- This week on, "A Lively Experiment," Providence and the State reach an agreement on how much the city needs to come up midyear to fund the schools, but at what cost to its residents.

And the race for governor is taking shape for 2026, or is it?

- [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment," is generously underwritten by.

- Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment," has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us with the analysis, attorney and former national committee man for the Rhode Island Republican Party, Steve Frias.

Weayonnoh Nelson-Davies, executive director of the Economic Progress Institute and Boston Globe Reporter, Ed Fitzpatrick.

Hello and welcome to, "Lively," I'm Jim Hummel.

Buckle up if you live in Providence.

As Mayor Smiley said this week, some financial pain is coming.

It may not be this year, but the only way to come up with additional money to fund the schools, he said, is through service cuts or a tax increase.

Maybe both.

This after the State Department of Education, which controls the city school successfully took the city to court to have it pay what it said was back funding owed to run the school district.

Now, I should know we are taping this Friday morning.

By the time you watch this, you will know the amount.

We don't know what that amount is.

But, Ed, let's begin with you.

Nobody more interested in this because not only do you live in Providence, you have a kid in Providence School.

So, this is a twofer for you.

- Absolutely.

And my son is a senior at classical basketball player, so I thought it was unfair for the adults to make the kids worry about whether the winter sports were gonna take place.

I mean there's all this emphasis on attendance matters.

And if that's the concern, I think they shouldn't have held hostage like that.

But this day's been a long time coming with the lawsuit over the city and state funding.

So it's probably good that it's settled and we can see the number later today and figure out what it's gonna mean for the tax rate.

- [Jim] Weayonnoh.

- Yeah, and I agree with Ed.

I think it was sad to have the kids in the middle of this.

I'm happy an agreement have been made because it's gonna impact the Providence students.

But quite frankly, the state have to look at this, right?

We're talking about workforce, we're talking about how competitive we are.

So what's happening in Providence is something we should definitely look at.

And I'm also concerned about what Providence residents may have to now deal with because of the mismanagement between the city and the state.

And so now residents who are already dealing with high property taxes, already dealing with high rent costs now have to consider either raising their taxes or having custody essential services.

So it's still a sad situation going forward.

- To me, the major issue here is the state took over the school department there about five years ago, and it's been a failure.

I mean, financially you have this issue, but basically I thought the whole reason the state took it over was to improve the Providence school system to get its test scores up.

The Brookings Institute called it basically equivalent of a horror show.

And five years later, I don't know if the test scores have gotten any better.

I think they may actually be worse.

I think we haven't gotten back to our pre-pandemic levels.

And now you have this fight between the state and the city over who's gonna pay.

And so, I think the whole thing has been completely poorly worked, poorly handled.

- What I don't get is, you and I have covered local government for a long time.

You got people who are paid pretty good money to be financial people and like all of a sudden this comes a couple year, a couple months into the fiscal year.

Was nobody like the last couple of years saying, "Well, Providence should be maybe be given a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more."

And all of a sudden we get to a crisis stage now where they're talking about cutting school sports.

- Yeah, they've been on loggerheads over this city contribution for years.

And to Steve's point, one of the reactions you saw from Mayor Smiley was that he wants the district back now.

He wants to speed that up.

He hadn't been saying that.

So, we'll see if that happens.

But the City had been saying, "Well, if you want more money, we want an audit.

We wanna see how you're spending.

We wanna have some control over that again."

And you've got a school board that has no power now.

So yeah, we'll see what comes of it.

- What about going back to city control?

- So this is what I think have been missing.

The voices of the community, the voices of the students to decide.

They are the ones who are gonna have to deal with whatever comes.

They should be the ones to make the decision who is gonna be better for the school district.

And so I think the voices of communities and students have to be involved in deciding whether the City takes control or not.

And whatever happens, there needs to be a transition plan.

And the State and the City needs to talk to each other and be transparent about what's happening, so don't end up in the crisis we're in today.

- Yeah, it sounds like the communication has not been great.

- It's not.

- Heard Mayor Smiley, and he said it's very difficult.

And then the Ed commissioner shot back a little bit, but it sounds like clearly he wants to take the system back.

She's not quite ready to do it yet.

- I mean the fundamental problem in Providence is that the school system has been doing poorly for a generation or so, and who pays the bill is one issue.

