Government Gets Bigger

Earlier this month, Newton Mayor David Cohen came under fire for requesting a 28 percent pay raise as the town was considering a $12 million override proposition. He announced his resignation shortly thereafter.

Gov. Deval Patrick apparently didn’t pay much attention to Cohen’s troubles. As cities and towns prepare to deal with the lean 2009 state budget, Patrick raised his office budget by 80 percent.

Oh, Deval.

Patrick’s office budget has skyrocketed to $9 million this fiscal year, a boost of nearly $4 million from fiscal 2007, Republican lawmakers said.

His spokeswoman blames the hike on former governor Mitt Romney, saying that he ran the state with too few staffers. Which, fine, whatever, but maybe he should have done it a little more slowly to avoid zingers like this.

“We know the governor had a goal of creating 100,000 new jobs in his first term, we just didn’t know he was going to create them all in the Corner Office,” said Sen. Michael Knapik (R-Westfield).

Come on, Governor. You’re making it easy for Republicans to make jokes at your expense. That’s never a good thing.