Marc Comtois
Connecticut has a familiar problem (h/t): While the private sector was shedding millions of jobs in 2008 and government budgets were collapsing under the weight of waste, fraud and carved-in-stone personnel costs, the public sector had another banner year. Governments at all levels hired 164,100 new employees and were largely responsible for the addition of…
In the Netherlands, the canals have frozen over for the first time in years and the Dutch are strapping on their skates and having a blast, albeit with a few bumps and bruises. But the politics are never far away, even in what you’d think would be a feel-good story. First, there’s the environmental angle:…
Prompted by Justin’s analysis, I decided to take a closer look and compare the 2004 (PDF) and 2007 (PDF) statewide education expenditures (per student). First, as Justin noted: [T]he statewide per-student spending on “instructional teachers” (as opposed to the broader “instruction”) actually rose $880, from $5,490 to $6,370, or 16%. Both the size of the…
Anchor Rising has received the following: The East Providence School Committee is providing 2 examples of the financial avalanche facing our entire community. Attached is legal action by the Northern RI Collaborative seeking past due payment of $563,214.30 for tuition payments for our special-needs students. It is irrational that the teachers’ union chooses to ignore…
So, the Immigration Panel has found that: Governor Carcieri’s executive order on illegal immigration has created such fear throughout Rhode Island that…he [should] make a “well-publicized clarifying statement” to explain what the order does and doesn’t do. Please. The ProJo “advoticle” (advocacy piece within a news article) is full of anecdotal ‘fear’ stories of immigrants…
I’ve been sparse again….but instead of offering comment on the important political events of the day, I just want to note that Jim Ed Rice is finally in the Baseball HOF: Jim Rice was elected to baseball’s Hall of Fame today, in his final year on the writers’ ballot. He earned 76.4 percent of the…
Founder of First Things and one of this country’s preeminent theologians, Father Richard Jon Neuhaus has passed away. From the National Catholic Reporter. From the early 1970s forward, Neuhaus was a key architect of two alliances with profound consequences for American politics, both of which overcame histories of mutual antagonism: one between conservative Catholics and…
In anticipation of the Governor’s address tomorrow, in which it is likely he’ll announce some pretty deep cuts in aid to cities and towns, it seems like a good idea for communities to embark on the sort of potential cost-saving projects that Warwick, East Greenwich and North Kingstown appear ready to try (couldn’t find link…
Justin explained in his Newsmakers appearance one potential method by which the “old media”, newspapers (like the ProJo) in particular, could recalibrate and take advantage of the forum that bloggers provide (basically for free). To summarize, let the MSM focus on collecting news and the blogs deal with the discussion of the news . Glenn…
Proving yet again that unintended consequences occur from government policies, we’re hearing noise about increasing the gas tax at both the state and federal level. The reason? We’re driving less, conserving fuel and helping the environment as we’ve been urged to do. But now we’re not buying enough fuel to generate the “revenue” to pay…