Marc Comtois
One idea that has been floated as part of comprehensive health care reform is to tax health care benefits as income. I recall Senator McCain’s plan contained such a provision for example. Well, it looks like the Senate is considering going with it, too. Except for union workers. The exception, which could make the proposal…
Remember how concerned we all were about frog limbs? Answers!: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, researchers started getting reports of numerous wild frogs or toads being found with extra legs or arms, or with limbs that were partly formed or missing completely. The cause of these deformities soon became a hotly contested issue.…
OK, what’s this “cap and trade” thing all about? Well, first its a bid to massively change some fundamentals of our economy all for the sake of reducing global warming (by a few tenths of a degree Celsius in a few decades). Although the powerless House GOP has offered arguments against its passage, Democratic leaders…
Entirely unsurprising, now, isn’t it? It is budget-cutting day at the State House, but not when it comes to the free health care packages costing up to $17,296 that are given the state’s part-time lawmakers and their families. The $7.76 billion state budget headed for a vote by the full House of Representatives Wednesday afternoon…
ProJo has the rundown. But for Federal Dollars, our legislators would have been forced to make tougher decisions. As it is…. The $7.76 tax-and-spending plan headed for passage increased overall spending by 12 percent — including $226.5 million in federal stimulus dollars — compared to the state budget adopted last June. The state-only portion dropped…
It wasn’t what the Governor asked for, but the House passed an amended pension reform article as part of the budget. Despite threats of lawsuits by teachers unions, the House of Representatives has approved a slate of pension cuts aimed at shaving a total of $55 million off the soaring taxpayer cost of providing pensions…
From the Wall Street Journal At last, there’s a place in America where tax cutting to promote growth and attract jobs is back in fashion. Who would have thought it would be Maine? This month the Democratic legislature and Governor John Baldacci broke with Obamanomics and enacted a sweeping tax reform that is almost, but…
It should be no surprise that the Obama Adminstration, which is on the record as favoring Charter Schools and other education reform, would raise its eyebrows when a state cuts such funding. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has made it pretty clear that the President won’t look favorably upon those who turn their backs on educational…
Via ProJo: In a sharp reversal from last year, the House has voted down a proposal aimed at changing the way that the president and vice president of the United States are elected. On Thursday afternoon, lawmakers defeated a measure that would have allowed Rhode Island to join in a compact with other states that…
OK, the Budget as amended by the House Finance Committee is up. Have at it: Table of Contents ARTICLE 1 RELATING TO MAKING APPROPRIATIONS IN SUPPORT OF FY 2010 ARTICLE 2 RELATING TO BORROWING IN ANTICIPATION OF RECEIPTS FROM TAXES AND INTERFUND BORROWING ARTICLE 3 RELATING TO EDUCATION AID ARTICLE 4 RELATING TO MAKING REVISED…