Re: Tim Williamson

I missed part of the conversation, but according to Dan's subsequent paraphrase, Williamson also mentioned draft legislation that would enable local school committees to modify contracts on the grounds that there is simply no money and that would centralize contract negotiation within the state government (the Department of Education, I believe).

Does that strike anybody else as odd? The legislation would simultaneously move contract negotiation to a higher level of government and enable a lower level of government to renege? Either that's incorrect, or something suspicious is going on.

Tim Williamson on Taxes

State Representative Tim Williamson (D-West Warwick) speaking today on the Dan Yorke show (WPRO 630AM)...

There won't be any new taxes. There might be increases to old taxes.

Discouraging the Birth of Business Entities

While returning, this weekend, to the long-standing question of what sort of official entity Anchor Rising should become, I whittled down my understanding of the relevant tax law to what I believe to be its basic statement: Once one creates an entity, in Rhode Island, that entity is subject to fees and taxation.

An individual can procure from the IRS an Employer Identification Number (aka, a Taxpayer Identification Number) in order to act under an assumed name, and as long as his or her product is not taxable (as via sales taxes), the state need not be involved. Once, however, the business becomes an entity distinct from the individual — whether by joining multiple individuals in a partnership or through the creation of a corporation — various registration fees kick into play, as does the "minimum corporate tax."

The significance of the change is most conspicuous in the cases of pass-through business, such as limited liability companies and S-Corps. As a matter of general taxation, the profits of such businesses are claimed via the income tax filings of partners and owners, but in Rhode Island, they must first shave off the (currently) $500 minimum tax. In other words, even though the business entity itself has no actual income, it must pay $500.

This experience relates to a recent column by Steve Forbes:

... The U.S. has one of the highest profits levies in the developed world: 35% at the federal level, with another average of 5% from state and local taxes. Only Japan has worse. In contrast, Ireland's rate is a mere 12.5%. Imagine the howls from congressional Democrats if Barack Obama were to suggest enacting such a low corporate tax rate in the U.S.

But the accompanying table tells an eye-opening tale: Ireland's corporate tax take as a portion of its economy is higher than that of the U.S. High rates breed pressure for ever more complicated exemptions and ever more ingenious ways to avoid Uncle Sam's tax bite. But an Irish-like rate leaves companies to focus brainpower on growing their businesses instead of on jousting with tax collectors. ...

Mark Steyn seconds Forbes's assessment of tax avoidance and adds the matter of beginning businesses at all:

To a certain type of simple-minded populist, the idea of soaking vast faceless corporations is appealing. But in the end a "corporation" cannot pay tax: The Globocorp corporate HQ looming in chrome and steel over the skyline does not have a pocket to dip into. Like all taxes, the actual cash has to be ponied up by flesh-and-blood human beings - the owners, workers and employees of the corporation. The growing gap between US corporate rates and other developed nations is a massive disincentivization for real human beings to start and grow a business here. And for those already here it encourages the kind of short-term thinking that leads to Bailoutistan and American sclerosis.

It's an easy sell, I guess, to tax a non-human business "entity," but it isn't really possible, because such entities don't exist outside of abstraction. A company is essentially a mechanism within which human beings act, and its construction will be managed to serve the interests of the flesh-and-blood people who use it.

If we at Anchor Rising were to behave rationally, as an Internet-based organization with no manufacturing operations, we'd incorporate elsewhere (for liability reasons) and become The Other Side of Hope in Rhode Island... in Nevada (or wherever). The entity doesn't really "do business" in Rhode Island. With our server in Texas and our incorporation in some other state, in no tangible sense would our advertisers and sponsors be engaging in transactions with a Rhode Island company, even though they'd be trying to reach a Rhode Island audience seeking information relevant to Rhode Island communities, written by Rhode Islanders.

By contrast, if Rhode Island's corporate tax structure didn't entail regular payments from organizations with no income, and if its regular rate were more competitive with those of other states, then rational organizations from other states would have incentive to be "from Rhode Island." Mainstreamers and progressives alike speak often of building up New Economy industries in this state, but they've shown little inclination to acknowledge the incentives to which such businesses — arguably characterized by their ability to locate anywhere — will respond.

Who You Calling Angry!!!

I was disappointed to come across this musing from Providence Journal Opinion Page Editor Bob Whitcomb (via RI Future):

Why do right-wing radio talk-show hosts like Rush Limbaugh do so well and liberal ones not so well? Consider that Colin McEnroe, a rude liberal, has just been fired by WTIC in Hartford and that national liberal talk-show hosts have had a tough time hanging on to their jobs.

And why do letters to the editor even in liberal states like Rhode Island and Connecticut feature so many right-wingers complaining about high taxes, overspending and allegedly corrupt legislators and so on even as the general electorate elects liberal Democrats by wide margins?

Simple. It's because the conservatives tend to be angrier than liberals and anger is a powerful energizer and seller. Radio stations, all too many of which are owned by a few few national companies, know that they need intensity of listenership above all to sell advertising time. Hiring a right-wing host is a good strategy for selling advertising time.

It's similar to why newspapers devote so much space to sports: Followers of teams are committed readers.

That is not to say that many liberals aren't infuriated, too. Consider the sometimes almost psychotic hatred of G.W. Bush. But, all in all, right wingers tend to be angrier, longer.

There are, no doubt, talk radio hosts who are strikingly angry, but I still have trouble counting Rush Limbaugh among them. The proverbial heavy breathing on Limbaugh is more guffaw than growl; the most strenuous tone is typically stunned amusement at liberals' insanity. The same is true on most talk radio shows. The missing factor in the usual liberal assessment of their heat is the length of the programs, generally with unscripted conversation throughout. Show me the person who can discuss current events with strangers for three hours per day — often reaching down to core ideology — without occasionally raising his voice, and I'll show you a man without beliefs.

If anger plays a role in the disparity in talk radio success between conservatives and liberals, the key isn't the depth or longevity of emotion, but the different modes of expressing it — experiencing it. It's the distinction between a heated rollick that sometimes approaches the push too hard and a passive-aggressive seething. There's a viciousness to liberal anger — made painfully prominent in that "almost psychotic hatred of G.W. Bush" — a wipe-them-out-make-them-irrelevant belittling. Right wing anger is, in its way, more masculine; it pounds on the front door, bloodies the lip, and leaves as if the point's been made. That sort of anger, because visible in advance, can be talked down, soothed, whereas the other sort of anger slides the knife in and out with mute certainty.

