Baker bashes Patrick over budget

PEABODY – Republican gubernatorial candidate Charles Baker lashed out at Gov. Deval Patrick Wednesday for increasing taxes and spending, cutting local aid and cutting jobs in education, at a press event at Leather City Park in Peabody.”Gov. Patrick has failed to manage the state’s budget since he stepped foot into office,” said Baker. “Recently he has been attacking me for not planning to raise taxes.”Baker was responding to Gov. Patrick’s recent television campaign ads attacking Baker on his “No New Tax Pledge.”Baker criticized what he saw as Patrick’s poor handling of the state’s finances.”Gov. Patrick refuses to tackle pension reform, has raised spending, increased taxes and significantly cut local aid. This has been gradually impacting our local communities and led to crowded classes, higher school fees and cuts in higher education,” Baker said.The Republican believes he can spur the economy without increasing spending.”The fastest way we create new jobs and new opportunities will be to clean up the fiscal mess on Beacon Hill in order to generate a simpler and less expensive way to do business,” he said.Baker also commented on unemployment rates in Massachusetts.”Twenty-five states have lower unemployment rates than Mass.,” said Baker. “That’s not good enough.”Patrick spokesman Alex Goldstein said Wednesday night that Patrick has shown true fiscal stewardship in tough economic times.”In what has been exceptionally difficult times, Gov. Patrick has made unprecedented investments in the Commonwealth and that’s why we’re first in the nation in job creation and first in the nation in educational achievement,” Goldstein said.He said every budget Patrick has crafted has been “responsible, balanced and onetime,” and criticized Baker for what he said was a failure to say how he would pay for $2.5 billion in proposed budget cuts.”What the governor has called upon Baker to do is be straight with voters about where that money would come from,” Goldstein said. “It’s such a significant cut that Baker has to be clear about what’s on the table and what isn’t and Baker has refused to do that.”