Lucas: Call Trump, gov! Taxpayers need a break
Memo to Maura Pick up the phone Call the White House Instead of constantly complaining about cuts of billions in federal aid and assistance to the state do something about it Call and set up an appointment to meet with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office to discuss the cuts and make the affair for Massachusetts That s your job You can do it He meets with everybody from Kid Rock and Kim Kardashian to Nayib Bukele and Cyril Ramaphosa the presidents of El Salvador and South Africa He meets with governors He even met unofficially with a bunch of Boston Red Sox players a week ago in town to play the Washington Nationals who were touring the White House Trump shook hands with them all in the Oval Office Healey could have snuck in with them What is gripping about the rogue visit is that the organization is owned by fiercely anti-Trump John Henry who also owns the fiercely anti-Trump Boston Globe which is run by his fiercely anti-Trump wife Linda Pizzuti The Red Sox manager is fiercely anti-Trump Alex Cora who in boycotted the club s official visit to the White House to greet Trump after they won the World Series While the Globe did a brief three-paragraph story on the visit it did not mention the names of the players who were greeted by Trump Trump s warm greeting just may have inspired the Sox to sweep the Nationals in their three-game series even though it was rumored by me that Trump may have signed an executive order forcing the last-place Nationals to fold to the second-to-last-place Red Sox But if a bunch of ballplayers can get to see the president why can t the governor of Massachusetts The answer is that she can But she must make the effort just as anti-Trump Democrat Gov Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan did Whitmer was able to stifle her anti-Trump views long enough to get Trump to green-light a new Air National Guard fighter mission at a Michigan air base that saved jobs and provided an million boost to the Michigan commercial sector She even greeted and accompanied Trump to Selfridge Air Base where the announcement was made In answer to backlash from fellow progressives she disclosed there were times that you re reminded that your job is to put arrangement above self and that s what it was all about Healey would have to do the same by putting provision to Massachusetts above operation to her politically progressive self The Massachusetts equivalent to Whitmer would be for Healey after an Oval Office meeting to greet Trump at the Sagamore Bridge on Cape Cod where Trump would announce a grant of a couple of billion in federal funds to replace the functionally obsolete Sagamore and Bourne Bridges Healey like progressive Whitmer has been a longtime Trump critic only worse Unlike Whitmer Healey sued Trump a few one hundred times in four years during Trump s first term when she was attorney general The greater part of the suits were Democrat inspired nuisance suits that Trump shrugged off Besides everybody sues Trump Still she has been nowhere as nasty toward Trump as are the useless members of the state s delegation to Congress none of whom have a snowball s chance in hell of ever interacting with Trump let alone contacting him That leaves Maura Besides if all the Democrat inspired legal actions against Trump had any validity he would have been behind bars long ago But he is president and will be for another three and a half years Make the call Maura and take one for the association Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at peter lucas bostonherald com
