As I said, leaving Rhode Island is certainly an option, but it’s one that comes with costs that I’m not sure I can manage. I’ve also been inclined to stick it out and fight adversity. As do many Rhode Islanders, I’ve got a bit of thinking to do.
As a pretty basic assumption, the place to start is likely with my hometown, and that leads to a fundamental question of the way things work in this state: How much of a difference does one’s town actually make when it comes to livability? We speak often of the state and the top-down imposition of doom (not to be overly dramatic), but what is left to the individual towns to accomplish, and how much opportunity exists to manage salvation upward?
Forget for a minute the philosophical and policy objections to the new illegal immigration bill before the US Senate.
Consider how the Senate debate on this enormously important matter is being rushed, as noted by Senator DeMint:
The Senate is scheduled to begin debate on the immigration plan this Monday, and yet we still haven’t seen the bill. In fact, we’re hearing the bill has not even been completed. This issue is far too important to jam into a couple days. It would be irresponsible for Congress to pass a long, complicated immigration bill that it knows very little about. Americans expect us to take our time and get this right.
As we understand it, this plan will grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants by allowing them to permanently stay here without ever having to return to their home countries. This can be fixed, but it will take time and there is no way the Senate can responsibly complete this debate in one week.
Those words follow these comments by Senator DeMint one day earlier:
I hope we don’t take a thousand page bill written in secret and try to ram it through the Senate in a few days. This is a very important issue for America and we need time to debate it.
But the little we do know about the bill is troubling. According to reports, the bill contains a new ‘Z Visa’ that allows those who entered our country illegally to stay here permanently without ever returning home. This rewards people who broke the law with permanent legal status, and puts them ahead of millions of law-abiding immigrants waiting to come to America. I don’t care how you try to spin it, this is amnesty.
The Senator has also written this thoughtful op-ed piece.
[Open full post]Overall, the State of Rhode Island spent $4.53 billion in 1998, a figure that includes federal money and is adjusted for inflation. The governor has outlined a conservative spending plan for 2008 that will cost taxpayers $7.02 billion — an increase of 54.8 percent over the last decade.
The governor’s office largely blames the General Assembly for the current fiscal crisis.
“Year after year, the governor has proposed reforms designed to bring state spending into line with underlying revenues. Year after year, defenders of the status quo hold rally after rally at the State House to condemn the governor’s budget plans. Year after year, the General Assembly acquiesces to the demands of the unions and the advocates. And year after year, because we haven’t made the tough decisions, the budget deficit grows bigger and bigger,” Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said.
Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, dismissed the criticism.
“That’s a simplistic approach,” she said. “No comment.”
Um. I don’t think it’s really that simplistic, Senator. Though your “No comment” is…and it speaks volumes.
[Open full post]This week, I lost over a third of my income owing to a corporate layoff. I can’t blame the Massachusetts research company for which I’ve worked for nearly a decade, because it is just trying to do what it deems necessary to survive, and to be honest, I welcome the opportunity to reshuffle the deck. In that shuffling, however, I will certainly be doing some cost/benefit analyses with regard to remaining in Rhode Island. My wife’s large local family precludes my going far, but crossing a border could go a long way, especially in light of the news that recent Anchor Rising posts have reported.
Yeah, I’m in a foul mood because I just lost a job, because my construction boss is shoving his crew toward a vacation-mansion deadline that can’t be met, because it’s raining, and because this is all happening on my birthday. But this comment by Rep. Savage — a Republican, mind you — is the kicker:
… we want to maintain strength and integrity of our social and educational programs…
To begin with, the “integrity” of our social programs is nil. We pay people abundantly — more than just about every other state — to be indigent drags on local society. Our “social programs” are an invitation to sloth. Our “social programs” are a vote-buying scam for Democrats (for which our Republicans lust). In short, our “social program” is to kill the society.
And our “educational programs” are mainly an artery tapped for public union leeches. Any legislator who wants to invoke the “strength and integrity” of our children’s educational system must in the same breath express whether he or she is talking about teachers’ compensation or about the infrastructure and programs that are available to our children.
