Vox clamantis in deserto
R.I. hospitals pulled north and south
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' in GoLocal24.com:
So South County Hospital and Yale New Haven Health System are discussing linking up, presumably along the lines of what the Connecticut institution has already done with Westerly Hospital. It’s another reminder of how Rhode Island is being more and more absorbed into multi-state markets. From, say, East Greenwich north, the Ocean State is more and more part of Greater Boston. From East Greenwich to the southwest, it’s drawn into the coastal Connecticut/metro New York orbit.
Rhode Island can be a less expensive, more convenient and physically attractive alternative to those more congested and expensive places. While the state’s hospitals might not be able to offer the full range of services available at some famous Boston or New York hospitals or at Yale New Haven, they can provide most of the services that patients need. Meanwhile, Rhode Island could become a national model for primary care, helped by the Alpert Medical School at Brown’s nationally known primary-care training.
And there’s no reason that an out-of-state organization, such as Yale New Haven, for one, would close down certain highly profitable specialty services in Rhode Island, such as South County Hospital’s joint-replacement program.
There are many social and economic advantages to being between two of the richest and most important cities in America. And the more the Ocean State gets absorbed into the big metro areas to its north and south, the less provincial and tribal it will be.
'Passed sway with sunny May'
I cannot tell you how it was;
But this I know: it came to pass--
Upon a bright and breezy day
When May was young, ah pleasant May!
As yet the poppies were not born
Between the blades of tender corn;
The last eggs had not hatched as yet,
Nor any bird forgone its mate.
I cannot tell you what it was;
But this I know: it did but pass.
It passed away with sunny May,
With all sweet things it passed away,
And left me old, and cold, and grey.
-- Christina Rossetti, "May''
'Like a diamond quilt'
Vintage postcard depicting Great Diamond Island, Casco Bay, and Portland..
“We sat bathed in luscious darkness, Casco Bay's thousand islands spread out before us like a diamond quilt. 'I don't get enough of this,' she said.”
― Mike Bond, in his novel Killing Maine
Spring disillusionment
"The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.
Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May."
-- Sara Teasdale, May
On reflection
From Carrie McGee's show "Sea Changes,'' at Lanoue Gallery, Boston, May 5-June 11.
Chris Powell: Grossly misrepresenting immigration; Trump's hypocritical gift to big broadcasters
MANCHESTER, CONN.
Hundreds of people gathered at the Connecticut Capitol, in Hartford, on April 29 to misrepresent the immigration issue. They were assisted by Gov. Dannel Malloy, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. John B. Larson. The rally was said to be in support of immigrants, as if the country in general and President Trump in particular oppose any and all immigration.
But of course the controversy is about illegal immigration, and the elected officials -- all Democrats -- and the other speakers didn't want to address that. The Democratic position seems to be that anyone who breaks into the country illegally and reaches a "sanctuary city," such as New Haven or a "sanctuary state," such as Connecticut, should be exempt from enforcement of immigration law.
The April 29 rally goers were especially concerned about an illegal immigrant living in Derby, Luis Barrios, whom federal immigration officials have ordered to return to Guatemala by May 4. Yes, Barrios apparently hasn't done anything to deserve priority for deportation, but then he has not been given priority.
It turns out that an immigration court ordered him deported in 1998 -- 19 years ago, during the Clinton administration, a Democratic administration -- after he missed a court hearing, but enforcement was repeatedly postponed, giving him time to marry and start a family here in the hope of gaining an exemption. While news organizations reported that Barrios could not attend a rally in his support at the federal building in Hartford over the weekend because he was working, they did not explain how someone ordered deported so long ago had been given permission to work all these years.
Yes, Guatemala is dangerous and many Guatemalans like Barrios would prefer to be here. But is this country to take everyone who wants to leave Guatemala or other troubled countries? Should there be no rules for immigration into the United States? The rally did not address those questions and the news organizations attending it obligingly declined to ask them.
xxx
President Trump long has been denouncing the news media as "dishonest" for purveying "fake news." He did it again over the weekend, declining to attend the annual dinner of the White House news correspondents so he could address a rally of his supporters in Harrisburg, Pa. The president said he was thrilled to get away from the "Washington swamp," adding: "A large group of Hollywood actors and Washington media are consoling each other in a hotel ballroom in our nation's capital right now. If the media's job is to be honest and to tell the truth, the media deserves a big fat failing grade."