But how do we fix it and how do we improve it is actually the bigger picture issue.

And I think this is just one chapter or one aspect of this overall problem.

Who pays for it, who runs it is one issue, but really it's how do you reform it?

And that's been a dilemma and has not been resolved.

And by any politician over the past generation.

- I was thinking as a Providence taxpayer and homeowner, you've been thrilled because basically Mayor Elorza and then on into Smiley, there were no tax increases up until this year.

And I was thinking that, I thought, "Maybe that's why they're so far in the hole.

He hasn't raised taxes and they're not giving him enough money."

I don't know the City's finances well enough to know that, but they always said, "We're holding the line, we're not increasing."

And this was the first increase for you guys for a while.

- I mean, the mayor has said he thinks they can avoid having a mid-year tax increase, but that certainly the taxes would increase next year.

And there's a cap of 4%.

And can they go over that?

You see Senator Bell pushing back on Smiley talking about going over that.

That's gonna be the story going forward.

- You make a good point, Steve, about well, where are we?

They've taken the schools over five years ago, but Angelica Infante-Green was brought in as the state commissioner.

A lot of the air has been sucked outta that room because she's been focused on Providence.

But where are we in terms of scores, education, South Kingstown, Cumberland, Newport, Woonsocket, Central Falls, all of those places.

- I mean, I look at just like it's pretty much we're stagnant.

I mean, we see, we go up one, we go down another.

I mean I may be wrong about this, but I don't even think we've gotten back to our levels pre-pandemic.

So we spent, remember we got millions and millions of dollars from the federal government and the purpose of it was for learning loss in part that went to the schools.

And we haven't even gotten that back.

We are so far behind academically.

And so it's a tragedy in some ways.

I will say this for the kids.

And also what we end up doing is this argument between who pays the bill?

Is it the City, is it the State?

And how much is it gonna be?

When we lose focus on the big picture, which is how do we get improve our school system?

- Okay, how quickly the situation has turned for the State finances.

We were flush for many years with the federal COVID money.

That is now all coming to an end.

And now lo and behold, we find out that next year the projected deficit is $400 million and don't even look at years beyond that.

It's kind of scary.

This is gonna be right in your wheelhouse 'cause you're up at the State House a lot lobbying and on behalf of a lot of your constituents and people are looking to you.

This is not good news for a lot of people - It is not.

But I will say we have better news than the almost $400 million deficit that were projected by the Office of Management and Budget.

So the state law, the case law in revenue estimating conferences just ended early November.

And what happened estimated now is that deficit if state agencies keep current services and do not add anything more, that deficit is closer to $220 million.

So now all good news, by at least the deficits have been cut.

What is actually happening now is a lot of conversation about services like Medicaid and SNAP and essential services will have to consider deep cuts.

But there's no conversation about whether we're gonna raise revenue to have a balanced budget.

So that is something I think like Providence is doing.

Our state leaders have to be serious to say if we're having a $200 million deficit, we have to consider where we're gonna raise revenue.

And like we've been arguing, you have to tax the millionaires in Rhode Island to be able to meet up and deal with the deficit.

- Yeah, they passed the millionaires tax up in Massachusetts a couple years ago.

- How'd that go?

- Well, they've got a lot of revenue.

And there was a study that said that a survey said that some of the companies had moved out or considered that as a factor.

But I think we've talked about that on the podcast, that there's some, you know, whether that's accurate or not or measures it correctly is a matter of debate.

But yeah, I think that'll come up again this year in the session.

I think that'll be raised.

Senate President Ruggiero has said he thinks that company, rich people would move out if you tax them at a higher rate.

And I know your group and others say that's not true.

There's no evidence of that.

So I think that's the debate we're gonna see about a millionaires tax, but I'm not sure it'll happen in the next session.

- Well, as you would imagine, I'm not a big fan of millionaires tax.

Not that I'm a millionaire.

But the bottom line- - Not yet.

- Not yet, not yet.

But the bottom line is this, our spending increased about 40% over the last five years at the state level, our state revenues increased by over 30% more than the rate of inflation.

So our spending has been going up and up and up.

We have a spending problem, not a tax problem.

And when you take all these one-time revenue sources from the federal government, all these Biden bucks and you just spend, spend, spend.

Well, now you have a structural deficit.