In short, I guess what I’m saying — as Anchor Rising’s resident wordsmith — is screw the “strength and integrity of our social and educational programs.” What about my integrity as a voter, as a home owner, and as a provider for a family that includes three potential Rhode Island children? What about my ability to even make ends meet in this state?
Talk to me Mr. or Mrs. State Legislator, because whether or not you want to admit it, you exist in this state, if not by my vote, then by my willingness to stay put and cover the bills that you accrue like a drunk with an open tab on Friday night. Let me put it simply, so that even you will understand: Cut spending, and do not raise taxes. It really isn’t that difficult for the rest of us to move, and the truth is that I can continue to badmouth you no matter where I live.
Dan Yorke has called attention to this piece of legislation–Brought to you by Reps. Slater, Naughton, Diaz, Almeida, and Lima–which amends the current RI Sales tax code to read:
A tax is imposed upon sales at retail in this state including charges for rentals of living quarters in hotels, rooming houses, tourist camps, all services with the exception of medical and legal services, and all food and all clothing over one hundred fifty dollars ($150) at the rate of four and one half (4.5%) percent of the gross receipts of the retailer from the sales or rental charges; provided, that the tax imposed on charges for the rentals applies only to the first period of not exceeding thirty (30) consecutive calendar days of each rental.
For “clarification”, the explanation is:
This act would reduce the state sales tax rate from the current 7% to 4.5%, and would include medical and legal services, as well as food and clothing items sold for more than $150, as taxable services and items.
So, the apparent idea is to broaden the scope of the sales tax while sweetening the proposal with a reduction in the actual rate. Talk about moving the deck chairs on the Titanic….
The language of the bill is a little confusing, but Yorke points out that legal and medical services are actually exempted. Rep. Joseph Trillo (R, Warwick) called Yorke and confirmed this and said the only reason medical services are exempted was to provide cover for the 26 lawyers in the House who’ve thoughtfully exempted themselves from the expanded taxation.
Yorke and Trillo said they will be looking into organizing people to protest the bill by showing up at the House Finance Committee hearing on Tuesday, May 22 at 1:00 PM. Stay tuned.
ADDENDUM: I do know that two Senators–Warwick Democrats McCaffrey and Walaska–have proposed reducing the sales tax to 6% and have also proposed that the EXEMPTIONS be expanded and NOT the tax, as their colleagues in the House would have. Here’s another piece of Senate legislation seeking to do the same thing. I assume (hope?) they’ll be reconciled in Committee. Wonder which tax philosophy–House or Senate–will prevail?
UPDATE: (5/21/2007) Dan Yorke has reported that the state sales tax “reform” discussed above is dead on arrival according to his sources.
At last night’s East Providence GOP event, I had the opportunity to talk with State Representative and House Finance Committee member Jack Savage (R-East Providence) and turn Anchor Rising’s attempt to read the tea leaves with regards to the state budget deficit into a few concrete questions…
Anchor Rising: Some recent comments made by public officials seem to indicate that eliminating the Governor’s proposed 3% increase in education aid is a part of the plan for closing the state budget deficit? Is that the legislature’s plan?
Representative Jack Savage: I would say that, although certainly we want to maintain strength and integrity of our social and educational programs, everything is on the table.
With education, it is very possible that it will be level funded at last year’s level. We may not have the funds to do the 3% increase, which would be approximately 20 million dollars. That’s certainly an area which we are looking at to further reduce our deficit.
AR: No one who’s follows Rhode Island politics believes that tax-increases are ever completely off of the table. Is there any talk at the state house about specific types of tax increases?
JS: I think that’s a general type of conversation. I really don’t think that’s going to happen. Everyone is well aware of the fact that we are already so highly taxed, in all areas.
There may be increases in fees and licensing, those types of increases, but I really don’t think, though I could be wrong, that there will be an increase in sales tax or income tax. At least I’m hoping not. I hope we can find other ways to close the gap.