Yet just a few days earlier the president's appointee as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Ajit Pai, told a meeting of television and radio broadcasters in Las Vegas that the commission wants to repeal many regulations, including those that prevent concentration of ownership of broadcast companies and their acquisition of newspapers in the same market.
So if Big Media is "dishonest," why should the Trump administration facilitate its enlargement? Why shouldn't the administration want to break up the big media companies? For with broadcast licenses there are only two policy options: to concentrate ownership or to diversify it. Ownership of the broadcasting industry is already highly concentrated, so if the industry is "dishonest," more consolidation will make it only more so.
The contrast between the president's anti-media rhetoric and his administration's broadcast-station ownership consolidation policy suggests that Trump doesn't really believe what he is telling people. The contrast suggests that "fake news" is just Trump's way of distracting people from the swamp creatures he is empowering even as he denounces them
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.
Greetings from North Korea
"Column of Light,'' by Sue Charles, at Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass.
Narragansett Bay's drug and other problems
By FRANK CARINI for ecoRI News (ecori.org)
The Narragansett Bay Estuary Program has developed a draft report on the status of Narragansett Bay entitled “State of the Bay and its Watershed.” The report assesses 24 indicators throughout the bay and its watershed — some 60 percent of it is in Massachusetts — based on best available science and current research efforts.
Public comments on the draft report will be accepted until the close of business May 22. Comments should be e-mailed to info@nbep.org. The Narragansett Bay Estuary Program (NBEP) will revise and finalize the report and prepare a summary based on public feedback.
ecoRI News recently went through the report. Numerous factors, beyond climate change, sea-level rise and legacy contaminants, stress Rhode Island’s most significant natural resource. Here is a look at some of the others detailed in the NBEP’s draft report:
The estimated populations in 2014 of the Massachusetts and Rhode Island sections of the Narragansett Bay watershed. (U.S. Census Bureau Block Projections)
Population growth typically leads to increased nutrient loading, more impervious surfaces and habitat fragmentation. From 2000 to 2010, the population living within the Narragansett Bay watershed increased by nearly 8 percent, to 1.95 million people.
Quote: “It is well established that the way human society uses and protects the land within a watershed has critical implications for freshwater streams, estuarine waters, and associated habitats.”
Quote: “To protect the environmental quality of the watershed, effective land use management and regional planning practices must be implemented."
In the Narragansett Bay watershed, the amount of land classified as urban increased from 350,369 acres in 2001 to 379,804 acres in 2011. The increase of 29,435 acres represented a net change of 8.5 percent. During the same time period, forest lands decreased from 443,800 acres to 424,642 acres, a decline of 19,158 acres or 4.3 percent. (NLCD)
Land-use changes in the Narragansett Bay watershed, especially the conversion of natural lands to manmade areas, impacts the resiliency of hydrological functions, alters the delivery of nutrients to rivers and the bay, affects terrestrial, aquatic and estuarine habitat conditions, and contributes to an increase of pathogens into recreational and shellfishing waters.
Quote: “The conversion rate of natural land cover to developed land has outpaced the population growth rate in this region over the last few decades.”
Quote: “In addition, a decline in forest lands indicates habitat fragmentation and less area to protect water resources.”
These subwatersheds have the highest percentage of impervious cover in the Narragansett Bay watershed. The middle column is the number acres, followed by the percentage of impervious surface. The bay's Big River, Scituate Reservoir and Barden Reservoir-Ponaganset River subwatersheds have the lowest percentage of impervious cover, at 3.2 percent. (NBEP)
Impervious surfaces are a known stressor of both water quality and water quantity, as pavement, buildings and concrete impact the natural hydrology and habitat condition of the watershed. Impervious cover promotes above-ground flow of stormwater directly into local waterbodies, rather than infiltration of runoff through the soil. This change results in more nutrients, pathogens and other pollutants entering waterbodies.
Quote: “There are numerous studies suggesting that watershed degradation increases substantially when impervious cover reaches a threshold of 10 to 20 percent of the watershed’s land area.”