But I wonder if even that much explanation is necessary. It might be more productive to chart ideological leanings demographically and align media by occupation. NPR's major non-music shows align with commutes. The king of conservative talk radio covers the after-lunch span of the work day. Perhaps the critical factor is the political norm among those who can talk — and listen to talk — while they work.

The thread is continuous across these various points, weaving a picture of masculine sparring, most often of a good-natured tone, among men whose hands are occupied more than their minds at work. Of course there are broad exceptions (pun intended or not), but it is the vast average of a group that will spell success for a daily show.

As for Whitcomb's association of talk radio with letters to the editor, well, I imagine Bob designates the political inclinations of writers based on the topics that they raise. Letters don't come, like mine, marked with a "conservative" stamp. Therefore, I'd expect letters complaining about "high taxes, overspending and allegedly corrupt legislators" to be especially common in liberal states, in which at least the first two qualities are a matter of principle.

Taking Wealth Morally

By all means, let's declare the immorality of gargantuan wealth. Every story of catastrophe and dire need must make the rightly ordered person marvel at the spiritual putrefaction of those who hoard their millions and billions. How could a man of clear conscience sift money idly through his fingers in such sums as could effect salvation for untold thousands? How detrimental to a woman's soul to ignore those who suffer in her time while she looks across potentially infinite generations of her own progeny who will be freed from the necessity of earning.

Let's not be squeamish in admitting the ugliness of even the passive greed that allows wealth to amass in obscene amounts under one's name, as if it jangled together by some sort of natural force of economic gravity. Let's assert a moral duty to cast those riches back out into the economy as both a charitable and a productive force.

But what then?

Inasmuch as the actions that lead to wealth — earning, investing, saving — are not immoral (indeed, are generally positive), the community's legitimate complaint is of the excessive proportion. Hoarding amounts that could never be spent is an iniquitous triviality when weighed against mouths that are never fed. On the other hand, the accumulation of vast wealth enables a higher degree of risk in investment, whereby society can benefit from the gamble, and a higher degree of conservation of property, whereby possessions that might otherwise be divided and drained are instead preserved. The initial difficulties, therefore, are determining how we ought to balance competing goods and who ought to be empowered to pass judgment.

In his May 25 op-ed in the Providence Journal ("The immorality of private wealth"), retired Superior Court judge and current law professor Stephen J. Fortunato, Jr., cites the amassment of wealth among such other "immoral" activities as "murder, rape, theft," running red lights, violating OSHA standards, "muggings and convenience store holdups." Moreover, his prescription is not the social opprobrium with which we might respond to an adult who whispers obscenities to children, but high taxes on the rich by a government with "a redistributive and a regulatory role." In short, the aptly named jurist unsurprisingly treats immorality and illegality as if they ought to be equivalent.

Thus, in answer to the above-described difficulties, Fortunato puts forward our representative democracy as economic arbiter. The government will decide how much is too much for what purposes. Our legislative, executive, and judicial triumvirate will draw a line above which elected and appointed officials allocate the appropriate usage of monetary wealth — this much to conserve open space, this much to support research, this much to preserve arts and culture, this much toward the welfare of our society's poor.

Unfortunately, with money flowing along this path, the difficulties can only compound. Previously, the transfer of wealth involved the relatively simple transaction of a provider's persuading a consumer to part with dollars, whether for luxuries, investments, or the emotional balm of charity. Now, the government has translated the wealth into power — greatly magnified by its aggregation — and muddied the judgment of its dispersal.

Parties begin to petition government officials to expend the public largesse on their preferred goods. The petitioners convert some of the power back into cash by way of campaign contributions or other perks of office (or perks available upon leaving office). They may promise moral gratification and burnished legacies. They may concentrate the flexed muscle of voters.

None of which is immoral, of itself, but observe what has happened: The economic power that exists naturally in any society has been overlapped in the same stratum as the legal and police power with which we vest government. The same segment of the community that can, to some degree, dictate behavior under threat of criminal prosecution can increasingly manipulate economic behavior under threat of regulation and confiscation. The one entity empowered to take money by force is increasingly a source of money for politically powerful lobbies.

In short, the point at which power and money flow together has greater gravity for corruption, and there is less independent power (in the form of independent wealth) counterbalancing it. Worse still, to the degree to which money is power, those with more are the ones ultimately increasing their control as the government asserts authority over the flow of capital and the determination of what and whom to tax and regulate.

So yes, let's conspire to take money from the rich and spread it across the society, but let's consider the possibility that the only way actually to accomplish that end is to empower those in lower economic tiers to take the wealth for themselves — not by force or democratic assertions of power, but through persuasion, production, and competition, which is to say through freedom and economic ingenuity.

Reason Corrupted by Evil

I have to believe that the day will come when society at large will share my disgust with such phrasings as Owen M. Sullivan's and be astonished that anybody would commit them to print, much less seek to publish them in major newspapers:

The Israeli attack on the Gaza Ghetto, much like the Nazi attack on the Warsaw Ghetto, is in the words of Israeli leaders "the beginning" and is intended "to send Gaza back decades."

So far hundreds have been killed and over 1,000 injured, with many women, children and elderly along with many homes, police stations and civil-society buildings destroyed. According to the Al Mezan Center for human rights, most Gaza Ghetto victims, like Warsaw Ghetto victims, are civilians. And just like the Nazis who tormented those in Warsaw, the Israeli government blames the victims. Enough!

It could be, I suppose, that all of my history books were missing the pages about anti-German terrorism fomented from Jewish neighborhoods (or, actually, mislabeled such stories as Nazi propaganda, rather than accurate reportage), as well as accounts of the German Jews' comparable behavior to this:

The Hamas government has placed dozens of Fatah members under house arrest out of fear that they might exploit the current IDF operation to regain control of the Gaza Strip.

The move came amid reports that the Fatah leadership in the West Bank has instructed its followers to be ready to assume power over the Gaza Strip when and if Israel's military operation results in the removal of Hamas rule.

Fatah officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that Hamas militiamen had been assaulting many Fatah activists since the beginning of the operation last Saturday. They said at least 75 activists were shot in the legs while others had their hands broken.

