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June 4, 2010
Budget "Highlights"
For commenter edification, here are the three "highlights" of the just-passed House Budget, cribbed from the ProJo:
* Car Tax - 50-22 voted to cut around $120 million in car tax subsidies from cities and towns. Gave cities and towns the ability to implement their own car tax "to make up for the losses" by taxing car values after the first $500. So now, even your winter-beater is taxable.
* Education Aid - 50-19 to cut school aid by $31.3 million. $6.1 million offset by proposed pension cuts. Rep. Brian Newberry tried to offset another $2.3 million by killing the rub-and-tug (the legislative-grant money that Rep's and Sen's pass around to little leagues and the boy scouts, etc.), but that was shot down 43-29. Gotta keep the gravy train.
* Pension - 39-33 to limit the pension COLA to the first $35,000 in benefits. Requires pensioners to wait until age 65 before collecting COLAs. Rep. Joe Trillo tried to get it down to the first $12,500, but that was defeated.
* Restored - Proposed subsidized-housing cuts, the state's renewable energy fund, arts programs, and cancer screening programs for low-income women.
* Welfare - Did not extend July 1 deadline for cash-assistance and job-training program (welfare).
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I think one of the funniest lines from the ProJo article is when Charlene Lima cries out in support of getting rid of the Legislative Grants and how they're a bad thing.
What a scumbag. She doesn't get the money any more so now they're a bad thing.
You want to know what is wrong with RI politics? Charlene Lima is a textbook example and Cranston deserves her.
Posted by: Patrick at June 4, 2010 9:42 AMWhew! THey passed a budget with only a $100 million hole in it. At least that's what we know of...BEFORE THEY PASS THE F&*KIN' thing!
Butch Cassidy: You didn't see Lefors out there, did you?
Posted by: John at June 4, 2010 11:55 AMSundance Kid: Lefors? No.
Butch Cassidy: Oh, good. For a moment there I thought we were in trouble.
C'mon! Charlene Lima is a state treasure. Hopefully, in future years historians will be able to draw upon her record to illustrate the decline and fall of RI. It can't help but make their books much more entertaining.
Posted by: John at June 4, 2010 5:09 PMI love it-Charlene Lima who was one of the worst trough pigs is now trying to sound like a moralist because the other scumbags purged her.A plague on the whole bunch.
Posted by: joe bernstein at June 5, 2010 7:42 AMSmall wonder why an essentially decent guy like Sen.Lenihan is leaving.I don't know how liberal/conservative is,but he did seem to try to do a credible job along with a handful of others.
Charlene deserves as much sympathy as Trotsky, Bukharin, Beria or Malenkov.
Posted by: Mike at June 5, 2010 10:03 AMThe "progressives" always eat their own.
It is the history of the Left since 1789.