Editorials from around New England

Editorials from around New England:

VERMONT

Rutland Herald, Jan. 5

The warmest applause during Gov. Phil Scott’s State of the State address on Thursday came toward the end when he said, “Now I don’t know when this period of hyper partisanship and anger will end. But I do know we can’t fight hate with hate, or anger with anger. We must do everything we can to pull our nation out of darkness and restore civility and respect to our public process.”

Vermonters of both parties are grateful that Scott has distanced himself from the dark tides of partisanship consuming his party in Washington, instead practicing the politics of civility. But his inspiring words did not obscure the potential conflicts embedded in his address to the Legislature on Thursday. Scott himself acknowledged that the occasional jab or elbow will be thrown in the political tussle to come during the 2018 session.

Scott appealed to the civic virtues that most Vermonters embrace as a necessary touchstone for the conduct of business. He said the people had issued a “call for balance, moderation and fiscal responsibility” that the Legislature must heed.

Scott intends to continue his work of putting the state’s fiscal house in order, bringing into balance state spending and revenues so that lawmakers don’t begin each year facing a structural deficit that forces painful budget cuts. He noted that last year the state limited budget growth to 1 percent, while wages grew at about 2 percent. That is a positive trend.

But Scott laid down a marker that could prove to be the most serious issue of contention during the coming session. He said he intended to prevent taxes and fees from increasing this year. “And, just so I’m clear,” he said, “that includes statewide property tax rates.”

Here is an area rife with contradictions. Scott misconceives his role. It is the voters at town meeting who determine school spending, and Scott’s determination to ensure that property tax rates do not go up suggests he means to impose arbitrary and draconian cuts on local schools that could be seriously damaging to education in Vermont.

Scott described a false dichotomy. He said investments in education must be based on the needs of the state’s kids rather than on “nostalgia.” He seemed to suggest that the thousands of Vermonters in small towns all across the state who value the role that their small schools play in their communities and in the education of their children are guilty of nostalgia. That is insulting to Vermonters. Vermonters did not create the geography that requires them to maintain and operate numerous small schools in the state’s numerous small towns. Rather, they have created excellent schools in challenging locations despite the geography.

The contradictions continued. Scott described the increased investment that will be needed in early care and learning, technical education, workforce readiness training and higher education - “without raising the price tag on Vermonters.” Increased investment without a higher price tag is a puzzle, unless he means to impose drastic cuts elsewhere. The Democrats fear that he means to impose some sort of teacher-student ratio that would create chaos in the state’s schools, saving money for his other investments. It is unlikely the Democrats will let him get away with it.

Scott described the demographic challenges the state faces: the aging workforce, the departure of young Vermonters, the shortage of workers and taxpayers. Workforce development and education are a necessary answer to those challenges, and finding the money for those aims while keeping a lid on taxes will be the work of both Democrats and Republicans this year. Scott had an interesting proposal, allowing tuition-free college to those who serve in the Vermont National Guard. He also proposed to eliminate the state income tax on military pensions, which could have revenue implications making it difficult to implement.

Scott himself was guilty of a bit of nostalgia, referring to his upbringing in Barre and arguing that the state’s many small towns - “from Richford to Readsboro, Rochester to Ryegate” - should become regional economic centers. Fostering high-quality education in the many out of the way places where it is needed is also an economic development initiative. Let’s hope members of the Legislature do not let Scott undermine it.

Online: http://bit.ly/2AvK2DY

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MAINE

Portland Press Herald, Jan. 4

What, exactly, is wrong with Maine’s system of citizen-initiated referendums?

Worried about the sheer number of initiatives put before voters, the difficulty of dictating policy through the ballot box, and the system’s vulnerability to well-financed outside influence, lawmakers have struggled with that question.

This session’s first attempt at an answer, through a proposal from Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, gets them no closer to a solution.

Dunlap’s bill, L.D. 1726, includes a provision that would ban the gathering of signatures from within 50 feet of the entrance to a polling place, and would require a 50-foot activity-free pathway from parking areas or drop-off points to the entrance of polling places.