Wisam Abu Jalhoum, a Fatah activist from the Jabalya refugee camp, was shot in the legs by Hamas militiamen for allegedly expressing joy over the IDF air strikes on Hamas targets. ...

Meanwhile, sources close to Hamas revealed over the weekend that the movement had "executed" more than 35 Palestinians who were suspected of collaborating with Israel and were being held in various Hamas security installations.

What a strange, nasty world the likes of Sullivan must inhabit. Pity them, for they will surely tune out evidence of the corruption that evil has managed in their minds.

A Quick Explanation for Pat

I haven't had a chance to work through my Sunday paper, yet, so I'll offer no comment on the bulk of that to which Pat is responding in this post, but he does construct a question in such a way as to merit correction. Arguing for increasing taxes and government-induced costs of doing business in Rhode Island, he writes:

Let me ask the business folks reading: is it a successful business model to lower your prices year after year even if your production costs rise each year? I mean, you want to run government like a business, right?

The flaws in these questions are multilayered, but the core error probably comes with Pat's failure to account for the fact that much of what Rhode Island "produces" — and therefore much of its expenses — is separate from the activities that bring in revenue. Businesses will not relocate to Rhode Island based on its social safety net, for example. As for items of direct utility to businesses and productive residents — such as transportation infrastructure — the insidious tendency of modern government is to treat them as additional to general expenses, with annual bonds and supplemental fees and taxes.

The next most significant error centers on the related implication that the government's "goods" are limited and distributed in a "one per customer" fashion. If the government is to be seen as a business, most of its products are actually services, and the incremental cost of accommodating an additional customer is minimal. Adding a few cars to a highway's burden doesn't affect the cost of maintenance tasks and barely affects the frequency, yet the increased revenue of several new residents working for a productive company is likely to be significant.

In this regard, the state-as-business is more like a movie theater. The costs associated with acquiring the films, maintaining the building, and offering concessions may be going up, but if the owner finds that fewer customers are taking in the flicks, and that those who do come buy less popcorn and soda, every year, increasing the price of tickets is not a very farsighted strategy. Rather, the owner should pare down expenses not related to revenue, streamline excessive costs (e.g., if there are more ticket-rippers than attendance justifies), and redirect resources toward changes that might attract more viewers — whether that means upgrading the seating or offering discounted Jujubes.

In reality, what government entities such as Rhode Island seem to tend toward is a shifting of their "business model" toward a focus on the expenses column as their core purpose. It becomes less their business, in other words, to foster a wealthy, secure, and productive society, and more their business to mandate charitable services for the unproductive and to protect and advance the wealth and security of public-sector employees. The state undertakes to increase "production costs" (to use Pat's phrase) as its raison d'etre.

Retiring England and New England, Alike

The editorial board of the Providence Journal notes a familiar problem in the old country:

Last month, Britain's biggest business group, CBI, released a report contending that the total liability for public pensions in the country had reached at least a staggering 900 million pounds — about $1.4 trillion. Some 5 million unionized public employees in Britain may retire at 60, at two-thirds of their highest salary, while 21 million private-sector employees face much less plush retirements, and the prospect of working (if they are lucky) until 70 to make ends meet.

Of course, there are myths and statistical imbalances to be overcome if the untenable situation is to be remedied:

The public employees contend that they get plush pensions in exchange for earning less than their private-sector counterparts. But a study by the Office for National Statistics found that isn't true; public employees received higher pay than those in the private-sector at all but the highest levels.

Under the Labor Party, the number of public employees in Britain exploded by more than 23 percent between 1998 and 2006, while private-sector employment — which covers most of the cost of government — inched up only 3.3 percent.

Creeping socialism begins to look like a concerted plan, doesn't it?

Hashing out New Media/Old Media Roles

Justin explained in his Newsmakers appearance one potential method by which the "old media", newspapers (like the ProJo) in particular, could recalibrate and take advantage of the forum that bloggers provide (basically for free). To summarize, let the MSM focus on collecting news and the blogs deal with the discussion of the news . Glenn Reynolds provides one example of the benefits of one such relationship:

[T]he relationship between blogs and Big Media should be thought of as symbiotic rather than competitive, and here’s some more evidence. Jack Lail, managing editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel, emails that InstaPundit sent them nearly a million pageviews last year, and holds two spots (for instapundit.com and pajamasmedia.com/instapundit) on their list of top 20 referrers. Smart news people — like Lail — are more interested in getting bloggers to deliver traffic than in complaining about blogger competition. And smart news organizations will take advantage of new technology to facilitate their hard-news reporting ability via the “Army of Davids” approach, rather than complaining that people who post breaking-news reports on blogs or Twitter don’t have journalism degrees.

It’s interesting to me that we see far more anger from Old Media folks aimed at bloggers, etc., than at Craigslist, even though Craigslist has done far more economic harm to the newspaper industry than bloggers, who probably add eyeballs rather than (as Craigslist does) subtracting them. My suspicion is that the Old Media folks care more about prestige and position than money, and bloggers have hurt them in the prestige and position department. Of course, caring more about prestige and position than money isn’t a formula for a flourishing business . . . .

Meanwhile, here’s more on how bloggers and Big Media can work together in covering an issue.

The Playground of Ideas

A response that Newsmakers host Tim White made to me during the latest episode of his show (channel 12 at 5:30 a.m., channel 11 at 10:00 a.m., and online in two parts here and here) struck me as worthy of further discussion. Ian Donnis asked about the "vitriol" in blog comment sections, and I answered, in part:

One of the things I do like about the medium in general is you really can bring it back to a sort of basics of interpersonal relationships. What I mean by that is you ignore somebody who's being snippy, and they'll stop, if everybody starts to gang up on them, and if it gets really bad, you can ban them.

To which Tim White suggested:

That's kind of a high school playground mentality. Is there any filter; do you read a contribution to your site before posting it, or is it raw?

The curious consequence of White's formulation is that it casts learning to interact without hierarchical supervision as the juvenile method, and submitting to an official hand to "filter" discussion as the — I guess — mature and civilized route. Without extrapolating an extemporaneous statement to global ideological realities, it's possible to see in this reversal the inclination to seek ever more central authority.

