Monique Chartier
All taxes are burdensome in practicality and, therefore, repugnant as policy. But if you’re going to propose a new tax, arguably, your imperative is “First, Do No Harm” to current tax revenue – and doubly so if you are proposing a tax (taxes) that has a vivid track record (in this case, of failure). It…
Bill H6256 at the General Assembly, to be heard tomorrow in House Finance at the Rise, would “repeal the property tax and sales and use tax exemption for boats”. Anchor Rising reached out to all sponsors of the bill with the following question. The marine industry employs over 13,000 people in Rhode Island as of…
As you have probably seen, Anchor Medical will close up shop by the end of June, unwillingly cutting loose 25,000 patients. They cite their inability … to hire replacements for our physicians who have retired over the course of the last decade — while costs continue to rise, reimbursement rates make it extremely difficult to…
A joint Oversight hearing about the Washington Bridge will be held this Thursday at the State House. [Agenda.] There will be no public testimony and only committee members will ask questions. There is so far only one witness: Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Peter Alviti. The Director will not be under oath when he…
The Senate hearing on President-Elect Trump’s nomination of Pete Hegseth for Secretary of Defense is now underway. Inasmuch as the objections to his nomination raised so far at the hearing are irrelevant to the vital mission of the United States military, I am bumping up my post of November 17. There has been a “Well…
They’re ba-a-a-a-a-ack. Well, strong possibility. Truck-only tolls, that is. To clarify, Rhode Island’s only-in-the-nation, truck-only toll law is not just discriminatory – it applies only to a certain type of vehicle, trucks – but it is actually doubly discriminatory – it applies only to CERTAIN trucks (Class 8 and above). But the federal appeals court…
This is not the biggest question pertaining to Rhode Island’s handling of the failed Washington Bridge – it is secondary, for example, to WHY the state had to offer a serious incentive for what would seem to be a juicy public contract, not to mention what Ken Block is in the process of turning up…
Following the determination in April that the Washington Bridge eastbound was becoming “considerably more sensitive” (gulp), RIDOT contracted to install a new, combined structural health monitoring and vehicle weigh-in-motion program on/between the Washington Bridge and the Iway (Providence River Bridge). In May, RIDOT entered into a five year “sole source” – i.e., no RFP –…
Gene Valicenti’s weekly Tuesday conversation on WPRO with Brown University Professor Wendy Schiller took a slightly unexpected turn yesterday when Gene honored her request to comment on the handling of the Washington Bridge closure. (Starts at Minute 06:45.) Schiller: This is a significant, major problem that if something goes wrong with the eastbound side, for…
The above pie chart speaks for itself. Rhode Island’s greenhouse gas emissions are so small, they barely register on the chart. That Rhode Island, the smallest state in the country and, on top of that, one with a poor business climate that has further driven down its carbon footprint [because that’s the highest priority, right?…
