□ Our patience with George Bush is not quite exhausted.
□ Michael Dukakis has the Bay State Blues. Last November, less than 12 hours after conceding to George Bush, Dukakis sat in his office desperately attempting to number-crunch the Massachusetts budget to cosmetic health. But even that was too tall an order, and he ended up, a week ago, asking his state legislature for a $730-million tax increase. That’s on top of the $300-million increase last year, after his hog-wild spending turned a $912-million surplus (as of 1987) into a $630-million deficit. Dukakis has created more debt in the past six years than all his predecessors combined. Since 1983, Massachusetts state spending has risen 65 per cent, a growth rate four times that of the federal budget, and twice that of the average state. Such competence came easily to the governor—he hired ten thousand new employees while ninety thousand manufacturing jobs fled the state (many of them to Governor Sununu’s low-tax New Hampshire). The Massachusetts Miracle was really the Massachusetts Mirage. No wonder he’s not running for re-election.
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