In The News: FY 2008

Longtime fiscal watchdog Michael J. Widmer, president of the business-backed Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, agreed, criticizing the Internet ad produced by Baker's campaign. "There are vastly more moving pieces that [Baker] leaves out of the ad, so the ad is misleading,'' Widmer said. "I don't think it's accurate to say Patrick inherited a surplus, even on the basis of the numbers used in the ad.''

"In an economic recovery, 100,000 jobs was a modest goal," said Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, a nonpartisan research group in Boston. "In a recession, it's an impossibility."