Blumenthal Talks Issues with Greenwich Sentinel

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By Bill Slocum, Contributing Editor

Photo: John Ferris Robben
Photo: John Ferris Robben

Connecticut’s senior U. S. Senator Richard Blumenthal dropped in at the Greenwich Sentinel office at Bruce Park Avenue Friday afternoon for a freewheeling on-camera interview with reporter Taylor Knight.

At the top of the agenda was yesterday’s Senate passage of a bill, the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), to tackle heroin and prescription opioid abuse. Blumenthal, a CARA supporter, calls it a way to move the focus from law enforcement to better addiction treatment.

“Heroin is now all over Connecticut, in communities like Greenwich, Farmington, and West Hartford,” Blumenthal said. “What we face is a public-health hurricane, and a lot of denial about it…We are not going to arrest our way out of this problem.”

Blumenthal, a Democrat first elected to the Senate in 2010, also discussed another piece of legislature he hopes to similarly see passed, for making college educations more affordable.

“We need to reduce the amount of college debt in this country,” he said. “Young people graduating from college can’t buy homes, or start businesses. That means our future as a nation is constricted.”

The initiative, known as “In The Red” after President Barack Obama used the phrase in a January speech urging action on the matter, is one Blumenthal said he expects can get bipartisan support similar to that which CARA achieved.

Blumenthal told the Sentinel he wants to introduce a two-part plan to the college affordability discussion, first by lowering the cost of college tuition, and second, by offering graduates the opportunity to work off their debt through public service. He described the latter idea as working “much like the G. I. Bill.”

For more on Blumenthal’s interview with the Sentinel, including his thoughts on the Republican presidential race and his own thoughts about re-election, keep watching this space for Taylor’s upcoming video interview, and look for a full article in the next issue of Greenwich Sentinel.

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