Kicker: Cutting the middleman

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Rhode Island is debating whether it’s time to mash Mr. Potato Head.

Parent company Hasbro is moving its headquarters out to Boston and state lawmakers are looking at getting rid of the Mr. Potato Head specialty license plate.

NEWBERRY: We did them a favor by doing it in the first place; they’ve left, so it’s time to end the favor.

Brian Newberry is a Republican state rep.

But not so fast, supporters of the plate say. That would hurt the Rhode Island Community Food Bank — which gets half the proceeds.

Newberry points out, though, that over the plate’s twenty-four-year run, it’s raised not even $60-thousand dollars total — about twenty-five hundred a year on average.

An impact he says is easily absorbed.

NEWBERRY: They can make donations to the food bank.

Right, and when you cut the middleman out it’s more for charity—even if the middleman is the beloved Mr. Potato Head.

It’s The World and Everything in It.

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