Quote: “The amount of impervious cover in Narragansett Bay’s HUC12 subwatersheds demonstrates the considerable extent of urbanization around the Bay. Impervious cover exceeded the 10 percent ecological threshold in 36 of the 52 subwatersheds."
From 2013-2015, the 37 wastewater treatment facilities in the Narragansett Bay watershed discharged nearly 5.4 million pounds of nitrogen annually. (NPEP)
Nutrient loading refers to the input of nutrients into the ecosystem from numerous human sources, including centralized and on-site wastewater treatment facilities, stormwater runoff and air pollution. Phosphorus and nitrogen are naturally occurring nutrients in sewage. Such loading within the Narragansett Bay watershed has cascading negative impacts through the physical, biological and human-health indicators.
Quote: “The downward trend in total nutrient loading will likely improve the physical and biological health of ecosystems in the Narragansett Bay watershed.”
Quote: “The largest threat that nutrient loading (nitrogen and phosphorous) poses for a watershed is the potential for eutrophication.”
Spatial and temporal concentrations of metoprolol throughout Narragansett Bay. A recent study conducted over the course of a year showed elevated levels of numerous pharmaceuticals in the bay’s water column. Various pharmaceuticals, such as metoprolol, a beta-blocker used to treat high blood pressure, were present at all sites and sampling periods, confirming their widespread spatial and temporal distribution. (Cantwell et al. 2017)
Chemical contaminants of emerging concern (CECs) refers to chemicals that have been identified recently in natural waters that have no regulatory standards associated with them and can potentially cause adverse effects to aquatic life.
They include but aren’t limited to nonprescription and prescription pharmaceuticals, personal-care products, and industrial chemicals used in a wide range of consumer, commercial and industrial products. Some examples: antidepressants, antihypertensives, antibiotics, painkillers and synthetic hormones; antimicrobials such as Triclosan; UV blockers in sunscreens such as oxybenzone; DEET, a pesticide which is applied to human skin; fragrances such as synthetic musks; flame retardants such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers; additives to plastics; and synthetic materials such as bisphenol A, commonly referred to as BPA.
Wastewater treatment facilities were never designed to treat or remove CECs.
Quote: “The behavior and fate of CECs in aquatic systems are not well understood; consequently, the knowledge about the exposure risk from CECs to aquatic life and human populations is limited.”
Quote: “The Providence River, in particular, is an area of concern due to the daily volume of wastewater effluent entering this sub-embayment. This is also critical for other locations in Narragansett Bay, particularly where commercial, wild seafood harvesting, aquaculture activities, and human recreation are occurring.”
Frank Carini is editor of ecoRI News.
'I preferred the solitude'
Mt. Kearsage, in central New Hampshire, near Donald Hall's home.
"I grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut - during the school time of year - but I preferred it in New Hampshire. I preferred the culture, the landscape, the relative solitude. I've always loved it.''
-- Donald Hall, former U.S. poet laureate.
David Warsh: The other hundred days
SOMERVILLE, Mass.
Almost everyone I know complains of Trump fatigue in some degree or another. An under-covered story of Trump’s first hundred days in office has to do with the differential coverage of his presidency in the four national newspapers I read, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, in particular. (I don’t see USA Today.)
The question bubbled just below the surface last week. In "Living in the Trump Zone,'' columnist Paul Krugman, in the NYT Friday, issued “a plea to my colleagues in the news media: Don’t pretend this is normal.” The same day, columnist Peggy Noonan, of the WSJ, wrote that "Trump Has Been Lucky in His Enemies''. that while “Mr. Trump has struggled so colorfully in the past three months, we’ve barely noticed his great good luck – that in that time the Democratic Party and the progressive left have been having a very public nervous breakdown.” Noonan studiously didn’t mention it, but among of the enemies she presumably thinks Trump has been so fortunate to acquire, none has been more relentless than the NYT, with The Washington Post not far behind.
The Times Saturday published an inside page listing 99 front-page headlines from Trump’s first hundred days; the hundredth story presumably is to appear today. It was a judicious selection; Omitted were countless other Trump news stories that have appeared in the paper, including some written mainly to hold him up to ridicule. But the editors’ sense of play stands up. It would be interesting to see a comparable selection of WSJ page one stories over the same hundred days. The NYT editorial pages have often gone overboard, of course; that’s what editorial pages have learned to do since 1972, when Robert Bartley took the reins at the WSJ after Vermont Royster’s 20-year term on “the Page.” The president can count on receiving two or three solid knocks from the Times’s editorial and op-ed pages on normal day, most of them well-placed.
