I am here to PRAISE my State Rep Tom Golden. In The Beacon Hill Roll Call report on the amount of Per Diem’s area Reps have collected in the past year TOM GOLDEN has collected 0. Tom could have put in and received $26.00 dollares for each day he showed up at the State House. Based on the amount of time Dave Nangle put in (159 days) Tom could have added $4,134 to his salary if he so chose. HE DID NOT

Tom deserves to be praised for not taking the extra money. By law he is entitled to it. By not accepting it he shows that he understands the frustration of people when it comes to government excess. So for that he should be applauded and recognized.

I have been very critical of Tom on some of his votes and his position on accepting donations from Lobbyist and PACS. I have also stated that I am against the Per Diem’s granted to the State Legislator’s on top of their salary. Tom deserves to be acknowledged when he does something like this. It is the right thing to do especially in this economy and he deserves to be recognized for it, just has he deserves to be called out when I disagree with him.

I should also comment on the fact Rep. Murphy put in for only 67 days. My initial thought is to be a wise guy and take the cheap shot by saying that based on his Law practice revenue he was probably only there that many days, but I’ll reluctantly give him some credit. I assume he could have put in for at least 40 -50 more days but chose not to.

Dave Nangle put in for 159 days the most of the area Reps.

Here is a list of what the 3 Lowell reps collected along with some other Area Reps.

Rep. Thomas Golden, $0 (0)
Rep. Cory Atkins, $180 (10)
Rep. Barry Finegold, $468 (26)
Rep. Kevin Murphy, $1,742 (67)
Rep. Colleen Garry, $2,522 (97)
Rep. James Miceli, $2,754 (153)
Rep. David Nangle, $4,134 (159)