Marc Comtois
Kudos to State Rep’s Carol Mumford (R, Scituate/Cranston) and Peter Kilmartin (D, Pawtucket) for today’s op-ed in the ProJo in which they propose raising the Rhode Island inheritance tax threshold from $675,000 to $1 million. Protection of assets acquired over a lifetime, coupled with a desire to leave the next generation a small inheritance, now…
Here are the highlights of the preliminary Statewide School-Financing plan as proposed by a special advisory group: [T]he 14-member group, which included state Commissioner of Education Peter McWalters, Timothy C. Duffy, president of the Rhode Island Association of School Committees, Marcia Reback, president of the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, and Will Van Horne of…
An update on the status of two old and one new ethics complaints, both reported by the ProJo’s Bruce Landis. First the new, from the ProJo’s : State Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III yesterday denied parts of the ethics complaint filed against him the day before and said that one element of it, his failure…
Pah! Who needs $1 million? Before a room packed with apparently health-coverage-minded municipal employees, the Warwick City Council voted 5-4 last night against giving United Health Care the city’s health care contract – even though a switch to United Health from current provider Blue Cross would have saved the city a significant amount of money.…
Michael Barone observes that George Bush has done a poor job of selling the Republican party–and by extension, conservatism–to the under-30 crowd. For instance, Barone writes, “when Bush’s call for [reforming Social Security] was opposed by Democrats, the response of young voters seemed to be, ‘Whatever.’” Barone explains why: My sense when I look at…
The Heritage Foundation has done an analysis of the new House Budget crafted by the Democratic majority in Washington and concluded that it means higher taxes across the board. Their reasoning: The House leadership has proposed to increase spending over the next five years. Given the leadership’s avowed commitment to paying for spending increases, tax…
It turns out that the budget cut proposed by Governor Carcieri won’t go far enough, so what is the solution? The ProJo’s Steve Peoples went to the usual suspects: “There’s no easy fixes. The programs that all Rhode Islanders support are in danger,” said Ellen Frank, senior economist at Rhode Island College’s Poverty Institute. “If…
The election of center-right Nicolas Sarkozy as president of France prompts Ralph Peters to observe, “I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime.” Election of a real reformer, that is. More: Sarkozy is the first top-level French politician who openly accepts that the United States possesses virtues from which France might take a lesson.…
Michael Barone in the Wall Street Journal: It has become a commonplace to say that population has been flowing from the Snow Belt to the Sun Belt, from an industrially ailing East and Midwest to an economically vibrant West and South. But the actual picture of recent growth, as measured by the 2000 Census and…