The East Providence Republican City Committee held a fundraiser last night where State Representatives Jack Savage and Susan Story, City Councilman Robert Cusack, School Committee member Steve Santos, and State Republican Officials Jon Scott, Dave Cote and Donna Perry all spoke to the assembled crowd about issues and Republican prospects for the future. Councilman Cusack and Committeeman Santos, in particular, emphasized their experiences showing that Republican candidates for local offices can be successful when they get out, pound the pavement and talk sensibly about local issues.
Another highlight of the evening was Rhode Island’s first straw poll for Republican Presidential nominee. Former State GOP Chairwoman Patricia Morgan made a pitch for Rudolph Giuliani and Current State College GOP Chairman Ryan Bilodeau made a pitch for Mitt Romney. Votes cost $1 and multiple voting was allowed (actually encouraged). The results were…
| Mitt Romney | 96 |
| Rudolph Giuliani | 30 |
| John McCain | 28 |
| Newt Gingrich | 15 |
| Mike Huckabee | 12 |
| Fred Thompson(*) | 6 |
| Tommy Thompson | 1 |
(*As an undeclared candidate, Thompson wasn’t originally in the poll, but as the event started, the East Providence GOPers made a command decision to scratch Ron Paul and give his slot in the proceedings to Thompson)
Please note I’m being very precise in the title to this post. I’m only noting that the straw poll was a “first”, not that it was “representative”!
[Open full post]Republican Senator Mitch McConnell writes:
While most of the media were busy covering the latest developments on the Iraq funding bill or the bipartisan immigration proposal, congressional Democrats on Thursday quietly passed a budget creating the framework for the largest tax increases in American history…
Everyone takes a hit. Forty-five million working families with two children will see their taxes increase by nearly $3,000 annually. They’d see the current child tax credit cut in half — from $1,000 to $500. The standard deduction for married couples is also cut in half, from the current $3,400 to $1,700. The overall effect on married couples with children is obvious: Far from shifting the burden onto the wealthy, the Democratic budget drives up taxes on the average American family by more than 130 percent.
Seniors get hit hard too. Democrats like to crow that only the richest one percent of Americans benefit from the stimulative tax cuts Republicans passed in 2001 and 2003. What they rarely mention is how much seniors benefited from those cuts in the form of increased income as a result of lower taxes on dividends and capital gains. More than half of all seniors today claim income from these two sources, and the Democratic budget would lower the income of every one of them by reversing every one of those cuts.
Heritage also has some analysis on the Senate Budget–most of the tax increases are because the Senate is going to simply let the Bush tax cuts expire–and more here:
With federal spending surging above $24,000 per household per year, the incoming Democratic majority of Congress promised to restore fiscal responsibility in Washington. Instead of paring back the growth of government, however, Congress came to agreement in conference on a budget resolution that:
* Raises taxes by $721 billion over five years, and a projected $2.7 trillion over 10 years, or more than $2,000 per household;
* Includes 23 reserve funds that could be used to raise taxes by hundreds of billions more;
* Increases discretionary spending by nearly 9 percent in FY 2008 and does not terminate a single wasteful program;
* Completely ignores the impending explosion of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs; and
* Creates rules that bias the budget toward tax increases.
…
Congress’s budget resolution is consistent with the Democratic majority’s budget agenda so far. In just a few months in Washington, the Democratic Congress has tacked $21 billion in unrelated deficit spending onto the Iraq war emergency bill; passed a $7 billion farm bailout—without any offsets—that violates the majority’s own pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) rules by adding new mandatory spending;[1] and waived its own PAYGO rules in order to add new mandatory spending as part of a bill to expand the House of Representatives.[2] Coming on the heels of these initiatives, Congress’s irresponsible budget resolution is hardly a surprise.
President Bush has vowed to veto the Democratic budget.
[Open full post]Another U.S. Senate bill on illegal immigration, another disaster in the making.
Michelle Malkin is doing her usual good work summarizing thoughts and reactions about the Senate’s new bill. See here and here. (And now here.)
