The traditional holiday feast known as La Vigilia is magic for the ages, so it’s no surprise that UNESCO has added Italian cuisine to the world’s intangible cultural heritage. What is tangible, though, is when you encounter a local sub shop scheming to put mayo (yuck!!) on an otherwise delicious chicken, rabe and provolone sandwich.
Thanks for stopping by for my weekly column. You can follow me through the week on Bluesky, threads and X. Here we go.
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1. STORY OF THE WEEK: Favorable timing is one of the most precious political commodities, so a lot of congressional Democrats probably wish that midterm elections could be held this week. The pending Jan. 1 expiration of tax credits for Obamacare has put the wind at the back of the Donkey Party. If the credits expire – which appears likely – more than 20 million Americans will face sharply more expensive health insurance costs, and Republicans may reap the whirlwind. “I don’t think that they’re in a good position,” U.S. Rep. Gabe Amo said during an interview this week on One on One on Ocean State Media. “That’s why they’re in a bind. They are twisting and turning every which way to avoid this problem.” DC Republicans, however, are generally better at playing hardball than their Democratic counterparts; consider how the party peeled off a few Dems to end the recent shutdown, and how Senate Republicans helped engineer the rise of a conservative Supreme Court majority. Amo declined to address how the GOP may try to turn the healthcare issue to its advantage ahead of elections next November. Instead, the 1st District congressman and his colleagues are embracing Dem strategist James Carville’s maxim – “When your opponent is drowning, throw him an anvil.” Or as Amo put it more diplomatically, “Well, the fact of the matter is the Republicans control the White House and … they control the U.S. Senate and then control the House. So that really does tie our hands, and they’re gonna harm the entirety of our healthcare system because let’s be clear, everybody will pay for the uncompensated care that we see.”
2. ON HIS WAY: Rep. Amo, who turned 38 this week (HBD), vaulted into Congress two years ago at the tender age of 35, emerging from a field of 11 Democrats, after having worked for President Obama, Gov. Raimondo and President Biden. Not bad for someone yet to hit 40, with a long potential runway in Rhode Island politics. Here are some other highlights from our conversation.
***Amo, the vice-ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said if Ds retake the House next year, he would use his greater influence to focus more on the loss of billions of dollars of foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development. A Boston University researcher argues that hundreds of thousands of deaths have resulted, but some Republicans dispute the finding.
***Immigration was one of the top issues animating support for President Trump last year. The New York Times just published a lengthy story outlining how President Biden “and his closest advisers repeatedly rebuffed recommendations that could have addressed the border crisis faster.” Amo acknowledged errors were made. On the question of why Presidents Obama and Biden didn’t do more to assuage Americans’ anxiety about falling behind economically, he pointed to the passage of the Affordable Care Act as a major step forward. Amo added, “with President Biden, I think his economic record was not something that I think he was able to vigorously put out to the American public.”
***According to Axios, President Trump “unapologetically condemned an entire community, with no fear of political backlash,” when he called Somali immigrants “garbage” who “contribute nothing.” The news site said the president’s rhetoric shows how guardrails against this kind of stuff “have all but vanished on the American right.” Asked how we come back from this as a nation, Amo – whose father is from Ghana and his mother from Liberia – said: “One, we have to move past the Trump era. We need to minimize his voice. He tries to capture our attention every single day in this attention economy. We cannot let him win. [The] fact of the matter is, the fundamental hearts of the American people are good. We can’t let him distract us and convince us otherwise. He has gone from ‘dog whistles’ to ‘dog barks,’ and we can’t let that be the case. And so I appeal to my neighbors. I appeal to the people that I work for in the 1st Congressional District. Let’s not use that same rhetoric. Let’s not minimize the importance of the voices of our leaders, and let’s try to show love and appreciation for our fellow Americans and people who come here who want to fulfill the American dream.”
3. REALITY CHECK: Young voters could be the key to the midterms, but they’ve been turned off by both parties, according to the University of Chicago’s GenFoward survey. Via NPR’s Elena Moore: “Respondents were most likely to prioritize issues concerning affordability as the most important challenges facing the country today. Nearly 9 in 10 were concerned about the price of food and the cost of health care. Roughly a quarter reported feeling extremely or very worried about being able to pay their mortgage or rent, while about a third believe they will be worse off financially than their parents. That collective financial worry isn’t new — especially as home and rental prices have climbed at a faster pace than wages for roughly 20 years, and Gen Z and millennials report higher rates of student loan debt and more mortgage debt.”
