Carroll Andrew Morse

Mayor Taveras and the Retirees

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 3, 2012 |

Rhode Island’s Twitter corps has once again provided the public with excellent as-it’s-happening coverage of public developments in Providence’s fiscal crisis, in this case the meeting held this morning between Providence Mayor Angel Taveras and city retirees. Here’s a brief compilation that captures the flavor of the meeting… Ted Nesi (WPRI, CBS 12): The Taveras…

Ted Nesi’s Interview with David Skeel on the Basics of Municipal Debt

By Carroll Andrew Morse | March 2, 2012 |

3 points about Ted Nesi‘s WPRI-TV (CBS 12) interview with University of Pennsylvania Law Professor and bankruptcy expert David Skeel are worth immediately noting:In the first half of the interview, Prof. Skeel advances that same argument, based on current law, that we at Anchor Rising have been making from a wider historical perspective for a…

Delegate Tie in Michigan?

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 29, 2012 |

Multiple media sources are now reporting that Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum have evenly split the delegates awarded in yesterday’s Michigan primary. CNN reports…Of the 30 delegates at stake, Romney took 15 and Santorum took 15, with zero unallocated as of late Wednesday afternoon. The numbers will not be final until the state certifies its…

Romney Projected to Win Michigan and Arizona

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 28, 2012 |

CBS News is projecting Mitt Romney as the winner of the Michigan primary. He has a 41% to 38% lead over Rick Santorum, with about 80% of precincts reporting. Ron Paul is 3rd at 12%, Newt Gingrich is 4th with 7%. And with a little over 50% of precints reporting in Arizona, Romney leads with…

Tuesday Political Open Thread

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 28, 2012 |

Polls from Brown University’s Taubman Center and WPRI-TV (CBS 12) say that Congressman David Cicilline is in serious electoral trouble. The X-factor impacting his near-certain use of a standard medi-scare campaign is that Brendan Doherty can counter with “David Cicilline will leave Social Security and Medicare in the same condition he left Providence — and…

Coming up in Committee: Fourteen Sets of Bills Scheduled to be Heard by the RI General Assembly, February 28 – March 1

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 27, 2012 |

The prologue to this week’s list of General Assembly bills to be heard in committee is a bumper crop of local impact bills. I can’t say for certain if they are all sinister or sensible, but folks interested in the goings-on in Cranston, Cumberland 2, Middletown/Newport, New Shoreham, North Providence, North Smithfield, Pawtucket 2 3…

The State of Local Taxation in Rhode Island, Measure II

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 24, 2012 |

How do amounts paid by municipal residents, in the form of local taxes, relate to how much their local governments have to spend? Here is the answer for Rhode Island’s cities and towns with the local tax levies measured in terms of percentage of income above a community’s aggreggate poverty threshold…

The State of Local Taxation in Rhode Island, Measure I

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 24, 2012 |

How do amounts paid by municipal residents, in the form of local taxes, relate to how much their local governments have to spend? Here is the answer for 38 Rhode Island cities and towns (New Shoreham is way off in the direction of the upper right-hand corner) with the local tax levy measured as a…

Revenue per Resident in Rhode Island Municipalities

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 24, 2012 |

While the percentage measures used in the previous posts provide initial insights into the question of willingness and ability to pay with regards to local taxation, the total picture requires looking at an absolute measure of what each RI city and town has available to spend, since the cost structure for local services is not…

Residential Taxation in Rhode Island Municipalities, Part 2

By Carroll Andrew Morse | February 23, 2012 |

In the previous post on local resident taxation in Rhode Island, there is a group of distressed communities (and Bristol?) at the bottom of the percentage-of-resident-income levied list. The clustering raises a question worth addressing of whether total income is the appropriate basis for measuring the taxation level in very poor communities. The argument for…