I’ve Changed My Mind.
I’ve Changed My Mind.
For two years I’ve hammered on Beacon Hill for being among the least productive legislatures in the country. After reading Amendment 759, I’m starting to think the gridlock was the only thing protecting us.
This morning we wrote about a budget amendment that would let individuals claim pregnancy‑related benefits without medical verification. By midday, a second one surfaced — and somehow it was worse.
It’s like watching someone empty the medicine cabinet, the liquor cabinet, and the petty cash drawer in a single afternoon — and call it “modernization.”
Amendment 759
Same Trick. Different Program.
Critics following the FY 2027 budget point to Amendment 759, which would allow housing‑assistance applicants to self‑attest that they meet eligibility criteria. In plain English: applicants check a box saying they qualify, and that’s the end of the inquiry.
Income? Self‑attested. Hardship? Self‑attested. Residency status? Self‑attested. Qualifying conditions? Self‑attested.
The verification requirement that previously sat between the application form and the check would, under 759, be removed.
What Comes Out
The Entire Verification Stack
Read together with the rest of the language, the changes don’t just relax verification — they take it apart:
- No documentation requirement. Agencies have no obligation to confirm income, hardship, residency, or any qualifying condition before approving benefits.
- No fraud‑prevention checks. The amendment introduces no cross‑agency data matching, no audit triggers, no flags for inconsistent claims.
- No reporting requirements. The state would not be required to track how often self‑attestation is used — or whether it correlates with improper payments.
- No taxpayer safeguards. No documentation thresholds, no periodic reviews, no independent oversight written into the language.
In risk‑management terms, the state assumes 100% of the downside. Working families — the same ones who lose a chunk of every paycheck to fund the program — absorb every dollar of misuse, fraud, or administrative bloat the new approach generates.
No bank, no landlord, no employer, no insurance company on earth would underwrite anything on a self‑attestation basis. Beacon Hill just did it with your money.
Who Carries This
The Same People. Always.
The people writing the checks are the same people who drag themselves to work every day, hand a substantial slice of every paycheck to the state, and don’t get to “self‑attest” their way out of anything — not their property tax, not their excise tax, not their commercial fishing permit, not their water and sewer bill.
For them, the state demands documentation, signatures, and proof. For applicants on the receiving end of the spending, the state is preparing to demand none of it.
The Reluctant Conclusion
Maybe Gridlock Was a Gift
By most independent rankings, Massachusetts has been at or near the bottom of state legislative productivity for the last several years — and we’ve said as much, repeatedly, in this space.
After 759, the analysis needs an asterisk. If this is what “productivity” looks like — unverified claims, unaudited spending, unaccountable agencies — then the gridlock we’ve been complaining about may have been the only thing standing between taxpayers and several billion more dollars walking out the door without a receipt.
We can’t continue to live like this. People are right to feel that this kind of policy‑making erodes fairness, fuels political favoritism, and leaves working families carrying the burden. If this is the direction Beacon Hill is heading, the only honest question left is: what comes next?