Real life took me away for the better part of the last week, but major kudos to Andrew and Monique for having the stomach to both watch and blog about the annual 11th hour House budget hearings on Captitol TV. I watched a little of it, but it was late, I was sick and they had it covered. Truth be told, as Justin pointed out earlier last week, it’s hard to get excited when the budget “cuts” can only be called such when viewed as relative to the Governor’s proposal and not to prior year’s spending. The budget was also helped by better “revenue” projections than before. With the exception of the change in medical coverage for state retirees that shifted costs over to Medicare, no major structural reform really happened. I suppose we wait for pension (and OPEB?) reform in the fall. Or maybe we just wait for things to get magically better–or not quite as bad. You know, tolerably bad in the miserable Rhode Island sorta way. That’s our General Assembly: marking time, as always.
ADDENDUM: Commenter “RodneyR” reminds me I forgot to mention the ending of longevity and says that should qualify as a “structural” change. Yup (for now).