The WSJ, on the other hand, has treated the Trump presidency in a decidedly low-key way, pretty much business as usual, which would be relaxing, if you didn’t notice the lengths to which they have gone to make its first three months appear normal. Exhibit A was a front-page story in March headlined “Steve Bannon and the Making of an Economic Nationalist.” This credulous as-told-to story by reporter Michael Bender related that Bannon’s views were galvanized when his 88-year-old father, a Bell Telephone retiree, sold his treasured shares of AT&T into the panic of 2008. It’s long been known that Bannon’s view were well established many years before.
Mind you, this is not the once-familiar difference between the WSJ’s famously fair-minded news pages and its over-the-top editorial pages. Now it’s the news pages that are shading right. The editorial pages are having a meltdown. During the campaign their enthusiasm seemed about evenly distributed among Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Trump. Since the election the editorialists have regularly reminded readers of their traditional support of trade and immigration, but their real passion continues to be for tax cuts, and never mind the deficit. Kimberly Strassel wrote Friday, “Here’s how to know a Republican president has scored big on a proposed tax reform: Read The New York Times – and chuckle.” Trump’s “big swashbuckling vision for enacting pro-growth principles” was his “finest moment (so far).” Meanwhile, the NYT took advantage of the extreme disarray to hire Bret Stephens, the WSJ’s star op-ed columnist, who increasingly strenuously opposed the Trump candidacy throughout the campaign. Stephens had been a leading candidate to succeed editorial page editor Paul Gigot; instead he has made his debut in the Times. Holman Jenkins Jr. stepped up to the plate in the Journal.
In general, the WSJ stance seems to be a tendency to reserve judgment as much as possible, on the theory that Trump is worth a try. “[T]he more important period [of his presidency] starts on day 101,” its editorialists wrote Saturday. “The next 200 or 300 days will determine whether Mr. Trump is a successful president or a Republican Jimmy Carter.” Noonan put a finer point on the matter when she wrote:
"If this thing works—if the Trump administration is judged by history as having enjoyed some degree of success—it will definitively open up the U.S. political system in a wholly new way. Before Mr. Trump it was generally agreed you had to be a professional politician or a general to win the presidency. Mr. Trump changed that. If he succeeds in office it will stay changed. Candidates for president will be able to be . . . anything. You can be a great historian or a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. You can be a Silicon Valley billionaire. You can be Oprah, The Rock, or Kellyanne. The system will attract a lot of fresh, needed, surprising talent, and also a lot of nuts and poseurs. But again, only if Mr. Trump succeeds. If he doesn’t, if he’s a spectacular failure, America will probably never go outside the system like this again, or not in our lifetimes.''
Meanwhile, The Washington Post is in the hands of a master campaigner, executive editor Martin Baron. Evidence of his rhetorical skills can be seen in reporter David Fahrenthold’s Pulitzer Prize-winning articles on the loose practices of Trump’s Foundation. I don’t see the WPost’s newsprint edition, so I am unable to guage the cumulative power of its coverage of the administration, but to judge from the Web site, the WPost, like the NYT, regards the Trump administration as anything but normal. Its scrutiny has been no less penetrating for being more tightly focused.
The same can be said for the fourth paper I read, the Financial Times, which, as usual, floats lightly above the fray, analyzing it except when it has got something distinctive to add. It was the FT that reported that, after the election, before the inauguration, Rupert Murdoch’s ex-wife Wendi Deng had persuaded First Daughter Ivanka Trump to become a trustee of a nearly $300 million fortune Murdoch set aside for their two children. That was not long after Deng was reported to have been dining with, first, Tony Blair, then Vladimir Putin. Demetri Stevastopulo, the FT’s Washington bureau chief, wrote Saturday,
Since the inauguration, Washington has become obsessed with parlor games that try to predict the next plot twist to emerge from Trump’s White House… At the moment, neither the political surprises nor the palace intrigue show any signs of settling down.…
It seems so to me as well. Look for the very instructive war between the NYT and the WSJ to continue. I once worked for the Journal, but, or the most part, I’m with the Times on this one.
