Marc Comtois
WRNI’s Ted Nesi explains how RI has become over-reliant on the Federal Government for budget dollars: [T]he share of Rhode Island’s state budget paid for by the federal government has jumped from 28% to 37% since the recession began; over the same period, the share paid for by state tax revenue (the ol’ General Fund)…
CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, is held every year and serves as a sort of bellwether for the conservative movement. According to Roger L. Simon, there was a different twist this year: The party staged by Andrew Breitbart for GOProud — the gay Republican and conservative group — was as close to a game…
The ProJo Editors came out against tax fiddling and focused on a couple areas of “trouble” related to taxation and the implementation of President Obama’s health care program. They think that the 2.3% tax on medical devices is no big deal because the manufacturers of said devices make a lot of money now and will…
Warwick schools were pretty happy with the latest NECAP results, which showed improvement nearly across the board. From the Beacon As for the improvements at the high school level where students were told for a first time that they would need to be proficient to graduate, [Warwick School Board Chair Bethany] Furtado concludes, “Students are…
No more salad bowls? French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Thursday declared that multiculturalism had failed, joining a growing number of world leaders or ex-leaders who have condemned it. “We have been too concerned about the identity of the person who was arriving and not enough about the identity of the country that was receiving him,”…
It shouldn’t go unremarked upon that the Tea Party Republicans in the US House of Representatives took a stand and prevailed earlier this week. The revolt of freshman and conservative Republicans over spending cuts for this fiscal year ended almost before it began, because it prevailed so rapidly. The rebellion started in rumblings back in…
Progress. That’s what the latest NECAP results show, though Education Commissioner Gist still correctly points out there is work to be done, particularly in closing the “achievement gaps”. What are these gaps? As 7to7 reported: Achievement gaps among minority and low-income students and students with learning disabilities and students with limited English proficiency persist. The…
By now, I think we’re all familiar with the arguments. The ProJo covered the story and GoLocalProv’s Stephen Beale has a piece regarding a potential compromise being floated that would have all Rhode Island marriages be called civil unions. The details: “There seems to be an issue with a word and I want to make…
Steve Malanga at RealClearMarkets gives us the national perspective of what’s going on in Rhode Island (h/t Jim Hackett via Facebook): Tucked in between Massachusetts and Connecticut and overshadowed in Northeastern political discussions by states like New Jersey and New York, Rhode Island is barely noticed these days. Still, the Ocean State bears watching. Its…
I will give credit to Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian for coming up with a plan to save $2 million in pension costs via the extension of retirement ages and reformulating pension payouts for new hires after July 2012. Avedisian’s proposal would increase the minimum years of service needed for retirement from 20 to 25 for…