter those different from them? It’s not the fault of the newcomers. It’s a basic human trait. People care most for those with whom they are closest. Families and communities are built out of a complex web of relationships that grow out of proximity, work, play, culture, and values. Outsiders disrupt those relationships.

We see this in our everyday lives. Every human life has equal worth, of course, yet we grieve far more for a death in our immediate families than we do in someone else’s. Bostonians were far more moved by the dead and injured from last year’s Marathon bombings than they were two days later when an explosion at the West Fertilizer Company in Waco, Texas, killed 15 and hurt over 300. The old National Lampoon once produced a parody newspaper from the fictional town of Dacron. “Two Dacron Women Feared Missing in Volcanic Disaster,” blared a giant headline. A smaller subtitle underneath explained why: “Japan Destroyed.”

Indeed, a large body of research has tried to explain why some nations have extensive social safety nets and public welfare programs while others do not. The basic finding is that those who are the most unstinting also tend to be more homogeneous; their citizens feel connected to each other. More heterogeneous places such as the United States are far less generous.

To go back to the Enos study: If those riders on the commuter rail line had later seen those same Mexicans in the office cubicle next to them, they would have started to think of them as co-workers and not Mexicans. If they later got together with them after work for a beer, they’d start to think of them as friends. And if even later their kids started dating and then perhaps married, they’d think of them as family.

This then becomes the basic challenge faced by those who tell us we should “celebrate diversity.” Diversity drives us apart. It’s what we have in common that brings us together. The trick is to find that common ground.

This column originally appeared in The Boston Sunday Globe on March 2, 2014.