4. WASHINGTON BRIDGE, SHOT: The state could have replaced the doomed bridge six years ago, although RIDOT officials “have not publicly mentioned the fact that they asked their consultants to investigate building a new span,” Patrick Anderson reports in the ProJo.
5. WASHINGTON BRIDGE, CHASER: Via my colleague Jeremy Bernfeld: “Two years after the westbound Washington Bridge was abruptly closed, the resulting traffic has largely been a grudgingly accepted headache for drivers who routinely pass through Providence. But for one local folk-rock band, it has become an inspiration. The Moonlight Ramblers released their single ‘Broken Bridge’ last year. Acoustic guitar player Ben Cooper came up with the idea for the combination love song-frustration ballad after a few months of driving back and forth over what’s left of the bridge.”
6. TAXING MATTERS: Although the holiday slowdown looms, the calendar will soon turn to 2026, with a new legislative session, Gov. Dan McKee’s next budget proposal and a percolating election season following in short order. Not surprisingly, with politicians of various stripes focused on this, McKee plans to offer an “affordability agenda” as he tries to boost his electoral outlook. One element, per the ProJo, would be eliminating taxes on Social Security income. However, the General Assembly took action in 2015 to exempt federally taxable Social Security income for taxpayers at full retirement age and below certain income thresholds (currently $107K for single filers and $134K for joint filers). It would cost an estimated $50 million to wipe out remaining state revenue on Social Security, requiring other potential cuts in the budget. Meanwhile, McKee sounded a bit more receptive to a possible state tax hike on upper income filers, although fallout from higher taxes on the affluent in Massachusetts may gain notice. As Kelly Garrity reported in Massachusetts Playbook this week, “A group of Granite State Republicans will be on Beacon Hill later today to needle their southern counterparts over a spate of recent businesses that have moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.”
7. WEEKEND 401: Our curated guide to some possibilities for your weekend.
8. NEWS AROUND TOWN: U.S. Rep. Seth Magaziner had a viral moment when he confronted Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem about the detention and deportation of U.S. veterans and their families …. Rest in Peace, A.T. Wall, former director of the state Department of Corrections, who died at age 72 …. GOP candidate for governor Aaron Guckian announced “Rhode Island Works Smarter, a plan to modernize state government, fix inefficiencies, and lower costs by empowering frontline and union workers to identify problems and improve systems using modern technology. On day one, we will start the pilot program in the Department of Administration to start to fix what’s broken” …. Thanks to Bill Bartholomew for inviting me (and Ted Nesi) onto his podcast this week … Former WJAR-TV reporter Lynzi DeLuccia, most recently head of internal communications at Johnson & Wales, has joined Half Street Group, Mike Raia’s comms shop.
9. MEDIA I: Big tectonic changes continue apace, with Disney making a $1 billion investment in AI, and Netflix and Paramount fighting over the future of Warner Brothers. If you want to travel in your mind back to the not-so-distant analog past, when a brash upstart became the alternative to the reigning king of alt-media in Boston, read some of the tributes greeting the passing of Jeff Lawrence.
10. MEDIA II: A bit of advice to young journos – save your work. Unless you work for a behemoth like the Times or the Globe, your organization’s website may go through a series of iterations over time, resulting in dead links and lost audio. Take the initiative by compiling your own set of the work that you want to preserve.
11. CONSUMERISM: Connecticut and Massachusetts are chock a block with Costcos, so why does Rhode Island not have one? One suspects the inability of wholesale clubs to sell alcohol here is a dominant factor, although you can scan a range of theories on Reddit. Now that Gina Raimondo has been nominated for Costco’s board, Rhode Islanders are bound to bend her ear about this vexing need. But bigger issues are also in play, following a recent suit by Costco against the Trump administration. “Costco isn’t even pretending anymore,” tweeted entrepreneur Mario Nawfal. “They’re openly stacking the board with Democratic operatives while waging legal war against the administration’s economic agenda.”
12. KICKER: Why the Sox didn’t sign Kyle Schwarber to a long-term contract after the 2021 season is one of life’s great mysteries. Instead, letting him get away and trading Mookie Betts rankle the faithful. Adding insult to injury, the division rival Orioles signed slugger Pete Alonso and Boston remains short on offense at this stage in the Hot Stove League, even as the team hypes ticket sales for the 2026 season.