Dunlap says these signature-gatherers can be intimidating and disruptive, and that he is merely protecting voters and the municipal clerks who run polling places.

He is overstating the case, to say the least. As the secretary of state himself has pointed out, Maine elections are notable for how well they are run, and for how many voters participate. Petitioners generally are respectful and clear on where their boundaries lie.

The same cannot be said of the York County casino campaign, which culminated in a historic loss Nov. 7. Campaign organizers gathered signatures on the street using well-paid workers, some of whom employed misleading tactics to convince voters to sign.

And that’s the problem with Dunlap’s proposal - whatever its purpose, banning petitioners from the polls would harm the ability of Maine residents to participate in direct democracy while doing nothing to keep well-funded out-of-state campaigns from targeting our state. It would hinder the ability of Maine residents to respond when the Legislature doesn’t, say, raise the minimum wage, expand Medicaid or increase school funding - all things approved by voters after years of legislative gridlock - but it would do nothing to keep a casino developer with millions of dollars to spare from buying his way onto the ballot.

Gathering signatures at the polls is critical to the success of true citizen-led initiatives - there is no other time when so many registered voters are gathered in one place at the same time. Campaigns run largely with volunteer help can’t afford to seek voters out solely on the street.

But Shawn Scott can. Leading the casino campaign, he paid workers up to $17 a signature, a previously unheard-of rate.

In that and other ways, Scott’s campaign made a mockery of the citizen initiative. If lawmakers are looking for what’s wrong with the process, they should start there.

Online: http://bit.ly/2F11LXl

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NEW HAMPSHIRE

The (Nashua) Telegraph, Jan. 4

Tax reform signed into law by President Donald Trump just before Christmas may be detrimental to many charitable organizations, some analysts insist. It should not make an iota of difference in how we Americans respond to need.

If you make contributions to recognized charities, you may be using them as a deduction to lessen your income tax bill. There had been some concern Congress would eliminate that deduction, which costs the Treasury an estimated $41.5 billion a year.

But the new law keeps the charitable giving deduction in place.

So what’s the problem?

Some analysts worry that tax relief granted to most Americans may prompt some to forego charitable giving because, in essence, they don’t need the deduction to reduce their tax bills. For those using the new $24,000 standard deduction for married couples, there is no reason to resort to any itemized deductions.

Some people may reduce charitable giving because it no longer helps them. Or so say some commentators.

No doubt that will happen in some situations. But concluding it will be a major problem assumes most charitable giving is not out of a motive to help worthy causes, but for purely selfish reasons.

Americans are better than that. We are confident the overwhelming majority of charitable giving is out of the goodness of donors’ hearts, not merely to save them money at tax time.

Here’s hoping our theory is proved right by events, starting early this year.

If you know of a need and can help fill it, please do by making a donation to a worthy cause - as soon as possible.

Online: http://bit.ly/2CMqjWM

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RHODE ISLAND

The Providence Journal, Jan. 2

The unrest that swept the Middle East in late 2010 and early 2011, leading to the ouster of dictatorships in Egypt and Tunisia, as well as the grievous Syrian civil war, never really spread to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Perhaps that’s because hundreds of thousands of Iranians had already taken to the streets en masse in 2009 to protest the results of an obviously rigged presidential election. The so-called Green Movement was then tragically and violently suppressed. (The Obama administration refused to lend the movement support at a critical juncture, arguing that such efforts might spur the regime to crack down even harder - though President Obama’s hopes of later rapprochement with Iran’s leaders may also have played a role.) It seemed that Iran was doomed to remain under the yoke of theocratic despots, even as other brutal regimes in the neighborhood fell.

But perhaps not. In recent days, Iranians have again - and at great risk to themselves - taken to the streets to protest their lot. Indeed, by all accounts, tens of thousands of Iranians are now regularly demonstrating against the regime that governs them. More than a dozen have been killed.