That's a profound question: Is it a higher mode of being to mutually reinforce a set of abstract standards, or to rely upon a chosen group of human individuals to dictate behavior? Obviously, I'd argue for the former (and in a way that integrates with the Catholic Christianity to which I strive to adhere, if anybody wishes to take the discussion there), and I'd further suggest that what Tim characterizes as a "playground mentality" is actually the set of grown-up rules that we try to impose upon youthful interactions. Adults tell the kids to ignore the troublemaker or jointly express disapproval (and to accept him if contrite and cooperative), rather than allow them more primal means — such as throwing rocks to drive him off.

In a playground for adults, the need to have somebody on recess duty would ideally be minimal, and his role, in any case, ought to be to guide toward better behavior, not to censor and punish.

Re: Gas Tax Increases Are Coming Down the Road

I think what I find most distressing about the reports of potential transportation-related tax increases that Marc mentioned this afternoon is that nobody is even hinting at the possibility of increasing money for such a basic government function as transportation infrastructure by taking it from less fundamental government functions. (Pick your favorites.. or rather, your least favorites.)

Of course, I don't intend the above to detract from the plethora of other distressing factors. Take, for instance, the fact that a strategy of increasing taxes to compensate for revenue lost because of conservation shifts the burden directly to those who cannot conserve — namely, folks who must use gasoline directly or indirectly in support of their jobs. If a lowly carpenter like me must bear more of the burden of fixing our roads because I have no choice but to drive my van full of tools for at least an hour-and-a-half per day, then prices will go up across the economy, and competition will go down.

Then, of course, there's this:

According to a draft of the financing commission's recommendations, the nation needs to move to a new system that taxes motorists according to how much they use roads. While details have not been worked out, such a system would mean equipping every car and truck with a device that uses global positioning satellites and transponders to record how many miles the vehicle has been driven, and perhaps the type of roads and time of day.

That such a notion would make it beyond a mere thought spoken out loud during a meeting indicates the dangers that our freedoms face in the future. Just as there will always be an excuse not to shift government expenditures from extras back to essentials, there will always be a reason that our liberty — notably our liberty of movement — can be circumscribed just a little bit more tightly.

Red-Light Cameras' Green-Light

Despite a lack of evidence (as far as I'm aware) that red-light cameras have any reductive effect on accidents and questions about whether they even turn a profit for the controlling authority, the General Assembly eliminated the sunset provision to their allowance last June, and the change went into effect without the governor's signature. Happenings and controversies in Houston should perhaps dissuade localities from jumping into the game:

Accidents more than doubled at the Houston, Texas intersections where red light cameras are installed, according to a study released Monday by Rice University and the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). This result posed a dilemma for TTI and the city of Houston which had requested the study. Houston Mayor Bill White was furious when he saw the report's draft text in August. He banned the document from publication and ordered a re-writing of the text that would reflect a more positive result. To accomplish this task, White was able to turn to the study's primary author, Rice University Urban Politics Professor Robert Stein. Stein's wife, Marty, is employed by the city of Houston as a top aide to the mayor. Stein's newly revised report now concludes that "red light cameras are mitigating a general, more severe increase in collisions."

So, not only do red-light cameras appear to increase traffic accidents, but they can become a lubricant for political corruption and deliberate manipulation of public research. Not a catalyst that would be wise to expand in our corrupt little corner of the nation.

The report's authors achieved the turnabout, by the way, thus:

To achieve the appearance of success, the study divided red light camera intersections into "non-monitored" approaches — the directions of travel at the intersection where the red light camera is not looking — and the "monitored" approaches where ticketing took place. There was a 132 percent increase in collisions at the non-monitored approaches of the intersection where red light cameras were installed and a non-significant 9 percent increase at the monitored approaches. The study treated these increases in both rear end and T-bone collisions as unrelated to the red light camera as long as the accident happened outside of the camera's view.

Frankly, I suspect that a broader study would find a greater increase in accidents, as the mere possibility that traffic lights have cameras increases accidents even at intersections that have none.

Chariho Fiefdom Temporarily Suspended

Apparently powerful players on local school committees can't just subvert the will of voters without providing the public any warning that they intend to do so:

Superior Court Judge O. Rogeriee Thompson has ordered the Chariho Regional School Committee to reinstate William Felkner until it properly votes on whether to allow him to serve on the school board while seated as a member of the Hopkinton Town Council.

Thompson enjoined the school board from enforcing its Nov. 18 decision, based on a finding by Chariho Solicitor Jon M. Anderson, that when Felkner took the oath of office as a Town Council member the evening before, he in effect gave up his seat on the School Committee.

Although the Nov. 18 school board meeting was properly advertised, there was no public notice that the board was considering a vote on whether Felkner could continue to serve.

Assuming that public light doesn't cause Chariho School District lawyer Jon Anderson — and whoever's prodding him — to recede into their hovels to scheme for another day, manipulating the system by other means, it would behoove Rhode Islanders interested in fair dealings and sane reforms to attend any duly advertised meeting at which the dabblers in conspiracy may attempt, again, to deny voters' right to elect whom they like for local offices.

ADDENDUM:

As a side note: Doesn't the Providence Journal have anybody on staff who could provide some sense of where the relevant law actually stands when it comes to simultaneously holding the two particular offices to which Bill has been elected? I'd gladly do the research, if I had time, but it seems to me that such contributions to news stories represent an area in which a state-level newspaper would be well positioned to provide an added value worth paying for.

Gas Tax Increases are Coming Down the Road

Proving yet again that unintended consequences occur from government policies, we're hearing noise about increasing the gas tax at both the state and federal level. The reason? We're driving less, conserving fuel and helping the environment as we've been urged to do. But now we're not buying enough fuel to generate the "revenue" to pay for highways and the like. The innovative solution being carted out is more taxes. First, nationally:

The 15-member National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing is the second group in a year to call for increasing the current 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal tax on gasoline and the 24.4 cents-a-gallon tax on diesel. State fuel taxes vary.

In a report expected later this month, members of the infrastructure financing commission say they will urge Congress to raise the gas tax by 10 cents a gallon and the diesel tax by up to 15 cents a gallon. At the same time, the commission will recommend tying the fuel tax rates to inflation.

The commission will also recommend that states raise their fuel taxes and make greater use of toll roads and fees for rush-hour driving.

The proposals include increasing the gasoline tax, now 30 cents, by up to 15 cents per gallon by 2016, which would raise an estimated $64 million per year. They also include a new “petroleum products gross earning tax,” beginning with the equivalent of 10 cents per gallon of gasoline in 2010 and adding another 5 cents in 2014. That would affect all petroleum products, from gasoline and aviation fuel to those made from petroleum derivatives, such as plastics, paint and fertilizer. It would eventually raise about $66 million per year, the draft report says.

