From Steve Grossman:

I am deeply honored by the vote of confidence the people of Massachusetts have given me. This is a time of great uncertainty for our economy. While we are doing better than other states, 300,000 people are still out of work. We do not have a minute to waste to create new jobs and revitalize small businesses, the backbone of our economy.
 
I want to thank the thousands of volunteers across the Commonwealth who worked tirelessly on our campaign and believed so deeply in our vision for the Treasurer’s office. I will always be grateful for their dedication and extraordinary effectiveness. Thank you to our campaign team. In more than 40 years of political involvement, I have never been involved with a group of professionals for whom I had more respect or affection. It has been an honor to work with all of them.
 
Most of all I want to thank the people of Massachusetts who have given me the privilege of going to work every day for the next four years to protect their interests and help reform our government.
 
And I want to express my profound gratitude to my family, especially my wife, Barbara, who stood by me throughout this campaign and sacrificed so much. Thank you for your tireless efforts and enormous patience during these last 16 months.
 
Our campaign has been all about:
 

  • Protecting the public’s money by putting the state’s checkbook online, demanding open competitive bidding for all Treasury business, and opening up the Treasury to new firms and people.
  • Creating jobs by moving state deposits from the big national banks that have been reluctant to make business loans to smaller local, regional, and community banks that will provide capital to small businesses to grow and create jobs, and by challenging the big banks to create a Massachusetts Jobs Fund to make additional small business loans.
  • Boosting small businesses by putting my 35 years running a 100-year-old family company to work as a tireless advocate for small business in state government, working for legislation that will benefit them and serving as an ombudsman to help them solve their problems.

 
In 1937, in the midst of leading the nation out of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”
 
Too few jobs; too little education; too little health care; too little housing; too little hope; and too little dignity.
 
Those were the stakes in this election. Those are the values I was taught by my grandfather and my parents. Those are the principles and priorities I will bring to the Treasurer’s office. Now it is time to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
 

About The Author

John Guilfoil is the editor-in-chief of Blast: Boston's Online Magazine and the Blast Magazine Network. He can be reached at [email protected]. Tweet @johnguilfoil.

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