David Warsh, a veteran financial, media and political journalist, is proprietor of economic principals.com, where this piece first appeared.
Disappearing herring
From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' column, in GoLocal24.com
River herring are becoming scarcer along the New England coast for a variety of possible reasons, be they changing food chains, pollution, climate change – or commercial fishermen catching too many of these creatures for use by health-supplement companies promoting the benefits of omega 3.
Herring are an important food for many other fish. Their declining numbers ought to spark stepped-up conservation efforts by state and federal regulators. The states have a big role because while these fish mostly live in the sea, they return to rivers to spawn.
Spring walk
The late Maverick, the half Lab and half border collie of Peter Alpers, of Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass. Mr, Alpers is setting aside a percentage of all sales until the end of May to the Northeast Animal Shelter, in Salem, Mass., in memory of Maverick.
- Photo by Peter Alpers, of Alpers Fine Art, Andover, Mass.
Basav Sen: Solar, not coal, is a big job producer
Mountaintop removal of coal in Appalachia.
Via OtherWords.org
When Donald Trump announced that he was rolling back the Obama administration’s signature climate rules this spring, he invited coal miners to share the limelight with him. He promised this would end the so-called “war on coal” and bring mining jobs back to coal country.
He was dead wrong on both counts.
Trump has blamed the prior administration’s Clean Power Plan for the loss of coal jobs. But there’s an obvious problem with this claim: The plan hasn’t even gone into effect! Repealing it will do nothing to reverse the worldwide economic and technological forces driving the decline of the coal industry.
And the problem is global. As concern rises over carbon dioxide, more and more countries are turning away from coal. U.S. coal exports are down, and coal plant construction is slowing the world over — even as renewables become cheaper and more widespread.
To really bring back coal jobs, Trump would have to wish these trends away — along with technological automation and natural gas, which have taken a much bigger bite out of coal jobs than any regulation.
Could domestic regulation have played some role in the decline of coal? Sure, some. Rules limiting emissions of mercury and other pollutants from burning coal, and limiting the ability of coal-burning utilities to dump toxic coal ash in rivers and streams, likely put some financial pressure on coal power plants.
However, those costs should be weighed against the profound health benefits of cleaner air and water.
Cleaning up coal power plants (and reducing their number) leads to fewer children with asthma, fewer costly emergency room visits, and fewer costly disaster responses when massive amounts of toxic coal ash leach into drinking water sources, to name just a few benefits. Most reasonable people would agree those aren’t small things.
There’s also the fact that the decline in coal jobs, while painful for those who rely on them, tells only a small part of the story. In fact, there are alternatives that could put hundreds of thousands of people back to work.
Here are a few little-known facts: Coal accounts for about 26 percent of the electricity generating capacity in our country — and about 160,000 jobs. Solar energy accounts for just 2 percent of our power generation — and 374,000 jobs.
In other words, solar has created more than twice as many jobs as coal, with only a sliver of the electric grid. So if the intent truly is to create more jobs, where would a rational government focus its efforts?
It’s not just solar, either. The fastest growing occupation in the U.S. is wind turbine technician. And a typical wind turbine technician makes $25.50 an hour, more than many fossil fuel workers.
By rolling back commonsense environmental restraints on the coal industry, Trump is allowing the industry to externalize its terrible social and environmental costs on all of us, giving the industry a hidden subsidy. He’s also reopening federal lands to new coal leases, at rates that typically run well below actual market value.
By subsidizing a less-job intensive and more established industry, Trump’s misguided policy changes will thwart the growth of the emerging solar and wind industries, which could create many, many more jobs than coal. In fact, hurting these industries by helping coal might even result in a net job loss for everyone.
Then again, maybe this was never about jobs. Maybe the administration’s intent all along was to reward well-connected coal (and oil and gas) oligarchs who make hefty campaign contributions. If so, that was a good investment for them.
For ordinary working people — and for our planet — the cost could be too much to bear.
Basav Sen directs the Climate Justice Project at the Institute for Policy Studies.