Sometimes there is no need to invent new thoughts when prior thoughts say it all:
This morning’s publication of an Open Letter about immigration by leading conservatives prompted me to re-read a draft posting I had last edited on May 26. Here is that late-May posting:
Now that we have the Senate and House going into conference with the objective of negotiating a final bill out of two very different bills, it is worth taking a step back and asking ourselves: What are the big issues in this illegal immigration debate? In other words, what policies and values are at stake as those negotiations begin and where should we go from here?
Let me begin with an analogy:
Think back to when you were in elementary school. Remember the occasional kid who would not play by the rules? Now, in most cases, peer pressure corrected their aberrant behavior. But sometimes it did not. And, without the presence of teachers or school aides to adjudicate the situation, a bully could get away with uncivilized behavior and disrupt the peaceful actions of kids who were simply trying to play by the rules.
Now recall how you felt if you or your friends were taken advantage of: The bully was being unfair. Playing fair – by playing by the rules – is a key principle of American life. It is why we don’t like cheaters – in school, on the ball field, in business or in politics.
Whether we will play fair with illegal immigration concerns defines the core issue of this debate.
What the American people get – and many of the Washington politicians from both parties do not get – is that we understand this Senate bill is amnesty for lawbreakers. For corporate lawbreakers and for illegal alien lawbreakers. This bill rewards all of them for breaking the law by relieving them of any consequences for their past illegal actions. And it is no less troubling that the structural incentives of the bill will ensure future behaviors are equally reprehensible. All of this is unfair and wrong.
The Senate bill fails to codify a sense of fair play – aka the rule-of-law in legal terms – into public policies that enhance our ability to live together peacefully as a society. It is actually worse than that because it makes future societal conflict more likely.
These initial points also clarify what are NOT the big issues here. This is not about being racist or hating minorities, no matter how hard some amnesty advocates will push that shtick. All you have to do is read the postings on this blogsite, from well before the illegal immigration issue moved front-and-center, to know that many of us who are agitated about illegal immigration come from families that marched with and were outspokenly supportive of the noble cause led by Martin Luther King, Jr. And because this is a rule-of-law issue, it is also not a civil rights issue.
The American people see through all the moral preening by various parties and have cut to the heart of the matter. Under the status quo, they observe:
The government passes laws they have no intention of enforcing and grants benefits to people who have not earned them.
Businesses are willing to break the law in order to get cheap labor and increase their profits.
Unions are looking for easy marks to recruit for membership, thereby increasing their power.
Both political parties are willing to ignore serious and unresolved policy issues so they can maximize their chances of attracting more Hispanics to their respective parties.
Radicals – like many who organized the May 1 rallies – are promoting an anti-American vision of separatist identity politics completely disconnected from the Founding principles of our country.
Mexico is in political disarray, has an economy that does not generate enough jobs, and threatens to sue our country just for protecting our border.
Illegal immigrants (and many of their advocates) are effectively saying “I am here so deal it with it on my terms.”
Broadly speaking, there are national security, economic and cultural issues at stake here and none is being addressed with any rigor. The American people understand that a failure to deal effectively with any of the three issues diminishes the quality of our country’s life – and could even threaten its existence over time.
There are three specific policy issues at the center of this debate:
American sovereignty: Will we set our own laws about immigration as a country or will we let illegal aliens or foreign countries drive our laws?
Rule of law: Will we enforce fairly the laws on our books, thereby ensuring a consistent – and not corrupt – application of those laws?
Assimilation – Becoming an American citizen is an honor, not a right. We want all citizens to share that sense of honor. So, what does it mean to be an American citizen and how will immigrants be taught American history and the uniqueness of the American experiment in ordered liberty?
So where do we go from here? I would suggest several key points:
We need to transform immigration processes from dishonest to honest practices. The only way we will get to that point is if we first skewer the moral preeners and drive the debate to a focus on both the 3 broad issues (national security, economic, cultural) and the 3 specific policy issues (American sovereignty, rule-of-law, assimilation) mentioned above.
There is a consensus about the need for enforcement, both at the border and with employer compliance. We should begin there and do that right.
