Justin Katz
James Cournoyer, of North Smithfield, gets to the heart of the matter (after noting that public employees are paid workers, not volunteers): … a public employee who starts working at age 25 with a $30,000 salary and annual raises of 3.25 percent will contribute $74,425 to the pension system over 20 years, assuming a contribution…
Michael Zey’s op-ed, yesterday, enunciates the factors indicating that the United States of America is just not that interested in developing energy independence — much less developing energy as an export industry. As the Platts report plainly states, without a growing energy supply, countries face “declining growth rates, diminished standards of living, and growing transfer…
Methinks there’s a missing “my” in Karen Lee Ziner’s “Remarks raise concern” piece on the front page of yesterday’s Local News section: A nonprofit group whose board members include First Lady Sue Carcieri asserts that nearly 45 percent of all immigrants in Rhode Island — legal and illegal — lack high school diplomas and “this…
Race’s status as an umbrella term for an amorphous category of qualities — from skin color to lifestyle choices — justify a significant degree of skepticism about claims of racial profiling. In the context of a recent University of Rhode Island investigation of state police traffic stops and searches (concerning which, I haven’t been able…
I’m not in the least disputing the Martins’ relevancy as a representative human interest topic (and my family would certainly not be so comfortable broadcasting personal financial information). Still, the Providence Journal’s front-page profile of the family makes me curious about the genesis of the report. Did Journal Staff Writer Lynn Arditi advertise online for…
Even conservatives may have difficulty finding fault with this The Federal Reserve Board moved yesterday to place new regulations on the nation’s credit card industry that would make it more difficult for lenders to raise interest rates and give consumers more time to pay their bills. If enacted, the regulations would be the most sweeping…
I expect it won’t be long until courts begin to realize that this capricious obstinacy has no basis in rational adjudication: Two elderly sisters who live together have lost their final appeal in a discrimination case that claimed they were victims of discrimination under Britain’s civil partner law. Joyce Burden, 90, and her 82-year-old sister…
Actually, what struck me about Rhody’s comment was how this early sentence betrays the ridiculousness of his point: If any of us were sent back to work under a court order, our attitude might not be that great, either. Most of us, I venture to suggest, cannot envision circumstances in which a court would have…
Here’s another shining example of what public sector unions — specifically teachers’ unions, specifically the NEA — have wrought: The state Department of Education does not endorse the high school’s plan for students to stand before their English classes to present their senior projects — a new graduation requirement here this year. … Most of…