Wherego the Impressions Goes Public Opinion

Union members and supporters in Rhode Island should contemplate hard where their self-imposed imperatives are placing them in the battle of messages. On their side is a dogged assertion that official processes don't weaken their hand even during financial emergencies:

[Union lawyer John] Leidecker also said state law says districts should adhere to the old contract until a new one is executed, and there aren't exceptions for a fiscal crisis. In addition, he said the committee members' decisions yesterday "further indicates their disdain for the process," particularly the arbitration process, which produced a "fair settlement."

It's understandable that the union would take that line; they've managed, over the years, to hone The Process in their favor, after all. However, regular folk tend to turn against tilted processes when they collide against reality and reason:

Mayor Joseph Larisa said: "East Providence is flat broke. The big labor contract that finally expired was as outrageous as it is unaffordable. Now that the damage has been done, the options left are a crazy 15 to 20 percent property-tax increase against our hard-hit taxpayers, bankruptcy or finally setting reasonable and fair compensation for all school employees. There is no fourth option.

East Providence Charges into the New School Year

So states East Providence School Committee Chair Anthony Carcieri in a press release just out (and available in full in the extended entry):

"This school system has cut everything to the bone except the teachers' contract. Everything," Carcieri said. "They stopped capital improvements years ago. Basic maintenance of the school buildings has all but stopped. We've been ordered to replace about 70 doors for safety reasons, and there's no money to pay for it. We have no extras in our educational program. We've had expert after expert look at this. There is no place left to cut except our biggest account — teachers' pay. I hope they'll understand that this is nothing we want to do. We have no choice."

In a letter to the NEA's Jeanette Woolley (PDF), School Committee Lawyer Daniel Kinder notifies the teachers' union of several changes that the committee "must, and will, implement... effective Monday, January 5, 2009 at 12:01 a.m." Included is no pay increase, a 20% contribution to healthcare premiums for all active teachers and all retirees on or after November 1, 2008, and other healthcare-related provisions. Chief among those is not only the complete elimination of the buy-back provision (previously over $5,000 for declining coverage), but the addition of the following language:

No employee or retiree shall be eligible for either family or individual health coverage or family or individual dental coverage if the employee or retiree has available to him/her alternate coverage from another source, whether from another employer, a spouse's employer, a governmental entity, or otherwise. Thus, for example, without limitation, if an employee's spouse is employed by an employer who maintains a group health insurance plan that includes family or spousal coverage, the employee is not eligible for coverage under the East Providence Schools group plan. Similarly, without limitation, Medicare eligibility or a teacher's employment by an employer who maintains a group health insurance plan would also render the teacher ineligible for coverage pursuant to the East Providence School Department plan. Each employee and retiree claiming eligibility for health insurance coverage pursuant to the School Department's plan shal be required each year to provide the School Department with an affidavit in form satisfactory to the School Department, averring under oath and penalties of perjury, that the teacher does not have available to him/her health insurance and/or dental insurance from any source other than the School Department.

In short, any teacher who can get coverage elsewhere must do so. Note the absence of any weasel language like "comparable."

The teachers in East Providence and throughout Rhode Island must come to realize that their union has served them extremely poorly by:

1. Failing to accurately assess the financial realities of the state and towns, and/or
2. Promising the possibility of endless advances via hardball negotiations.

The state's been pushed off a cliff, and it is time for unionists and other riders of Rhode Island's apocalpyse to reorient themselves toward reviving our drowning society.

The Look of "Balance" in the New Year

It isn't my intention, with this post, to gripe about not being included on a list in which we'd be in awkward company, but I do think it worthwhile to point out that Crowley's "Rhode Island Blog Round Up" probably gives a better sense of the truth than declarations by a man who considers them cheap indeed:

... if the blog is going to continue to be a success, people who still need to be convinced will have to be welcomed into the conversation.

... While the Projo has layers of editorial review, local TV has too little time for in depth discussions, and talk radio is more bluster than brains, RIFUTURE is a place for people of all political stripes to take their message directly to the people.

In true lefty fashion, Crowley can be expected simply to move the boundaries of which political stripes are fit for civilized discussion.

What Should Be Asked During the RNC Chairman's Debate?

On Monday, the Americans for Tax Reform organization will be holding a debate between the candidates for chairman of the Republican National Committee. Confirmed participants are Saul Anuzis, Ken Blackwell, Katon Dawson, Chip Saltsman and Michael Steele. Also inivited, but not confirmed the last time I checked the website, are Mike Duncan, Tina Benkiser and Jim Greer.

At least part of the debate will be devoted to questions submitted and voted on via the RNCDebate.org website set up for this event. Rhode Island's own Jon Scott has submitted the following question for consideration…

The NRSC and NRCC have concentrated solely on incumbents during the last several cycles and have been ineffective. We have had no discernible answer to the DNC's "fifty state strategy". Good candidates are hard to attract and money is the mother's milk of politics. As a two time candidate for US Congress in Rhode Island; the bluest of blue states, I want to know what the contenders' plans are to support federal races and state Party mechanisms in "weaker" states.

On Television, Sans Haircut

I'm a guest on this week's Newsmakers show, talking new media stuff with host Tim White, Ian Donnis, and Matt Jerzyk. The show airs on WPRI (channel 12) at 5:30 Sunday morning and Fox (channel 11) at 10:00 a.m., and you can watch it at your leisure already online (part 1 and part 2).

To put questions of style to rest, I'd like to note that, with the holiday, I didn't have a chance between notification and taping to get a haircut.

A couple of cliché busters are Matt and I.

ADDENDUM:

I had an issue with each of the online parts cutting out about two-thirds of the way through and have received email letting me know that it wasn't just me. If you pause the show just after each commercial has finished and let the video download completely (the timeline bar will fill up), you should make it through to the end.

Feeding the Watchdog

And here, beginning in Connecticut, comes the reasoning that many suspected would arise for a mainstream media bailout:

"I truly believe that no democracy can remain healthy without an equally healthy press," said Fiedler, now dean of Boston University's College of Communication. "Thus it is in democracy's interest to support the press in the same sense that the human being doesn't hesitate to take medicine when his or her health is threatened."

