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Finneran: Jobs, early childhood education and housing top goals for 2004

Associated Press
January 8, 2004

BOSTON (AP) - Jobs, early childhood education and new housing should be the state's top goals for the new year, House Speaker Thomas Finneran said Wednesday in an address to lawmakers.

Finneran, D-Boston, also proposed creating a public trust to manage the 30 acres of prime downtown land created by the ongoing demolition of the old Central Artery and said lawmakers next week will override some of Gov. Mitt Romney's vetoes to last year's jobs bill.

Finneran, recovering from hip replacement surgery, leaned on crutches as he delivered the speech before a House chamber packed with legislators, state officials and invited guests.

Finneran said "jobs, jobs and more jobs" should top lawmakers' to-do list.

"Jobs and economic growth are the oxygen for everything else we may hope to achieve," Finneran said.

Early childhood education should be another top priority, he said.

By the year 2010, Finneran said, the state should be "well advanced in an early childhood education policy that matches in scope and ambition the effort that we made in 1993 on education reform."

Finneran also called for the creation of several thousand new apartments and homes, which he said are key to the state's continued economic growth.

During the speech, Finneran criticized Romney for some of his vetoes, but acknowledged the Republican governor's commitment to new housing.

Romney has echoed many of the same themes, saying that job creation, education and new housing are among his goals for the new year.

Finneran's speech comes as the state is experiencing a modest growth in revenues. Despite that growth, state leaders, including Finneran, have warned that the state is not out of the fiscal woods.

Finneran said there will be "no excuses and no delays" to creating a balanced budget for the new fiscal year.

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