Marc Comtois
RI GOP head Gio Cicione takes on “corporate welfare queens” and Rhode Island’s Groundhog Day-like “economic development strategies” in an op-ed in today’s ProJo. A portion: For eight years, I was responsible for policy development for the Economic Development Corporation….I realized that the economic development strategies of this state were never intended to grow the…
To my recent post that featured a table of the Cost/Resident to foot the payroll for their local public schools, Thomas Schmeling commented: It’s probably also useful to recognize that some communities have higher proportions of children than others so that, even if two communities are spending the same amount per resident, they might be…
Working off of the data provided by the ProJo, I’ve come up with a few lists of what it costs per resident of every city and town in the state to pay the salaries (important: salary only, benefits not included) of each state and local government employee. To start, here is the data on Schools…
I crack on them enough, but this time I’m sending kudos the ProJo’s way for their story–and the research made available–on the cost to Rhode Islanders for running our state, city and town governments. Rhode Islanders paid their city and town employees more than $1.6 billion in 2006, a Providence Journal analysis of municipal employee…
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that Phoenix Rising: A Benefit for The Station Nightclub Fire Victims was happening on February 25th. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention it again on this, the fifth anniversary of the tragedy (and here). God bless the victims and their families.
Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof is chastising the US Press corps for under-reporting the positive effect that President Bush’s Africa policy has had: Mr. Geldof praised Mr. Bush for his work in delivering billions to fight disease and poverty in Africa, and blasted the U.S. press for ignoring the achievement. Mr. Bush, said Mr. Geldof,…
Learning First Alliance/Rhode Island is out with a report (h/t) in which they try to explain that the simple categories used to describe the progress (or lack thereof) of our schools are insufficient to the task. They have a point. Earlier this month, when digging into the latest reports on our state high schools, I…
So former Senator Lincoln Chafee has endorsed Barack Obama, primarily, he says, because Obama (like Chafee himself) was against the Iraq War from the beginning. Can’t say anyone should be surprised. As the ProJo reported last week, Chafee was leaning this way for a while and he has a book coming out that is critical…
Yeah, I caught quite a bit of the dog-and-pony show that was the Congressional hearing on steroids. On one hand, I agree with those who wonder why Congress is wasting time and money looking into it. On the other, I’m glad they are wasting their time (if not the money) on this and not screwing…
We see eye to eye on nary a thing, but Matt Jerzyk and I will have one thing in common very soon: fatherhood. Congrats to Matt and his wife on the impending birth of their first child. As proof that he has not yet gone through the birthing rite, Matt is apparently blogging from the…