'Nature attitudinizes'
Hepatica
After the epigæa and the hepatica have blossomed, there is a slight pause among the wild-flowers, — these two forming a distinct prologue for their annual drama, as the brilliant witch-hazel in October brings up its separate epilogue. The truth is, Nature attitudinizes a little, liking to make a neat finish with everything, and then to begin again with éclat.... Each species seems to burst upon us with a united impulse; you may search for it day after day in vain, but the day when you find one specimen the spell is broken and you find twenty. By the end of April all the margins of the great poem of the woods are illuminated with these exquisite vignettes.
-- Thomas Wentworth Higginson, "April Days," (1861)
Now start drafting
"Naiad'' (pencils), buy Jennifer Maestre, in the show "Wood as Muse,'' at the Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, Mass., May 7-Sept. 3.
How sustainable are our seafood supplies?
Irish fishing trawler.
To members and friends of the Providence Committee on Foreign Relations (pcfremail@gmail.com; thepcfr.org).
Our next meeting comes Wednesday, May 17, with James E. Griffin, an expert on the global food sector. He's a professor of culinary studies at Johnson & Wales University and an international business consultant. He's particularly well known for his knowledge of global food sourcing and sustainability.
Professor Griffin will focus in his talk on seafood sustainability, looking at it with New England, national and international perspectives. It will be based on international research he and his colleagues have conducted in recent years.
Sticking it out until now
"Withstanding the cold develops vigor for the relaxing days of spring and summer. Besides, in this matter as in many others, it is evident that nature abhors a quitter.”
― Arthur C. Crandall, in New England Joke Lore: The Tonic of Yankee Humor
Chris Powell: Are Connecticut's GOP legislators ready for responsibility?
Connecticut's Merritt Parkway in the spring.
MANCHESTER, Conn.
Just days from now Connecticut may be the most beautiful place in the world as its trees and flowers bloom, its skies brighten, its weather warms, and people open their windows and emerge from their winter quarters. But administratively and politically Connecticut will be something else -- perhaps the most deranged, deluded, and declining state in the country.
If many people still believe anything coming out of state government, this week's state income tax revenue estimates, shockingly below expectations, should puncture whatever illusions remain that Connecticut is improving or even leveling off from its long decline. For if the state was improving, tax revenue would be rising, not falling, as would the state's population, and not every business expansion would have to be purchased with a subsidy from state government.
Despite the crash in revenue estimates and a projected state budget deficit approaching $2 billion, this week the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee announced that it wants to increase state spending by more than 5 percent in the next year, which would mean more big tax increases, especially since most legislators have rejected Gov. Dannel Malloy's proposal to balance the budget by slashing education aid to most towns and to require towns to cover a third of the annual cost of the teacher pension fund.
Many legislators will go along with the governor's plan to exact $1.7 billion in concessions from the state employee unions somehow, but only as long as the governor handles that challenge by himself so legislators don't have to alienate the unions with legislation.
Also this week the superintendent of the Connecticut Technical High School System resigned while under investigation for spending $4.5 million of state money with a public relations agency, much of it for largely self-promotional publicity over the last three years.
In other states such a scandal might prompt the legislature to inquire as to how so much money could be spent so self-servingly before somebody noticed. But in Connecticut things like this just prompt legislators to look harder for ways to raise more money.
Though the Appropriations Committee devised a budget this week, its one-member Democratic majority could not bring itself to vote on it without assurances of support and political cover from Republican members, which wasn't forthcoming. Democratic leaders were bitter about this but they shouldn't have been, for the committee's inability to report a budget increased the obligation of the Republicans to propose one of their own, which they have been reluctant to do, since it would require them to cut spending substantially or raise taxes or do some of both -- that is, to take responsibility.
But if the Republicans summon the courage to specify spending cuts so that tax increases can be avoided, they just might get their budget passed in the legislature and signed by the governor, a Democrat who has begun opposing tax increases, perhaps in part because he is not seeking re-election and needn't worry as much about his own party.
The legislature's political margins are now so close that to pass a budget the Republicans would need to draw only several Democratic votes in the House and only one in the Senate, and there are many Democratic legislators who would make themselves vulnerable in the election next year if they raised taxes as they have done before with their governor. Then the Republicans could go into the campaign as the party that prevented another big Democratic tax increase.
Of course the Republicans would have made enemies among some of those who are dependent on state spending, but they were never going to get those votes anyway.
Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.