My candidacy

Over my past two terms as state representative, I have served my constituents diligently and contributed towards restoring trust and building a future that we can believe in. There is much more to be done and I ask for your support so that I can continue to serve.

My aide and I do outstanding work helping people to solve problems. We respond promptly and we follow through. We have helped many people with serious life problems involving employment, housing, and state and corporate bureaucracies. We have solved lesser problems or provided information for almost four thousand people over the past two terms.

As a former selectman with three decades of experience spanning law, government and business, I have also been very effective in responding to community and regional issues -- bringing back more local aid, and advancing projects small and large to address flooding, reconstruct our roadways, preserve open space and improve our public housing and our public parks and facilities. I work closely with elected officials and citizens in all of my communities.

As a legislator, I have embraced our long term challenges. Massachusetts is the cradle of American liberty and is blessed with great educational and health care institutions that are the foundation of its prosperity. But we are presently facing realities that are creating uncertainty and putting some of our people in less comfortable economic positions:

  • Global competition -- manufacturing and service jobs moving off-shore
  • Automation -- traditional jobs in every field disappearing or requiring less skill
  • Dependence on hostile powers for energy supplies -- and the recognition that fossil energy sources have environmental down-sides so great as to threaten both our prosperity and our national security
  • Overhanging financial liabilities -- accumulated by many individuals and governments during an era of financial unrealism
  • Rising health care costs -- an aging population, poor health habits, continually improving technology combine with a cost-plus insurance model to drive costs upward

In these turbulent times, I have focused on four basic ideas to help state government build confidence and adapt:

  • Transparency -- I have practiced transparency in my own approach to representation, making my views and actions public and maintaining a public dialog with my constituents in every available medium. Additionally, I have played an important part in recent progress towards increased disclosure of financial operations of state government.
  • Fairness -- state government leaders need to consistently make choices that reduce perceptions of unfair advantages for insiders. In this session, the legislature and Governor have passed important pension and ethical reforms that reduce unfairness, but there is much more to do. I am particularly focused on continuation of pension reform. Our first wave of pension reform eliminated loopholes, but the basic design features of the system still create opportunity for unfair advantage.
  • Candor -- we need to have candid conversations about the extent of our overhanging liabilities and the our recurring budget deficits and take deliberate action to address them; one particular problem that we need to confront is understatement of our pension liability through use of overly optimistic interest rate assumptions.
  • Structural change -- we need to be open to change in the way we provide services. Businesses have derived great advantages from technology and the structural changes that it allows; as a result, the prices of many consumer goods have dropped in real terms over the past couple of decades. Government needs to be willing to embrace the same kinds of change. I have been particularly focused on change in the way we deliver content for learning -- the role of technology in public education. Our recent education reform act includes language that has opened the door for the first fully virtual high school in Massachusetts.

We need to face our challenges and act now to make our future sustainable -- financially, economically, environmentally and socially. I have been a strong advocate for:

  • Green jobs and energy independence -- I played an important part in the fight for strong energy and climate legislation in the last session and contributed to smart growth planning language in this session's transportation bill.
  • Vibrant venture climate -- working with a group of multiple stakeholders and attorneys and other representatives in the past session, I have led in the development of progressive legislation to regulate employee non-competition agreements.
  • Ending ineffective use of tax credits -- my efforts on the transparency issue contributed to the inclusion of tax credit disclosure in this year's budget and I have opposed the continuation of ineffective credits, like the film tax credit. A simpler, export-oriented tax code would be better for business -- I do not believe that state government is effective at picking winners and losers through tax credits.
  • Science and technology education --the emerging education technology which I have advocated is especially well adapted to helping students excel in advanced quantitative and scientific studies.
  • Realizing the potential of every child -- in addition to supporting education funding, I have engaged in a dialog with front line teachers about how our policies are working. I support the MCAS and our recent education reforms, but I believe that we need to think more about helping each child realize their unique potential and less about bringing all children to the same educational outcome.

While we face difficult challenges, we need to recognize that our economy has brought us unparalleled abundance and to keep in mind the American principles of individual freedom and equality that have made our nation great. I am a strong defender of human rights, in particular standing up for equality of marriage and transgender rights. I feel strongly a duty to realize the vision of our founders fully and honestly. I also believe that human rights are good for business -- freedom is fundamental to capitalism and states that are known for strong civil liberties attract artistic and scientific talents that contribute to their wealth.

See my policy site, willbrownsberger.com for more detail on all of these subjects.