Neal brings home the bacon for Bay State
If he lived there, Richie Neal could run for mayor of Holyoke and win.
The veteran congressman from nearby Springfield has done more for Holyoke — let alone western Massachusetts — than the guy who’s been running the city for eight years.
That would be Mayor Alex Morse, 30, a progressive, who is running for Congress against Neal, 70, in the Democrat primary in Massachusetts’ 1st Congressional District.
To replace Neal, who is now the chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, with Morse would put the district and the state at the end of the line when it comes to bringing home federal dollars from Washington.
In short, it would be a disaster, not only for the 87 communities in the district — including the cities of Springfield, Pittsfield, North Adams, Westfield and Holyoke — but for the state as well.
While the mayor has bragged about making Holyoke a sanctuary city, endorsed the legalization of marijuana and the implementation of a needle exchange program, Neal got the city $900,000 for a new fire truck and another $1.2 million to pay for the salaries of firefighters.
Neal, through his work on the important committee, among other things, facilitated the $13.5 million for the renovation of the Holyoke Public Library; $23.8 million for the construction of the Holy Medical Center’s new emergency department; secured $6.2 million for the new Holyoke Community College Culinary Arts Institute; and secured $73 million for upgrading the north-south rail line through western Massachusetts, which included a new platform in Holyoke.
There is more, of course. But Neal’s accomplishments in helping Holyoke are only a small part of what he has done to revitalize the district, including a $95 million restoration of Union Station in Springfield; $70 million for a new Springfield federal courthouse; $80 million for a Department of Defense Training Center; $42.8 million for a new maintenance hangar at Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee; $12 million for a new hangar at Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield; and so on.
The point is that none of this would have taken place had not Neal, through diligence and commitment over the years, worked his way up the ladder in the Ways and Means Committee. Now he heads the committee through which billions upon billions of dollars regularly pass through.
And it is a good thing that he is. Massachusetts, once a major player in Congress, has lost most of its clout following the retirement of former House Speaker Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill in 1987 and the death of Sen. Ted Kennedy in 2009.
Without blinking an eye, O’Neill was able to direct billions of dollars in federal funds for Boston’s Big Dig, or billions more for the expansion of the MBTA’s Red Line through Cambridge.
Kennedy, at the same time, directed billions more into defense spending among Massachusetts’ hightech contractors. Without Kennedy’s clout, Hanscom Field in Bedford would be an empty shopping mall, and Raytheon would be making motorcycles instead of missiles.
The last Massachusetts Congressman who could deliver for the state was Rep. Michael Capuano, who, as ranking member of the House Transportation Committee, was able to obtain $1 billion for the expansion of the MBTA into Somerville and Cambridge.
But Capuano, a workhorse, was defeated in 2018 by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a show horse. As a member of the so-called anti-Trump “squad,” Pressley, while a national figure, could not get a bill passed through Congress and signed into law if her life depended upon it.
The same holds true for the other three members of the squad — Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, all freshmen and all talk.
You could also include Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Seth Moulton in this category, both of whom are too busy running for president to do the job they were elected to do.
It is interesting to note that Morse said, if elected, he would be “thrilled” to become a member of the squad. That would guarantee that he, too, would become personally famous while getting nothing of substance done for his district or his state.
Massachusetts has had several U.S. House speakers in living memory: O’Neill, 1970-1987; John W. McCormack, 1963-1971; and Joe Martin, 1953-1955.
But Neal is the first Massachusetts chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee in 150 years. Appreciate that, because it might be another 150 years before it gets another one.