THE WEEK

Now we really know we’ve lost the war in Nicaragua. The Washington Post has been printing humaninterest pieces about the Contras.

In trying to balance the Massachusetts state budgets for 1988 and 1989, Governor Dukakis had to make some hard choices. So, for example, rather than cut some of the ten thousand jobs he has added to the state’s payroll, he wound up cutting $ 17 million out of the funds allocated for the state’s mental hospitals. Dukakis had produced a five-year plan to overhaul the hospital system, ranked 41st in the nation. It is now widely doubted that the plan will be carried out. Meanwhile, none of the state mental hospitals is accredited; this summer, the temperature in some rooms Ihas reached one hundred degrees (though state-government offices are routinely air-conditioned); and 16 patients have died in the last year (at least two of these deaths leading to lawsuits). The Democratic legislature and the Department of Mental Health are rebelling: ‘ If private psychiatric hospitals we 1icense did this, we’d close them down,” says the latter.

Featured Tags

Manage following

Presidential Election

William F. Buckley Jr.

National Review

Now we really know we’ve lost the war in Nicaragua. The Washington Post has been printing humaninterest pieces about the Contras.

In trying to balance the Massachusetts state budgets for 1988 and 1989, Governor Dukakis had to make some hard choices. So, for example, rather than cut some of the ten thousand jobs he has added to the state’s payroll, he wound up cutting $ 17 million out of the funds allocated for the state’s mental hospitals. Dukakis had produced a five-year plan to overhaul the hospital system, ranked 41st in the nation. It is now widely doubted that the plan will be carried out. Meanwhile, none of the state mental hospitals is accredited; this summer, the temperature in some rooms Ihas reached one hundred degrees (though state-government offices are routinely air-conditioned); and 16 patients have died in the last year (at least two of these deaths leading to lawsuits). The Democratic legislature and the Department of Mental Health are rebelling: ‘ If private psychiatric hospitals we 1icense did this, we’d close them down,” says the latter.