Whether it's 300 million, 400 million, it's a huge amount of money.

It's gonna increase over time.

And the millionaires tax, I've seen projections like, "Oh, maybe you'll bring in about $170 million."

There's just not enough revenue that will come in from all these millionaires to cover all the spending.

- Well, I think the larger issue they need to address is the inheritance tax.

The millionaires tax is different.

But I know for a fact Alan Hassenfeld, they founded Hasbro.

He's no longer a Rhode Island resident.

John Hazen White Jr., who sponsors this show and his company's here because he said, "If I die tomorrow, I'd have to sell the company in order to fulfill the taxes."

So I understand the millionaire's tax, but the inheritance tax is something that they really need to look at for the long run.

I also think as we're doing the projections, you had talked about the spending problem.

Last year I heard for months and months Speaker Shekarchi say we want to invest, we don't wanna spend the money.

They took Governor McKee's budget last year and increased it by a quarter of a billion dollars to get it to 14 billion.

So I'm sure he'll say those were all appropriate cuts.

But now that's baked in every year when you start.

It's not a zero based budget anymore.

- Yeah, in 2019 before the pandemic, the state budget totaled $9.7 billion and now it's raised to the level of 14 billion in the last couple years.

So it has increased, but there were a lot of onetime investments made with a lot of that federal spending.

- Yeah, but we're at 14 billion.

- But we're here.

- You've gotta start there.

- Well, yeah, but I think what people need to understand about the budget cycle as the speaker in his defense have more information in May that we have more surplus and he had to spend that.

And it was one time investment in housing, the Medicaid reimbursement rates and things that were used from the federal dollars we got and our rain day fund was capped.

So some of that money had to be spent in fiscal year 2025.

The deficit is coming in play I believe because we had not been serious about how balanced our budget is.

And whether we want to admit it or not, with the federal administration coming in and congress coming in, wealthy citizens and corporations are gonna be taken care of when tax credits are increased.

Who's not gonna be taken care of when the federal government push essential services and the states or people who are relying on Medicaid.

In Rhode Island, over 300,000 Rhode Islanders are relying on Medicaid.

We did our Rhode Island Standard of Need report in September and showed that 78% of single parents who are working with two children cannot make and are not earning the $99,000 they need to meet their needs.

Those are the people who are gonna be impacted.

Those are the people our state leaders need to think about protecting and preserving the services they need.

- Right, and housing's a big factor in that.

I wonder if they're just gonna finally have to bite the bullet.

The General Assembly's been having this sleight of hand for years.

They used the tobacco money one year to... And for people who don't know, I dunno, 20, 30 years ago, big settlement from the tobacco company was supposed to be used for a smoking cessation right into the general fund.

- They never want to control spending.

It doesn't matter who the speaker is.

They just create these structural deficits.

And like how do you create a structural deficit?

It's because you're using one-time revenue sources for recurring expenses.

And whether that's Joe Shekarchi and the governor together and now they're gonna have to bite the bullet.

And it's not pleasant.

And now they're gonna have to say no to people.

And that's one thing politicians this state don't wanna do is say no to more spending.

- Okay, we put 2024 election in the rear view mirror.

We'll talk about the presidential race in a minute.

But locally all of a sudden we're now talking about 2026.

And I saw our colleague, Ian Donnis, who's of course a panelist here, he had his, I thought it was like from the Onion when I first read it, Gina Raimondo might be considering running for governor again.

And I thought, "I don't know about that."

But it's now sparked Peter Neronha has had some talk about running when he said he wasn't going to.

How do you handicap all of this?

- What the players.

- Yeah, it was an interesting week in developments on in governors race, but I don't see Gina Raimondo running again.

- Why would she come back and have to answer for the bridge, right?

- Ugh.

- Yeah.

- And UHIP and all those things that she kind of put to the side, right?

- We were a stepping stone.

When you're a stepping stone, you don't come back to the stepping stone unless you can't get something better.

- Yeah.

- I mean this doesn't make sense to me.

- [Jim] That seems strange to you too?

- I was saying I was just imagining, like if there's a debate between Romero and McKee, who's gonna blame who for the bridge situation?

So, it could be good TV.

- That would be, Weayonnoh was thinking from our perspective.

- Good ratings.

- You're becoming a good reporter.

