To fall into a political trap, as Justin suggests I have done, one would first have to take the bait. To stretch the metaphor further, I didn’t take the Governor’s budget bait–much less get caught in a trap–so much as look at the bait (tax “cuts”) and offer a few observations. If anything, maybe I’m guilty of assuming the trap was self-evident (even though I pointed out some of its mechanisms–tax/fee increases, tolls). OK, enough of the metaphor-stretching.
I know what Justin was getting at when he wrote “It is insufficient to go through a budget proposals as if it were itemized lists of distinct suggestions.” We agree, I think, that the general thrust of a budget proposal is more important than the sum of its parts in how it tips the hand of a Governor. But, questions of relative importance aside, my post was about “some of those parts” (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk), no more, no less. I didn’t call it “A Comprehensive Budget Review” or “Chafee’s Budget: A Holistic Conservative Response” or even “On Linc: The Hem-Hawed, un-TelePrompTered Propositions of a Horse-shoeing, Silver-Spoon Sucking Scion”. I called it “Budget Thoughts” and offered a few.
I think what we’ve got here is a difference in style, not substance. So put down your velvet hammer Mr. Carpenter Man (“temperamentally conservative”…I see what you did there…soften me up then “thwack”…”fair-minded” ie; give the Guv a pass…”thwack thwack”) I agree that, taken as whole, this budget is a mess with way too much reliance on vague promises of “things to come.” Finally: we’re due for a beer, aren’t we?