Our Social Contract Interview with State Rep Joshua Tarsky

By Andrea Chasen, Week of September 22, 2025

As a continuing feature of Our Social Contract, I introduce people in government, including legislators and those who have chosen a career path in governmental service. Who are these people? How do we benefit from their work? I remain impressed with the commitment of the people I am meeting. I hope you’re enjoying these interviews as well.

Meet Massachusetts State Representative Joshua Tarsky

Massachusetts State Representative Joshua Tarsky is in his first term as the state representative of 13 Norfolk District, which sits in the eastern part of the state, close to the Boston area. The demographic information of the district shows that the vast majority of the almost 45,000 people living there are well educated and well paid. But it doesn’t mean that everyone hits that sweet spot. Josh is the first to recognize that there are different needs among his constituents: whether it is helping someone with unemployment claims, high utility bills, or problems with social media, his constituents have the full range of problems that every district includes.

When I interviewed Josh on September 11, he was sitting in his car, getting ready for a service for the victims of 9/11. It’s a day that is very important to him. He was starting college when the terrorists hijacked planes and killed Americans. As people rushed to sign up for military service, he decided that he should do so as well. Upon graduating from Yale, he enlisted and served as a Green Beret, deploying twice to Afghanistan and then to Honduras.

One of the important lessons Josh learned is that a society’s well-being depends on a strong educational system and a reliable and predictable system of laws. When he left active duty, he continued his own education, getting a master’s degree in Education and, while teaching and then moving up the educational administrative ladder to become a principal, he attended law school at night. Now, in addition to his work as a legislator, he uses his legal knowledge by serving in the Massachusetts National Guard as a Judge Advocate General (JAG).

I met with Representative Josh Tarsky to learn more about why he ran for office, his accomplishments to date and his vision for his district and the state.

THE INTERVIEW (edited for clarity)

Prior to your run for state representative, you had a very successful career in education. Why did you choose to run?

I'm a veteran, I'm an educator, a father, and I've seen how the systems affect people. Students can fall through the cracks because their schools are underfunded.

Veterans can struggle to understand what resources and benefits they have. Parents sometimes struggle to provide for their children. Some of the districts I worked for, and all across the Commonwealth, are seeing a lot of needs. I ran because I want to expand my scope of influence and try to make a bigger difference. This way I hope I can help some of the people that I know need help and also help our individual communities and the country.

When you talk about seeing cracks in the system, can you provide some specifics as to what you mean?

There's a lot. We, that is the last legislature, enacted universal school lunch. This helps to address some of the issues revolving around hunger. We need to expand access to resources such as broadband in students' homes.

Sometimes just having a place to sleep, housing that is affordable, a home that feels comfortable and warm and safe and secure – these are all issues that affect students' daily lives and prevent them from succeeding academically. Some of it's a mental health crisis. Not just with our kids from the pandemic, but also the families who are having trouble making ends meet. It trickles down to students who aren't able to focus on the things that school demands.

If the parents aren't in a good position, then the students are also going to be stressed out and underperforming. These are things we need to address generationally. We need to take care of both the parents and the students to have people succeed and thrive and be productive members of our society.

What do you see the role of government is at this point?

I think first and foremost is ensuring that every child gets a high-quality education. I think that is of the utmost importance. I donated a lot of years of my life to both being a teacher and a principal, because I think if that is done well, society will be in good shape. If it's not done well, problems multiply and it's just a spiral of things: whether it's increased people in prisons and crime or just people having mental health issues due to depression from not leading the type of life they wish they were living.

I think that education is the root from which all else stems. That's the thing that we have to get right. But there's other things as well.

Health care accessibility. That's super important; you can't focus on anything if your health care is poor. When people are sick and are worried about not being able to get better or getting the medications they need or getting treatments, everything else comes secondary. I think that's especially troubling with the way things are coming out of Washington right now. It’s a concern and should be a central focus to make sure that everyone has the health care they need.

Under the current President, a lot of Massachusetts residents are going to lose access to health insurance and as a result, health care. What can the state do?

Yep. I think it's a very tricky issue that a lot of us in the building are working through. You know, the cuts are scheduled largely to take place after the midterm elections. We’re planning and thinking of how to make sure that Massachusetts takes care of its citizenry with regards to health care as well as other things. It's such a big part of our budget. It's really an area of concern for all of us with the cuts that are coming down. But there's a lot of thoughtful people in the building. We’re working to come up with solutions and we're studying it now to try and anticipate and brace ourselves and do the best we can for the people that we represent.