(Weayonnoh chuckles) - Good ratings.

- It will be good for us.

How do you see this though?

'Cause Peter Neronha had talked about, "No, no, no, I'm not doing it."

He got off Twitter, which I found interesting.

- [Ed] Yes.

- So a lot of people are doing that for various reasons.

- Yeah, Dan McGowan was urging him to, yeah.

- (chuckles) Yeah.

Well, yeah, he said just put your phone down.

So he got off Twitter, but he's also talking about how there's his vacuum of executive leadership and he steps up.

So I mean, what's the landing spot?

He's term limited for AG, probably not gonna run for governor 'cause he supports Helena Foulkes, right?

- I mean might he run for lieutenant governor.

I know he is been supportive of Helena Foulkes in the past, so I don't think he'd wanna run for governor if she's running for governor and she seems to be running for governor.

So, maybe lieutenant governor.

I don't know.

- [Jim] Yeah.

- I kinda agree with Ed, which is Helena running against and Peter Neronha and Helena Foulkes running for governor against Dan McKee is like Dan McKee's dream, okay?

That's his goal is to have like a three, four or five person race where he comes- - Right, where's he's about 27s point ahead of the vote.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then he gets a third of the vote with the basically the backing of labor unions.

I think Neronha wants to stay involved.

Maybe he's wanting to turn the lieutenant governor's office.

you know, the LG into the IG, the inspector general maybe.

And say Hey, I'll be your inspector general.

- Deal with healthcare issues.

- And healthcare issues as well.

Try to make it into an office that actually does something versus just like what I actually, you know, what Kumus used to say was just like, "Get rid of it.

It does nothing."

But I think- - But Elizabeth, you look at Elizabeth Roberts, she really took, it was healthcare for her, right?

When she was lieutenant governor.

That was her main.

You could do whatever you want as lieutenant governor, and that was her lane.

- Right, and that it's the concept is of course having them run as a ticket essentially.

Although they're not running as a ticket officially.

So, Foulkes-Neronha ticket or team would be pretty form formidable I think.

And we'll have to see what happens.

- LG to IG.

- Yeah.

- Maybe that could be the new phrase, right?

- That was.

And by the way- - I like that.

- And by the way, Bob Lancia would take credit for that 'cause when he wanted to run for lieutenant governor, that's what he said he wanted to do- - Oh, he talked about that?

I didn't hear that before.

- Yeah, so Bob Lancia will be happy that I mentioned him on the show once.

- You see that bumper sticker stickers in garden pretty soon.

(all laughing) Ed had a great story and then went on vacation, so we didn't get to talk to you about this last week.

- [Ed] Yeah, yeah.

- Had a great story about the latest on the, what would've Lively be without talking about the Washington Bridge, about the eastbound.

- [Ed] Yeah.

- So, set the table for us.

And this ran about a week ago.

- So we know the westbound lane is closed, but this had to do with the eastbound lane.

I got a hold of photos and emails that showed that they had been working on a joint on the side of the eastbound span and it showed deterioration around this joint.

And as it turned out, they'd had done $500,000 in work on eight joints.

And they pointed out it's not on the deck, it's on the side.

It's leading up to the bridge on the East Providence side.

And it had been referenced they were gonna close some lanes, but they hadn't said we're doing half a million dollars in work on the eight bridge joints right near Eastbound Lane.

So yeah, there was a lot of attention paid to that because the six lanes of traffic are now on that side of the bridge.

Two-way traffic.

And as I asked some questions to the DOT, they talked about how there are four joints on the deck and they're go going to need work soon, but not now.

They're in the good enough condition not to work on them now.

But yeah, I think a lot of attention is gonna be paid.

They've got a monitoring system that is not functional yet, but will be functioning soon to see measure the weight and whether that eastbound span is secure as we put more traffic on it.

- It's kind of hard to know because we're not engineers.

Is half a million dollars a big deal?

It really wasn't announced they had to have lane closures.

So DOT might be saying, "Well, this is just normal part of business."

But there's been such focus on this bridge.

Wouldn't you want to get out in front of it and announce everything and say, "Look, you may see lanes closed on the eastbound lane.

Don't worry because this is what this is," instead of Ed having to report it and the rest of us speculate.

- Right, we're having the same problem we have from the beginning.

Credibility and accountability.

