Lincoln Chafee’s Courage: Speak Reality To Rhode Island Voters In Difficult Times!

Former Senator Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island, who served in the Senate for seven years as an independent minded Republican, and then became an Independent after losing his Senate seat, is presently running for Governor, and offering voters reality and truth, and leaving it to the voters to decide!

Chafee, always very principled, and often unwilling to back the Republican view on many issues, remains popular in his home state, despite his loss in 2006, and is now telling voters that they will need to pay more taxes in order not to have budget cuts which would be damaging and unacceptable!

He has told the public in his campaign appearances that more taxation is essential, unless they are willing to let murderers out of prison early; expel old parents from nursing homes; or close state parks!

In other words, there are real world consequences if people are not willing to pay somewhat more taxes in the form of sales taxes! There is no free ride, and public services will suffer if the tax base is not supplemented by moderate tax increases!

That sounds like a suicidal mission, to suggest that people come to grips with reality! It will be interesting to see if Chafee can convince voters of the absolute need to raise taxes in a recession year!

The one factor in his favor is that he is running in a three way race, where he does not need a majority, but instead a plurality, to win the Governorship!

But, of course, then the question is whether the legislature would follow his lead and adopt the Governor’s program, as he would not be allied with either party! So this is a story worth following, both for the race itself, and but also for the aftermath if Chafee wins!