Professor Fiedler's error is one of mechanism: The appropriate manner in which a democracy supports its press is via freely willed financial support, and the way the press ensures such support is by giving citizens what they want and need. If the government props the press up, then it will not make necessary corrections as it continues down a path of bias and unnecessary fluff.

What the media needs is to sharpen its tools and hone its core capabilities — remembering that "gathering news" doesn't mean snatching reports from wires and larger newspapers, but actually going out and developing fresh information of interest to the paper's concentrated audience. It's difficult work, no doubt, and may not employ as many people as the newspapers have hired previously, but it's the only viable route for a successful and independent industry.

The promise of government — in line with Thomas Sowell's observation that politicians pledge the impossible — is of ease, but Quinnipiac journalism professor Paul Janensch puts it well when he says, "You can't expect a watchdog to bite the hand that feeds it." In the media's case, the easy way out is an impossibility. Ultimately, readers will know it's a fraud, and they'll turn to alternatives such as the Internet, even though hobbyists' news gathering resources are clearly inadequate.

Stop "Unethical, but Legal"

Robert Benson, first vice president of Operation Clean Government, calls for outrage over Superior Court Judge Francis Darigan's ruling that legislators cannot face consequences for votes cast in response to bribes:

This is not just some arcane legal conundrum of little interest to most Rhode Islanders. Darigan's decision essentially guts the state's Code of Ethics and leaves the Ethics Commission powerless when legislators violate this code. His decision is based on a 200-year-old "speech in debate" clause in the Rhode Island Constitution that protects members of the General Assembly from reprisals for their legislative actions. Article VI, Section 5 of the state's constitution says, "For any speech in debate in either house, no member shall be questioned in any other place." Judge Darigan believes this sentence trumps a 1986 amendment to the state Constitution that created the Rhode Island Ethics Commission precisely to deal with abuses of office by public officials.

Article III, Section 8 of the Rhode Island Constitution states, "all elected and appointed officials and employees of the state and local government, of boards, commissions and agencies shall be subject to the code of ethics." The key word is all — it means members of the state General Assembly House and Senate as well as all other elected officials. This amendment further states, "The ethics commission shall have the authority to investigate violations of the code of ethics and to impose penalties, as provided by law."

Unfortunately, I'm not sure that Rhode Islanders do outrage — at least not against political corruption. The state's too intertangled with itself; too many backs are being scratched. The pessimist in me concludes that the state will not begin to turn itself around until the various interest groups begin to battle each other, rather than the taxpayer. Of course, the interest groups (unions, poverty industry, Democrat partisans, and so on) have developed an overlapping hierarchy that will resist internal competition as long as possible.

But then, I tend to be an optimist, which leads me to agree with OCG founder Bruce Lang that "Rhode Island can be one of the most successful states in the United States," and that a positive message, backed by concerted effort and strategic cooperation can implement specific changes to the law, such as the three that Lang lists:

1. Reduce the size and cost of our governments in every possible way — by eliminating and consolidating many jobs, government services, government departments and school systems.

2. Improve the illegal-immigration situation, which must be costing our state at least somewhere between $200 million and $400 million per year.

3. Not only can we not increase taxes, if we are going to become competitive as a state we must begin (even if takes years) to reduce taxes, such as estate and certain corporate and individual income tax rates.

Increasingly, I'm persuaded that the ultimate determinant of reform's success will be the opposition movement's ability to get its act together. That'll mean putting egos aside, elevating the goal above the process, and refusing to let the forces of the status quo amplify our differences beyond both.

The Lesson Never Learned

Partisans may attempt to yoke each successive American administration with part of the blame, but it's achingly frustrating to note the repetitive nature of events and rhetoric in the Middle East. Jeff Jacoby enunciates the lesson that the West never wants to learn about terrorism:

The hard truth is that no matter how much Israelis crave peace, they cannot achieve it through concessions and compromises and "road maps" - not when their enemies view such overtures and agreements as signs of weakness, and as proof that terrorism works. For 60 years, Israel has had to contend with the hostility of its neighbors and the heavy costs of war; its yearning for peace is understandable. But there will be no peace without victory, and no victory without fighting for it.

For a long time now, Israel's leaders have resisted this fact - "We are tired of fighting," Ehud Olmert infamously declared in 2005. For 15 years, beginning with the sham of the Oslo peace process in 1993, Jerusalem has tried to appease its way to tranquility. It allowed Yasser Arafat and his PLO killers to take control of the West Bank and Gaza. It embraced the goal of Palestinian statehood. It responded to terrorism with ever-deeper concessions. It abandoned Lebanon and Gaza. It reiterated, over and over, the false mantra that "you make peace with your enemies." And from the ongoing captivity of Gilad Shalit to the rockets slamming into Israeli cities to the dysfunction and radicalization of Palestinian society, the results have been disastrous.

Change a key figure here. Choose a slightly different front-group there. And Western diplomats will leap again and again for the golden ring of painless resolution. Time and again, though, they find, when they pause for breath, Islamists stoking hatred and cutting throats.

Pork for the Union

Michelle Malkin's looked through some of the expenditures of the UAW, which via auto-industry bailouts, is now under the care of the federal government:

In February 2000, the union poured $14.7 million into Pro Air, a Detroit start-up airline that, well, didn't get off the ground. Plagued by safety problems, the feds shuttered the company less than a year later. The union didn't fare much better in its venture with a liberal radio network. In 1996, union heavies got the bright idea to invest $5 million in United Broadcasting Network, a left-wing precursor to Air America that the UAW hoped to use to spread its corporate-bashing propaganda. They shelled out for a $2 million, state-of-the-art studio in Detroit and incurred years of losses of a reported $75,000 a month before closing the network down in 2003.

And while the UAW and carmakers cry poor, they've operated massive joint funds for years that have paid for lavish items such as multi-million-dollar NASCAR racer sponsorships and Las Vegas junkets. The dire economic downturn hasn't changed the behavior of profligate union bigs at the front office or the shop floor. Local Detroit TV station WDIV recently caught local UAW bosses Ron Seroka and Jim Modzelewski — both of whom make six-figure salaries — on tape squandering thousands of hours of overtime on such important labor security matters as on-the-clock beer runs and bowling tournaments.

And that's not even getting into the union-owned golf courses and other golf-related expenses.