The protests were spurred by economic concerns. In a more sane world, Iran would be a prosperous country. It enjoys bountiful energy reserves and an educated young population. It once had relatively healthy government institutions, as well. No more: The regime is deeply corrupt, and the government has badly mismanaged the economy. It has squandered money on foreign adventurism, including propping up the terrorist group Hezbollah. The painful economic situation of most Iranians, with food prices skyrocketing, finally propelled them onto the streets.

But in recent days, it has become apparent that the protesters’ critique goes further. Unverified footage from one protest shows demonstrators chanting, “We don’t want an Islamic Republic” and “Death to the dictator.” In another video, women throw off their hijabs, defying the official dress code for Iranian women.

It would be a good thing indeed if this mass movement signified the beginning of end of the theocratic regime that has ruled Iran since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. That regime is bad for the Iranians and for the world at large.

At home, the Islamic Republic is brutally repressive, as evidenced by the regime’s response to the peaceful protests. Social media sites have been blocked; universities shuttered; protesters arrested and killed. These are the behaviors of an autocratic regime, and what one would expect from a sham democracy.

Though Iran has a supposedly democratically elected president, in reality its conservative religious leaders, the Mullahs, call the shots. The elections themselves are rigged, with bona fide reformists blocked from running and blatant ballot stuffing and other shenanigans.

Globally, Iran is a menace. The world’s leading state sponsor of terror has pursued nuclear weapons for years and routinely threatens the annihilation of Israel. The Islamic Republic has killed scores of Americans through its terrorist proxies. It has tested ballistic missiles as well.

On Monday, President Trump tweeted that “The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food & for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. TIME FOR CHANGE!” We doubt that the president’s tweets will reach many Iranians, but we share that sentiment.

Online: http://bit.ly/2m0kklX

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CONNECTICUT

The Hartford Courant, Jan. 3

Connecticut’s money is moving out - and a lot of it is moving to Florida.

It’s common knowledge now that Connecticut is seeing an exodus of residents. But are the rich leaving? According to the latest IRS data, they are.

Legislators who hope to solve the state’s budget crisis with ever-higher taxes should pay attention. The data are clear:

Those who moved out of Connecticut from 2015 to 2016 took with them more than $6 billion in adjusted gross income, or AGI. People who moved to Connecticut brought with them only about $3.36 billion in AGI. The total net loss to Connecticut: $2.7 billion. In one year. That was in the top five of all states, regardless of population.

Connecticut realized $6.85 billion in income tax from the 2015 tax year, or 4.3 percent of the $161 billion in AGI reported from all filers. If that same ratio held true in 2016, then the loss of $2.7 billion in AGI would have meant an actual loss of more than $100 million in income tax revenue.

In one year. That doesn’t account for all of the problems in a $20 billion budget, but it’s a serious dent, and it’s indicative of a deep problem: Many of Connecticut’s wealthy residents are moving out, and they’re taking their money with them.

Legislators, this is strong evidence that taxing residents at high rates is becoming counterproductive.

Here’s more evidence:

The average adjusted gross income for all filers who moved out of Connecticut last year was $123,377 - the highest in the nation and far above the state’s median income. The average AGI per return for those who moved in was $92,677, or $30,699 less than those who moved out - the biggest difference in the nation. Put another way, those who moved in were not enough in number, or in income, to replace the expats.

The states that poached the most taxpayers from Connecticut were New York (8,202 tax returns) and Florida (7,944). The average adjusted gross income for those who left for New York was $111,653. That’s pretty bad, but it’s nowhere near as shocking as Florida, where the average return from former Connecticut residents was $253,187 in adjusted gross income.

That means more than $2 billion in income moved from Connecticut to Florida from 2015 to 2016, more than twice as much money as moved to New York.

The overall trend of richer people leaving Connecticut has been increasing over the last five years, according to the IRS data. The total number of tax filers and their average AGI for people who moved out of Connecticut was higher last year than at any time since before 2011-12. For example: From 2012 to 2013, more than 48,000 tax filers had moved out of Connecticut, nearly as many as moved out from 2015 to 2016, but the average return was about $112,000 in AGI, compared to over $123,000 last year.

