Justin Katz
I didn’t catch the State of the Union last night, but I’ve explained, before, that I have a hard time getting riled up for state of the x speeches. I will say that I continue to be struck by the irrational hatred of George Bush on the Left. Much of the fire, it seems to…
I originally posted this in response to Pat Crowley’s ranting on RIFuture. Since he’s published the same propaganda as a letter to the Providence Journal, I thought it worth bumping the post to the top. It is sufficiently tedious to respond to “analysis” from the NEA’s Pat Crowley that, when it’s limited to RI Future,…
Talk about transparency (emphasis added): The state will forgo an estimated $23.4 million next year as a result of the flat tax, according to an analysis of the Poverty Institute at Rhode Island College. The average tax cut will be $5,337. And the beneficiaries are overwhelmingly in higher-income brackets: 98 percent of the savings will…
As disappointing as it is that Ian Donnis would write approvingly of something spat onto the public square by the NEA’s Patrick Crowley, it’s more disappointing that he seems to agree: Pat Crowley has a strong post up at RI’s Future, pointing to a state report to indicate how Rhode Island taxpayers are paying more…
The topic is energy production, but the implications are much broader for the cast of characters who call Rhode Island, and New England, home. Exhibit A: The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection has given final state approval to a Somerset power plant to use a new technology called coal plasma gasification. State environmental officials say…
Here’s how yesterday’s Peoples and Gregg production begins: Desperate to close the state’s largest budget deficit in modern history, former Gov. Bruce Sundlun did not wait for labor union leaders to come to his office to discuss the situation. The Democratic governor went to them. In 1991, several weeks after he was elected, Sundlun personally…
Mark Patinkin makes a reasonable point — one that is often leveled in an accusatory tone at conservatives: Stanley O’Neal, the ex-head of Merrill Lynch, was booted for losing billions betting on the garbage now known as sub-prime loans. His punishment? An estimated $161-million sendoff package. The issue isn’t even that he didn’t deserve it,…
The National Education Association couldn’t have asked for better coverage of the Tiverton School Committee meeting on Tuesday from the Providence Journal’s Gina Macris if the union had paid for it: Amid the continuing rancor over an unsettled teachers’ contract, School Committee member Leonard Wright injected a conciliatory tone. The town has high-performing schools and…