This is why we're in the situation and seem that the lesson have not been learned.

That you have to tell people what's going on because we've lost trust in the state government and DOT to really handle this bridge.

The longer we wait, the more safety issue we have and the more expensive this become.

We don't have a bid yet.

The timeline of this being fixed by 2026 is probably gonna be extended.

So, that's one thing to deal with.

And it's gonna be more expensive.

We are talking about state budget deficit.

We're gonna be spending a lot of money to fix this bridge that we are not clear what the solution is and what DOT is currently doing.

- This bridge is like a complete fiasco as we all know.

And basically the General Assembly is not doing enough oversight.

I sometimes think if this was like a Republican governor, the General Assembly would be all over it.

Like in the 1980s with Ed Duprit and the Verrazzano Bridge, they've been all over it.

So the only people that are all over it is the media and average voters.

And I actually think I'd love to see somebody run for governor, it's Foulkes, Neronha, or whoever, and just say, "Put me in and I'm gonna get Alviti out."

'Cause that's what people want.

They want accountability.

And whatever's going on over there, it's not working.

People don't trust what's going on.

And I think that bridge won't be fixed for years.

- Yeah, and the eastbound lanes, I've heard some people having difficulty getting inspection reports, which has nothing to do with the legal.

We haven't even talked about that since you've been here.

Max Wistow pulled out.

He was one of the major guys.

- Yeah, yeah.

- What do you make of that?

Have you heard any buzz about that?

So he was one of the major lawyers assigned to this case, which is why we can't talk about it because it's all tied up in litigation.

But he resigned 10 days two weeks ago.

What are you reading to that?

- Yeah, I'm not sure what that means for those lawsuits, whether his theory of the case was not being heard or the attorney general is involved in that is do have different views on how it should proceed, and whether it's gonna be successful now.

- Yeah, it's like we can't get the bridge fixed.

We can't get in inspected correctly.

We don't know when it's gonna be built.

We don't know who's gonna build it.

And the lawyer who's supposed to sue people to get money, he's gone.

- Yeah.

- Aren't you glad you live on the West Bay?

- I'm just so happy like I'm just telling move to Cranston.

Move to the west side of the state.

- This could be a boon for Cranston.

Mayor Hopkins could use it.

You know, LG to IG, we go East Bay to West Bay.

Come to Cranston, right?

- That's it.

- All right, let's do this.

I do want to get to a little bit to the presidential race, but let's do outrage and/or kudos first.

Weayonnoh, what do you have this week?

- Well, there's a lot of bad news going around.

(all laughing) We haven't talked about anything great yet, so I'm gonna lean towards our kudos.

It's the holiday season, so Thanksgiving and other holidays are coming upon Rhode Islanders and everyone.

So I'm just hoping for some joy in the midst of all of this and I'll just leave it there.

- [Jim] I'll second that.

That's a good idea.

Steve, what do you have?

- I'd like to give a kudos out to the Republican senators who just figured out how to deep six Matt Gaetz's nomination for the attorney general.

We have a constitutional system here where we have checks and balances and it is good to see Republican senators willing to say, I'm not voting for somebody who lacks the character and judgment to run one of the most important offices in our country and who would probably turn the Department of Justice into the Department of Vengeance.

So I'm very happy that our constitutional system is working as of today.

- You gotta realize there are a lot of guys who've been sitting, and women who've been sitting in that chamber for a lot longer than Donald Trump's been on the scene.

And they're like, "Ooh."

And it's encouraging to me that they're stepping up with their constitutional duty because he's talked about, you know, he said, if you don't vote for my guys, we're gonna primary you, whatever, we're gonna do recess appointments.

These guys were like, "This is our job."

- It is their job to make sure.

That's what the founding fathers put the system together was to make sure that one person didn't make all the decisions in our government.

- Edward?

- I'm on the New England First Amendment Coalition Board, so I'm almost interested in in press issues and there's a bill that is bipartisan that's been moving forward called the Press Act that protect reporters from exploitative state spying act.

You can't force reporters to give their sources, you can't seize their electronic records.

And it was moving forward and now incoming President Trump has urged republicans to kill it.

I think that's outrageous.

- Yeah, it's Rhode Island's always had a great shield law.

So if we're reporting everything's fine.

