Marc Comtois
On Matt Allen’s show earlier this week, Justin did a good job of explaining why there doesn’t seem to be any excitement surrounding this year’s RI Governor race. Basically, Democrats are getting hammered across the rest of the nation and the energy is on the side of the Tea Party/GOPers, which leaves our oh-so-Democratic state…
As a Warwickian, I’d be remiss not to call attention to the latest Hummel Report: While unfunded public pensions have gotten the lion’s share of the headlines recently – the unfunded health benefit liability for retired employees is a much bigger problem here in Warwick, to the tune of more than $300 million. Part of…
“I’m wary of Race to the Top.” So says Lincoln Chafee, as he vaguely expresses concern over the long term state and municipal obligations that he implies could be generated by federal Race to the Top money. Except there really aren’t any because the goal of Race to the Top is to accelerate current (ie;…
Matthew Mitchell at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center has done research showing that States will have to increase their 2009 budget cuts (average of 6.8%) to 12.3% and sustain that level of spending to pay off their debts. Rhode Island is one example he cites: [T]he entire budget gap could have been eliminated had the…
Did you hear about the controversy surrounding the Republican candidate for Lt. Governor pulling out in favor of an independent? Crickets. That’s the response I’ve gotten from an informal survey of non-political types. That about says it all, doesn’t it? So, while in-the-know political observers (including us) continue to entertain ourselves with this tempest in…
According to the ProJo, GOP Candidate for Lt. Governor Heidi Rodgers is going to pull out, leaving the way clear for Cool Moose Party Candidate Bob Healey. Rogers said she was dropping out to give Healey a better chance of winning because “Bob Healey and I believe in the same vision for the office of…
Busy. C’est la vie. I’ve been collecting articles that I found interesting and worthy of some kind of commentary, but I just don’t see getting to them any time soon. So, instead of letting them go to waste, here you go (some of them may have been touched on by others). A book review of…
Scott McKay’s analysis confirms my anecdotal observation that the Progressive/Labor wing of the Democratic party had a successful night. The only real throw-the-bums out anger came from the Democratic left, not the GOP right. And it was in General Assembly elections. Nine House Democratic incumbents were tossed from office on a day when the progressive…
A lot has been said about the August 28th rally on the Mall last weekend. As a non-Beck guy (not anti- just agnostic) and having a lot to do last weekend, I frankly didn’t pay too much attention to the event and the aftermath. Now that I’ve caught up a bit, I think Rich Lowry…
Via this piece against the implementation of a Value-Added Tax (ie; “A VAT is a terrible idea if it triggers bigger government, and a VAT is a bad idea if it merely finances bigger government.”), I came across the below from a decade-old interview with Milton Friedman. It was 2000 and we had a budget…