Massachusetts has the highest health care costs in the country, hitting residents not just in our insurance bills but our tax bills. About 30 percent of the state budget now goes to health care, a figure that is rising sharply thanks to the 2-year-old law that subsidizes coverage for 175,000 people previously uninsured.

The state's three top leaders had barely announced support for reforming the way money is spent on transportation projects before the police unions sprung into action. Police are reported as already flooding legislators with pleas to stop any effort to cut back on their lucrative construction details. It's time lawmakers also started hearing from the people who are footing the bill.

President Bush has sent the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress, starting the clock ticking under fast-track authority in which lawmakers have 90 days to vote it up or down, no amendments, no filibusters.

Even if it is never used, a ladder truck is a good thing for a fire department to have, but at $1 million apiece, does every town have to have one?