Goodbye, rich people.

It’s not that Florida doesn’t have its problems - it does. But it has a unique situation: It can prop up most of its state government on sales tax revenues and attract residents by avoiding an income tax.

Connecticut’s financial problems are serious. We have crushing pension obligations, too long ignored. The state must find a way to deal with them without taxing the stuffing out of the rich. That is not a guaranteed way to increase income, as the IRS data show.

The legislature’s priority in 2018 must be to tackle this problem that they’ve hit the snooze button on for decades.

Online: http://cour.at/2E611Pq

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MASSACHUSETTS

The Cape Cod Times, Jan. 4

Anyone who has ever had to choose a nursing home for a loved one knows it can be a daunting process.

Is it clean? Does it seem to have enough nursing staff? Does it take Medicaid? Does it provide plenty of activities for the residents?

Now comes a new tool that will help make the decision process a little easier: staffing levels based on payroll or other auditable data. The new data are available at https://data.cms.gov .

“Staffing is key to the quality of care and safety provided by a nursing home,” said Richard Mollot of the Long Term Care Community Coalition, nonprofit organization bases in New York City.

He recommended that people only consider nursing homes that provide more than 4.2 hours of care from staff per day. Our Island Home on Nantucket was the only nursing home on the Cape and Islands that reached that level of direct care, according to data released last month by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The Nantucket home averaged 4.4 hours of direct care daily by nurses and certified nursing assistants, while nursing homes reported to have the lowest levels of care locally - Wingate at Brewster and the Pavilion in Hyannis - both averaged 2.8 hours per day.

Families should also look at how many hours of registered nurse care is provided per patient per day.

“RNs have the most training in terms of being able to provide an assessment of a resident’s condition and to provide clinical care,” he said. “Some nursing homes hire more LPNs (licensed practical nurses) and less RNs because it is cheaper to do so.”

Mollot said he would personally look for a nursing home with registered nurse staffing of 0.75 hours per resident per day, in addition to overall average staffing of 4.2-plus hours per day.

Few nursing homes on the Cape meet the criteria Mollot mentioned. The JML Care Center in Falmouth and Mayflower Place Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in West Yarmouth had the highest ratios of RN care per day at 0.9 each, while Bourne Manor had the least at 0.2 hours.

While staffing levels are important, families usually weigh other factors as well, such as its proximity to family members and the facility’s rating on Nursing Home Compare at Medicare.com.

“I would choose a facility with at least three stars if possible,” Mollot said. For example, Cape Heritage in Sandwich has three stars overall on Nursing Home Compare and is considered to be of “average” quality, while Cape Regency in Centerville has one star and is considered “much below average” overall.

So before you place a loved one in a nursing home, make sure you do your homework.

After all, more than 1 in 4 cases of possible sexual and physical abuse against nursing home patients went unreported to police, according to a recent government audit.

The inspector general’s office of the Department of Health and Human Services faulted Medicare for failing to enforce a federal law requiring immediate notification of abuse.

With some 1.4 million people living in U.S. nursing homes, quality is an ongoing concern. The number of nursing home residents is expected to grow in coming years as more people live into their 80s and 90s.

Auditors identified 134 cases in which hospital emergency room records indicated possible sexual or physical abuse, or neglect, of nursing home residents. The incidents spanned a two-year period from 2015-2016.

Illinois had the largest number of incidents overall, with 17. It was followed by Michigan (13), Texas (9), and California (8).

In 38 of the total cases (28 percent), investigators could find no evidence in hospital records that the incident had been reported to local law enforcement, despite a federal law requiring prompt reporting by nursing homes, as well as similar state and local requirements. Of the 38 unreported cases, 31 involved alleged or suspected rape or sexual abuse.

Nursing home personnel must immediately report incidents that involve a suspected crime, within a two-hour window if there’s serious bodily injury. Otherwise, authorities must be notified within 24 hours.

Online: http://bit.ly/2lYnAOL