Justin Katz
That it hits so close to home makes the omission that much more glaring, but Lynn Arditi’s article in yesterday’s Providence Journal about floundering Rhode Islanders leaves out a huge component of their plight: The Federal Reserve’s surprise rate cut yesterday came too late for Steven A. Bigelow. His home remodeling and carpentry business, which…
Something jumps out about this isolated parenthetical “correction” in today’s story about the state of the state address in the Providence Journal, by Katherine Gregg, Steve Peoples, and Cynthia Needham: With respect to state workers, he said: “The average state employee earns $61,000 per year in salary with fringe benefits valued at another $34,000 (a…
I didn’t see or hear Governor Carcieri’s state of the state speech last night, and I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my news reading, yet, so there’s not much that I can say about the specifics. (Of course, I suspect that anybody who follows the local news without the inherent denial of…
Although I missed the budget discussion, I’m glad that I stopped by the Tiverton Town Council meeting, because discussion of a particular contract for an administrative assistant turned into debate of the contract policy overall. (My money’s on the likelihood that the position will remain unfilled.) Some key highlights that councilors throughout Rhode Island ought…
It looks like I’ve made it to the town council meeting just in time to miss the budget discussion, and I’m still shaking a bit from the school committee meeting. (Although, to be honest, I’m not sure what emotion is the cause.) School Committee member Leonard Wright made one of the union’s talking points by…
Given my inability to attend both significant budget meetings for the Town of Tiverton, tonight, I opted to be present at the School Committee’s. For one thing, the way Tiverton’s budget process is structured, the Council’s passage of the budget is merely the first step, and not necessarily an important one. As I’ve noted, the…
Yesterday’s Political Scene shouldn’t fly under the MLK Day radar: Sen. John J. Tassoni Jr., D-Smithfield, was paid $92,606 last year as senior business agent for the largest state employees union: Council 94 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. Senate Majority Whip Dominick Ruggerio, D-Providence, was paid $181,041 in salary and…
Catching up on some regrettably lapsed blog reading habits, I came across a post by Lane Core that notes a January 2 post by the Anchoress with the following bit of prescience: What I dread most in this political season is the “genuine” moment – and it is coming, soon, sometime between today and tomorrow,…
Over on Not for Nothing, Ian Donnis chortles about Hillary: The Movie, noting: Among the things we learn from Ann Coulter and a host of other putative experts is that Hillary is “worse than Nixon.” OK! I’m disinclined to rush to the movie’s defense as anything other than a political production, but this particular selectivity…