Marc Comtois
Seth Godin has advice for the little guy. Like small business or even a small state. Economies of scale are well understood. Bigger factories are more efficient, bigger distribution networks are more efficient, bigger ad campaigns can be more efficient. It’s often hard to defeat a major competitor, particularly if the market is looking for…
Speaker Fox and the various members of the Democratic leadership say the Chafee plan is dead…..Right? “I’m not going to swear on any Bible about revenue enhancements at this point,” Fox said. “Before we go to the taxpayers and say we need to increase your taxes, we need to build some credibility with them to…
Really, watch the whole thing (7+ minutes). Yes, it’s much easier to do with a “new” city (4 others have followed the Shady Springs model). But older cities can do the same thing. The difficulty is with selling the change. Especially to the workers.
So that $38.5 billion budget deficit reduction deal? Not really much of anything. [T]he cuts …includ[e] cuts to earmarks, unspent census money, leftover federal construction funding, and $2.5 billion from the most recent renewal of highway programs that can’t be spent because of restrictions set by other legislation. Another $3.5 billion comes from unused spending…
As Monique noted last night, Speaker of the House Gordon Fox came out against Governor Chafee’s sales tax plan. This morning I heard Helen Glover wondering if there was room for Fox to wiggle by keeping the 6% “flatten and broaden”. After all, Fox only specifically cited the 1% tax on new items, not the…
I’m not the first or only one to note it, but it’s worth mentioning around here that President Obama attempted to redefine a tax increase in his speech yesterday as a “spending reduction in the tax code“. The president also called for undoing the Bush tax cuts for upper-income taxpayers, and for canceling other tax…
Earlier today, the pension review board was presented with an actuarial study concerning the RI Pension system. After the presentation, the board voted 9-6 to reduce the assumed rate of return on pension investments from 8.25% to 7.5%, which was the figure recommended by the study. The ProJo has the roll call: • General Treasurer…
“Rhode Island women earn $10,200 less than men” says the Providence Business News headline. Full-time employed women in Rhode Island are paid an average of $10,191 less than their male counterparts, according to research conducted by the National Partnership for Women & Families. The research is meant to shed light on the persisting gender-based wage…
Warwick Mayor Avedisian’s pension reform proposals are currently in the process of being reviewed by the Warwick City Council. In a nutshell, Avedisian proposes the following: 1) Minimum retirement age of 50 years old for Fire and Police and 59 for municipal workers. Right now, they can retire at any age as long as they’ve…
Consultant’s hired by General Treasurer Gina Raimondo will present their findings to the state retirement board today (report here – PDF). Their findings are grim if unsurprising, as reported by the ProJo. There are some basic structural problems: The state pension system is based on three basic sources of funding: employee contributions, employer contributions and…