Devalue Patrick thinks the height of a recession is a great time to spend $4.7 milllion in tax dollars on Swiss technology to address a non-existent problem. Hey, Devalue, thanks to your punitive tax hikes, no one buys cigarettes in this state anymore anyways!
Gov. Deval Patrick seeks to snuff out fake butts
Critics rip plan to burn through $5M
Millions of taxpayer dollars are going up in smoke as the Patrick administration moves to buy a pricey high-tech cigarette tax-stamping system despite little evidence of counterfeit butts in the Bay State, lawmakers charged yesterday.
Gov. Deval Patrick - who has wrangled with the state’s two major zoos over $4 million in state funding - plans to shell out nearly $5 million over the next three years for the new digital stamper.
“I’ve looked at this issue, and quite frankly (administration officials) don’t seem to have made the case that we need to move to this technology,” said Rep. Antonio Cabral (D-New Bedford), who co-chairs the legislative committee on bonding.
“The money would be better spent somewhere else on local aid or restoring any of the services we had to cut,” Cabral said.
Sicpa, a Swiss company, has been awarded a $4.7 million contract for digital equipment to stamp cigarette packs instead of the stickers used now. The state is expected to spend $800,000 in fiscal year 2010 because the system won’t be implemented until midway through the year.
“This is another example of an incredibly mismanaged government. On the one hand you have the governor making unwise budget cuts that are turning services upside down, but on the other hand the state’s wasting millions on useless contracts,” said Senate Minority Leader Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield).
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