Losing That Old-Time New England Feel

Damien Baldino worries that Obama "stimulus" largesse may spell disaster for Providence's character:

Once Barack Obama is sworn in as President of the United States, his first priority will be a stimulus package to help the economy. I've seen amounts ranging from $600 billion to $1.3 trillion, but the most common estimate seems to be around $800 billion. The money would be used to finance transportation projects, green energy projects, and rennovation/rebuilding schools. Massive amounts of money will be funneled to cities and states to complete infrastructure projects that are in the planning stages. ...

I fear that the money would be used by the city to implement the ideas published in the DeJong study.

If you're not familiar with the DeJong study, it is essentially a study championed by David Cicilline and Donnie Evans which addressed the condition of Providence's educational facilities and how the system could be reconfigured and improved (link below). To summarize, the study had a strong bias toward rennovating historic schools and favored demolishing historic buildings and replacing them with new buildings that will probably be as awful as some of the City's other new schools. Many of Providence's schools are a mess, and they do need major rennovations, which I strongly support. What I oppose is demolishing historic buildings that could become functional and beautiful at a cost that is likely equal to, or below the cost of new construction.

I'm not very familiar with the personalities involved in Providence, but Rhode Islanders in general are a conservationist lot. Although, we also have a talent for extracting losses from win-win circumstances. (By which I most certainly do not mean to suggest that pouring taxpayer money into misguided "stimulus" packages — or politician-and-public-sector wish lists — is a win by any stretch.)

Another Year Come and Gone

Busy as we are — and, of necessity, reluctant to sign up for long-term contracts, as for oil — we found ourselves today on the verge of an empty oil tank, with a delivery already scheduled for tomorrow. As one might expect, few of the oil companies that we called answered, others could not come out for days, and a couple told us that they don't make emergency calls until the tank is entirely empty.

The kind woman at Heritage Oil, however, informed me of something that I'm surprised not to have known: That diesel fuel will work in a pinch. She even made sure that I was aware that I'd need virgin gas cans that had never been used for regular gasoline. So, off to Walmart, where the cashier wished me a happy new year. "It can't be worse than the last," she said.

Well, I don't know about that.

The first half of 2008 was a hopeful, if stressful, time for me. I was advancing quickly in the construction field, and whole new career paths were coming into view. I was able to meet my bills well in advance, and things looked likely only to improve.

The year has gone out on a decidedly down note, though, with a return to my usual state of being — by which I mean a return to paycheck-to-paycheck survival. I've even trimmed personal luxuries, such as flavored beverages with lunch, from my lifestyle.

Some of you will know how difficult it can be to live on the financial edge. A distracted glitch in one's financial system brings a wave of unaffordable fees, because no buffer exists. The considerations that must be kept always in view — such as home heating oil — emerge as more numerous than seems to be the case when resources tie up loose ends before they are truly severed. The minor inconveniences mount until their aggregate effect is dispiriting: a broken car door handle, a toilet that flushes only every other time, an old electrical system that often trips in the middle of microwave cooking, a basement sink pump that fills and expunges at a glacial rate. These things are all easily fixed with a minor application of time and money, but both are in short supply.

And then there's illness and injury. A broken bone in an active child can make a paycheck disappear without warning. Flus and coughs can cost in time and motivation. I spent much of Christmas Day returning to bed and sleeping on the couch. The daily schedule by which I feel life to be advancing has come up against the motivation-sapping effects of the worst illness I can remember since college, over the past couple of weeks.

Yet, things could be much worse, and there's always reason to remind one's self that they can get much better quickly. What will the new year bring? Probably good and bad. That's all that it's reasonable to say. We define our goals, develop our strategies, and do our best to build a structure by which to capitalize on the drifts of luck and blessing that ultimately determine our fortunes.

I hope you are entering the new year with determination and optimism. It would be naive to declare that it can't be worse, but it would be unnecessarily pessimistic to forget that it truly could be better, often in ways unexpected. And behind all the comforts and travails of life, a divine infinity transforms it all to bliss.

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Run for Office

Is it me, or is the continued media harassment of the Palin clan beginning to seem like a more general warning:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her future son-in-law is not a high school dropout as the press is reporting. ...

Palin said some media outlets also are erroneously reporting that her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, is a high school dropout. The governor said her daughter is enrolled in regular high school and has taken correspondence courses.

Beware, you ordinary (right of center) Americans who are not from the political class: Your lives will undergo tabloid treatment, even from ostensibly respectable news wires, should you find success running for office.

"The fire codes are still outlandish"

So sayth Justin. And with that adjective, he understates the case.

In 2003, before (before) the new fire codes uselessly promulgated as a result of the Station Night Club fire went into effect, Rhode Island had the highest per capita expenditure on fire prevention. Imagine how much higher that number now is and how much more burdensome those regulations.

Conceptually, whether it's a fire code or a building code, we can have no end of regulations and corresponding construction or retrofit requirements to make us so safe as to approach infinity. There is a point at which the resulting cost renders the buildings too expensive to buy or rent or, minimally, places a heavy, unwarranted burden on an economy.

In practical terms, our expensive fire codes and fire prevention infrastructure proved completely irrelevant to three hundred people in West Warwick. Mountains of expensive fire codes are useless if not enforced (and if an Attorney General then does all in his power to shield the fire official from the legal consequences of such a fatal dereliction of duty).

The new fire code, built on an already excessively burdensome fire prevention infrastructure, became yet another regulatory/fiscal cudgel with which the General Assembly pounded Rhode Island businesses. Inadvertantly and with all good intention, some might point out. Yes, but weren't most of the laws and regulations - including tax laws - that have unnecessarily rendered Rhode Island all but unfit in which to operate a business pass innocently and with good intention? That in no way diminishes the considerable damage that they have wrought and continue to work on Rhode Island's economy: insufficient numbers of desireable corporations, the attendant dearth of good paying jobs, first into a recession, high unemployment rate, nightmare flashbacks for the CEO of a large corporation, et cetera.

Benefiting the Community

Harvey Waxman, of Wickford, makes a good point:

When private-sector unions make concessions their sacrifices will go to companies whose executives often make millions in salaries and to shareholders whose dividends can benefit from those concessions.

When a public-sector union makes concessions the beneficiaries are not high priced executives but the people, the homeowners, the citizens of Rhode Island. That is an important difference.

