Not much to report, I'm afraid. I was traveling today and I'm not as caught up as I'd like to be.

While in upstate New York I did hear part of an interview with a reporter for a western Massachusetts newspaper, The Recorder. The reporter was talking about the multiple increases in ambulance fees imposed in Massachusetts this year; the fees should be relatively easy for the populous cities and towns of eastern Massachusetts to absorb, but are, the reporter said, a real burden on the sparsely populated towns in the western part of the state. The reason ambulance fees are being raised is that a raised fee isn't a raised tax, and Mitt Romney, the governor of Massachusetts, being a Republican, doesn't wantany taxes raised, even in a fiscal crisis.

I hoped to link a story from The Recorder, but the paper's Web site is pretty sparse -- go here and scroll down for what the site offers on this subject. This page, from the Massachusetts Call/Volunteer Firefighters Association, lists some of the fee increases. (It's an old page, but scroll down and you'll see they all passed.)

To Republicans, this is infinitely better than raising taxes.