There is not a consensus on what to do next and the worst thing we can do is force another law onto the books that either makes no sense or will not be enforced. There is an analogy with the abortion issue. This country became polarized because the Supreme Court acted in a way that pre-empted a national debate from occurring, from allowing a broad consensus to develop. In its current form, this Senate bill is likely to lead to a similar outcome. The issues won’t go away; the passions will not diminish. But the debate will be stopped dead in its tracks and that will only polarize the country. There is much to discuss and we should conduct a reasoned debate at the national level about immigration issues – such as how to deal with the existing illegal aliens in our country, guest worker strategies, and so forth. If we did that, a national consensus would emerge. None of us would likely prefer every outcome but the odds are we could find a way to policies that are generally acceptable to most Americans.
My personal hope is that a more limited bill comes out of conference and we can then conduct a thoughtful public debate on how best to do the right thing and keep America strong. We owe nothing less to our children and to the future of America.
For more readings on the topic:
Identifying Four Core Issues Underlying the Immigration Debate
More Misguided Thinking From RIFuture & State Legislators on Illegal Immigration
Does The Rule Of Law & A Sense Of Fair Play Matter Anymore? The Debate About In-State Tuitions For Illegal Immigrants
Jennifer Roback Morse: Further Clarifying What is at Stake in the Illegal Immigration Debate
Walter E. Hussman Jr., publisher of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, wants his fellow newspaperati to stop caving to the urge to give away news content for free:
News has become ubiquitous, free, and as a result, a commodity. Anytime you are trying to sell something that becomes a commodity, you have lost much of the value in providing that product or service.
Not many years ago if someone wanted to find out what was in the newspaper they had to buy one. But not anymore. Now you can just go to the newspaper’s Web site and get that same information for free. …
Exacerbating the problem with free news was the decision by the newspaper industry, which owns the Associated Press, to sell AP copy to such news aggregators as Yahoo, Google and MSN. These aggregators created lucrative news portals where the world could get much of the news that was in newspapers. So readers could now get free news not only on newspaper Web sites, but also from portals and aggregators that had a chance to monetize the content, most of which was created and financed by the newspaper industry.
Although he does make the effort to contrast his online strategy with that of a comparable newspaper, he doesn’t appear to have an intricate sense of the different pressures that various news corporations face based on specialty and market. And as is probably typical of isolationist voices in any situation, he also doesn’t seem to have considered that, to outside competition, any piece of the industry’s pie is more than previously held, even if the same amount would be an unacceptable loss of share to incumbents. If, for example, the AP had followed Hussman’s industry-sector protectionism and refused to sell its content to news aggregators, somebody else would have utilized modern technology to collect that news for any high-tech upstarts that were willing to pay for it.
If every newspaper restricted its online offerings to subscription-based access, it’s easy to imagine a new type of blog-like innovation that would have aggregated summaries of dead-tree news stories in every market around the world. Considering that even a little supplemental income would represent an increase for hobbyists, perhaps Anchor Rising would have participated. At least now, blogs and the like tend to send readers to mainstream media sites for more than blurbs that are essentially teasers.
Hussman cites the Wall Street Journal Online’s 931,000 paying subscribers (without noting that the free content available via OpinionJournal has helped to make the Journal a major link-magnet). He touts his own paper’s success with “a Web site that complements, rather than cannibalizes, our print edition.” He doesn’t, however, acknowledge the unique role that the Journal has played in the news industry, as almost a trade publication, or at least a unique voice amidst the homogeneity of the old-time media. Moreover, he doesn’t explore what his own paper might be doing differently with respect to the content that it offers than other papers or what differences may exist in the competition that it faces locally.
Without a doubt, the Internet is still such an undefined market that organizations can come up with a wide variety of strategies for dealing with it, adjusted for their own strengths and weaknesses. We’ll see which succeed and which fail as things evolve, but I’m quite sure that even Mr. Hussman Jr. would not like the results were his peers to circle the wagons rather than mingle with — and help to direct — the invaders. Those companies that have been courting the new, free paradigm may be diverting a mob that would otherwise overwhelm even the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in its niche.