One could quibble with the fact that Harvey doesn't treat shareholders as "people, homeowners, and citizens," which clearly they are (and not all rich, either), but the sentiment came to mind when I read of financial problems in Woonsocket:

Leaders of the police and fire unions said Menard has told them that, unless they make contract concessions in areas including health benefits, the city may have to lay off about 30 of the 99 police union members and 45 of 132 firefighters union members to balance the city's $116-million budget.

Union leaders in both departments said cuts of that magnitude would be devastating.

"It's a tragedy waiting to happen," Steven R. Reilly, president of the Woonsocket Firefighters Association — Local 732 of the International Association of Fire Fighters — said after addressing the council Monday night.

"I've got people here wondering if they have a job," said Sgt. John Scully, president of Local 404, International Brotherhood of Police Officers.

It sounds to me as if Mayor Menard was telling the union leaders that they have it within their power to avoid that tragedy in waiting. Unions act collectively when they're trying to negotiate for evermore; they should also act collectively when it comes to preserving each other's jobs.

Ireland's Unconventional Minister of the Environment

Unlike many of his counterparts around the world, put Minister Sammy Wilson squarely in the category of AGW sceptic. Drudge links to this article in today's Belfast Telegraph. [Check out all the global warming alarmist articles linked on that page, by the way.]

Spending billions on trying to reduce carbon emissions is one giant con that is depriving third world countries of vital funds to tackle famine, HIV and other diseases, Sammy Wilson said.

* * *

"I think in 20 years' time we will look back at this whole climate change debate and ask ourselves how on earth were we ever conned into spending the billions of pounds which are going into this without any kind of rigorous examination of the background, the science, the implications of it all. Because there is now a degree of hysteria about it, fairly unformed hysteria I've got to say as well."

Exactly right, Minister Wilson! When Al Gore took up the cause of AGW, science was summarily shown the door.

A quick google led me to Minister Wilson's webpage, where can be found, naturally, all of the minister's Press Statements, inclusive of this little seasonal gem, excerpted below.

... what would Christmases be like if we had to live as the green fanatics would like us to?

First of all, we probably would not have lights on our Christmas Trees, as they use energy which is frowned upon. And because the Greens are against artificial Christmas Trees you will only be able to get one if you manage to push your way past the tree huggers and cut it down yourself.

Not that this would matter anyway as there would be no presents to go under the tree. The Green Party has supported the Buy Nothing Christmas Campaign which advocates not buying anything for Christmas. If we all had to indulge in this there would no doubt be further redundancies and job losses as the Christmas trade keeps many companies afloat.

However we wouldn't have as much money to spend on Christmas: the massive cuts in carbon that the green lobby wants would result in our fuel bills rising by up to 40% so we wouldn't have as much cash in the kitty anyway.

If Christmas Day with no presents wasn't bad enough it gets worse when it comes to Christmas Dinner. The climate change extremists have said that we must stop eating meat as flatulent cows are the cause of so much carbon emissions. So far they haven't passed judgement on the turkeys but either way we would be eating less meat. This will of course mean more hardship for farmers, if they have not already been put out of business by the cost of rising fuel bills and more expensive feed for their livestock.

Unsurprising Construction Delays

Working in construction, I really didn't expect the new Tiverton elementary schools to be ready for student occupancy this coming Monday, and indeed, the school committee has held off the transition until February 23:

A unanimous school committee voted Tuesday night to delay until Feb. 23 the move of an estimated 350 elementary students into Pocasset and Fort Barton Schools, where final touches on major renovations still continue.

The vote reflected the "consensus recommendation" made at the meeting by project architect Greg Smolley and builder H. V. Collins, said Douglas Fiore, director of administration and finance for Tiverton schools.

The recommendation was based on the views of over half a dozen inspectors (electrical, plumbing, mechanical, fire, health, elevator, and the town building official), who with the architect and builder and school officials, had toured Pocasset School Tuesday afternoon, punch lists in hand, and were scheduled to do the same at Fort Barton School on Friday afternoon.

Why a two-story school needs an elevator is beyond me; so is the reason the General Assembly hasn't scaled back the ridiculous fire codes, yet. The extra month-and-a-half that Tiverton students will be spending in horribly inadequate surroundings is in large part a consequence of those two factors.

ADDENDUM:

I raised the topic of elevators with somebody in my household who has much more extensive experience with day-by-day life in school buildings, and she pointed out something that hadn't occurred to me: broken legs.

The fire codes are still outlandish.

Career Path Logjam

Robert Wendover, director of the Center for Generational Studies, offers some thoughts related to my concerns that some number of Baby Boomers won't accept it as their social duty to pass the torch along to the next generation:

... Regardless of their financial position, most Boomers are reluctant to leave the workforce. While income plays a role, there is also that many in this generation have tied what they do for a living to their identity as a person. Introduce yourself to a Boomer and chances are he or she will include a job title in the first few seconds of conversation. Assemble a few of them at a gathering and they'll find a way to talk shop. Outplacement counselors know that one of the biggest hurdles for Boomers in transition is to let go of the identity they are clinging to based on a former role. An impending retirement presents them with some of this same trepidation.

Additionally, Boomers have tended to use their work environment as a source for building and maintaining a social life. There's the annual holiday party, the summer barbecue, the company sporting events and the monthly trade association meetings where 50-somethings take turns being volunteer leaders. Retirement can be the perfect storm: loss of income, loss of identity, loss of social circle. Why not remain in a role that is comfortable, reassuring and pays for the first and second mortgages?

Retiring Objections

Commenting to my post on returning retirees in RI's public higher ed system, Steve appears to have inside information:

Justin, I'd like to clarify something, if I may. No one has "eased back into their old positions." The staff that retired and were brought back have returned on a part-time basis. No one is working 40 hours weeks. They are working fewer hours and being paid at an hourly rate. They are not on salary.

(Incidentally, of the 44 retirees who have returned on a part-time basis, 21 are staff and 23 are adjunct faculty being paid $3,000-$4,000 on a per course basis.)

For example, the director of institutional research at RI College returned after retiring and is now working part-time as a consultant. Institutional research was a one-professional department at RIC. (That is the case with many departments; our ranks are painfully thin.)

Without the director's return, part-time, RIC would have no institutional research capacity at all. It made more sense to bring her back on a part-time basis than it did to hire a full-time IR professional and pay salary, benef