Washington keeps talking about tax cuts. But the impact on each state as a result of federal tax cuts will impact services here. How do you talk to your constituents about this?

One of the things that I remind people about is that Massachusetts is a global leader in so many things: Healthcare, education, a lot of quality-of-life indicators. This is because we are spending the money well, not frivolously. If you want this type of well-run state, it's not free. That doesn't mean we spend it frivolously. We have to be careful of how we spend and prioritize the right things. But I mean, if we're leading the nation on indicators that show we have the best health care and the best education system in the country, that to me is well-spent money.

I think there is a very strong argument that Massachusetts has invested well and will continue to look at ways to faithfully steward the responsibility of spending our taxpayer dollars.

Everyone wants fiscally responsible tax policies. Democrats, Republicans, this is every citizen. Massachusetts is one of the best-run states in the nation. So the cost might be more than some states, but you also get a lot for that money.

The state enacted the Fair Share Act in 2022, which taxes the rich at a slightly higher rate. What has been the response to that?

The Fair Share Act has generated a nice sum of revenue that is being spent on wonderful things in transportation and education: continued funding for early childcare, free community colleges, universal lunches, improvements to the T (Boston’s public transportation system) and other transportation-based issues.

The data suggests that there hasn't been a flight of wealthy individuals. We actually have an increase in those folks in the state.

What are your top priorities now?

I think Artificial Intelligence and automation are huge issues. They are shaping the job market fast. We need forward-thinking policies on education and labor that are going to help shape what this new technology does and how it impacts almost every sector. This is probably one of the top priorities that legislatures across the country and global legislatures need to look at, because it's mysterious. States can regulate it.

I think mental health is another urgent crisis. Young people, veterans. I don't think our systems are equipped right now to handle it. The pandemic exposed that. It's just something that we as a society should invest in, increasing people who specialize in mental health and resources dedicated to it.

Then of course, climate. At the federal level, it's going in a direction that I certainly am not in favor of and many of the people in my towns are not in favor of. I think that climate change is real and that it is something we need to address. Not with more usage of fossil fuels, but with having clean energy and the jobs that come with that.

Do you have any role models for your work?

I was very affected by Barack Obama and John McCain’s presidential race. It was civil. It was two decent people who may have differed substantively on issues, but at the same time, never lost sight that there was value in the disagreement. Listening to John McCain's concession speech, turning away people who were so unhappy and were saying things about Barack that were negative. John curtailed that and kept it focused on the opportunities that a Barack Obama presidency represents. That was at the heart of American integrity and decency.

Barack Obama used his presidency in a lot of wonderful ways. He was a great speaker, and I thought those two embodied the possibilities of politics and a good, clean race that had plenty of room for disagreement amongst reasonable people. To me, that was a real clear example of what politics can and should look like, and I think that's important.

What roadblocks have you experienced that have surprised you in terms of getting any of your priorities through or accomplishing any of your goals?

The bottom line is that bureaucracies work slowly. There's a lot of it to get a bill passed. It can take years and it is not an easy undertaking. That doesn't mean when we find a cause that needs an immediate solution government can't step up and step up quickly. There's ample evidence of that happening. But at the same time, the day-to-day run of bills getting passed, legislation and policy changing, is a slow, deliberative process. It's the nature of working in a democratic society. There's a lot of opinions and it's good to get them out. Getting stuff done: you need patience for the bulk of the things that you want to accomplish.

What surprises you the most as a legislator?

What surprises me the most is that this job is a lot of listening. I mean, it really is. It takes a lot to understand the issues in various points of view. It happens in one-on-one conversations.

Concluding thoughts

State Representative Joshua Tarsky started his college career with a sense of mission for public service: enlisting in the Army, serving as an educator, bringing his passion of service to the work on behalf of not just his constituents, but on behalf of the state and his country. Many of his answers noted that when you help people in your community, there is a ripple effect that goes out to improve the fabric of the nation as a whole.

September 22 marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year. For everyone, I wish you a sweet, healthy new year that is one in which we work to help each other in a better way.

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Read the interview on Substack here.