You may remember Jim Taricani from years ago wound up doing home confinement because a whole deal, he published a video that was protected.

That was because there was no Federal shield law.

And that's what they're pushing for.

So in Rhode Island we have the protections, but if you were, and we've seen reporters from the New York Times and others go to jail because federally they weren't protected.

- Yeah.

And this helps conservatives, it helps liberals to have an active watch show press.

- We've got about four minutes left.

Steve, let's go back to you.

I know you weren't a supporter of President Trump, but you are a Republican.

- [Steve] Yep.

- And they have the House and the Senate and now the administration, what are you looking at come January 20th?

- Well, I'll say this quickly, is that sometimes people win elections and it goes to their head.

In 2004, the Republicans won the presidency, the Senate, the House.

People were talking about realignment back then.

And then two years later we got our butts whooped because we misread the message that the people sent us.

So if we focus on the message that people wanted, which is they want their grocery prices lower, they want immigration laws enforced, we'll be fine.

But if we start going off the deep six, deep end, excuse me, and start doing political retribution using legal system for retribution or start doing some wacky ideas or cutting bad deals with Putin, I think we'll have a reckoning in a couple of years.

- And that's probably why the founders had the House elected every two years, right?

- The House is every two years and the Senate is every six years.

It's all a way of creating a balance in our system.

- We, in the big blue bubble here up in New England, were probably a little surprised, maybe dismayed, but it strikes me that other parts of the country really wanted to see a change and they saw Donald Trump is the only way to get there.

- Yeah, and I think we have to be careful with this blue bubble in Rhode Island 'cause about 44% of Rhode Islanders did not vote blue.

So, I think that's something we also have to consider as a state.

I'm mainly concerned with policies that are up in 2025.

We're gonna be dealing with the debt ceiling, Trump tax cuts are gonna be up for our discussion.

Premium tax credits that people used to pay for health insurance in the marketplace are also gonna be considered by the administration, but by Congress.

So I'm really concerned about what will be done to make sure that more working class families are able to survive through whatever decisions that she's gonna just make at Congress.

- Yeah, and to the point about Rhode Island being blue, I mean, it moved more toward Trump and we were just talking about the map of Cranston, even in, you can see distinctions between red and blue within that community.

So yeah, that we always say it's, and it's true, it's Democratically controlled, but there's a lot of distinctions within that.

- Is Cranston the new Ohio of Rhode Island?

As so goes Cranston the rest of the state.

You're Mr. Cranston.

- I wish we were like Ohio, I don't know, but we're kind of a bellwether, I would say.

Huss and Warwick are pretty much good bellwethers for the state.

- So Trump's come out of the gates with some, I would say some controversial picks in his cabinet.

But I wonder, and he wants to hit the ground running.

I understand that.

We'll see how that all shakes out.

But what do you expect in the first a hundred days beyond a pile of executive orders, which everybody's done?

What would you like to see?

- What I expect to see is hard enforcement of our immigration laws.

And we'll see how that plays, meaning how harsh they are.

I will be looking forward to seeing him implement, put the tax cuts permanently in place, continue deregulation, promote energy production.

I mean like fossil fuel production.

What I worry about is he'll probably put in tariffs, which will be detrimental for the American consumer, which could trigger a trade war and maybe some foreign policy mistakes with the Russia-Ukraine situation.

- Just about 30 seconds, where does this put Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse?

They've both been there a long time, but now they go to the minority party in the Senate.

- Yeah, I mean it certainly curtails their power enormously.

We had the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Now, he's the ranking member, but certainly Rhode Island has lost some pull in DC.

- Okay, that is all the time we have for this week.

We appreciate you watching.

Steve and Ed and Weayonnoh, good to see you.

We hope you have a good Thanksgiving.

Folks, if you don't catch us Friday at 7:00 or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively.

We're all over social media too.

Our Facebook page, X formerly Twitter.

And take us wherever you go as we podcast all of our shows.

Now just a programming note, we're gonna be off next week for Thanksgiving, but we've picked out a great encore edition for you to watch.

A post-election analysis.

So, come back there.

And we will be back here two weeks from now.

We hope you have a great Thanksgiving and join us back here then as, "A Lively Experiment," continues.

Have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "A Lively Experiment," is generously underwritten by.

- Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment," has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program and Rhode Island PBS.