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POLITICS AS USUAL (By Jim Baron) Obama, Catholicism and the politics of birth control

February 19, 2012

I find it remarkable that one of the liveliest debates being engaged during this presidential election year is about, of all things, contraception.
I understand that sexually related matters tend to raise the most heated passions (pun sort of intended), with abortion and gay rights amongst the most hot-button of those issues, but I kinda thought the contraception debate had been settled. And, really, it has been.

POLITICS AS USUAL (By Jim Baron) Meal tax hike coming? That's hard to swallow

February 12, 2012

The proposed 2 percent additional tax on restaurant meals and beverages has emerged as the big headline from Gov. Lincoln Chafee’s 2012 budget. His notion that it would fund additional aid to school districts didn’t seem to get as much ink.
My advice? Go someplace nice for lunch, order a good meal and a cocktail, and stop worrying about it. The tax ain’t going to happen.

POLITICS AS USUAL (By Jim Baron) This is, indeed, the Year of Cities and Towns

February 5, 2012

Governor Chafee is right (there’s a phrase you don’t see or hear in the media too often) to make 2012 the Year of Cities and Towns, and to focus his attention on helping the municipalities that are starting to fall like fiscal dominos, one crashing into the other as they fall until, looking from above, you see they spell out the message “Rhode Island is screwed.”

POLITICS AS USUAL (By Jim Baron) State of the Union recap; RI's T-shirt war

January 29, 2012

Tomorrow, Gov. Lincoln Chafee gives his State of the State speech, a companion piece to the budget that will be introduced in the House of Representatives a few hours earlier.
It’s a safe bet that presentation won’t have the air of political theater that Chafee’s old Senate buddy, President Barack Obama, had in his State of the Union address a week ago tomorrow.

POLITICS AS USUAL (By Jim Baron) Car tax is a fix for municipal junkies

January 22, 2012

The bad news is, you have been robbed and cheated for years now, paying a car tax on values that are way out of whack, nowhere near what your automobile is really worth.
The good news is, a bunch of rabble-rousers in Warwick have gotten the attention of state Rep. Joseph McNamara, who is moving to change the law so that the value your vehicle is taxed on more closely resembles reality.

 

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