{NB: This started as a brief re-cap of Mayor Steve Laffey’s amicable return to the Dan Yorke show. Subsequently, State GOP Party official Chuck Newton and Senator Lincoln Chafee appeared.}
Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey and WPRO’s Dan Yorke have buried the hatchet, hence, Laffey was on Yorke’s show today to discuss the Senate race and why he would not be attending what he considers to be tonight’s “fixed” RI GOP convention.
For the first time that I’ve heard, Laffey took on the accusation that he wasn’t “senatorial” enough. He stated that if being “Senatorial” meant hanging out with Robert Byrd and doing nothing, then he never would be “Senatorial.” He said that he’s a reformer and that the actions of the Senate show that things need to be shaken up and that he plans on doing just that.
From there, he also explained that he wanted to shake the hold that the Old Line members have on the State GOP. He said they’re happy with the scraps they get from the Democrats, don’t want to rock the boat (and just want to collect fees for services) and they didn’t want to win. He than offered that, “Luckily those people are old and are dying.” He said that he’s interested in building the State Party anew, from the ground up. Finally, he noted that Cranston was the only place that has seen a growth in GOP registrations in Rhode Island. He also that Governor Carcieri was not part of the Old Guard and affirmed his support for the Governor and his agenda.
Chances are that Yorke will have the audio somewhere here, eventually.
UPDATE: Chuck Newton of the RI GOP called in after Laffey and was on. When asked about Mayor Laffey skipping the convention, Newton stated that they’d been trying convince Laffey to attend. Newton observed that Laffey has been “bragging” about being the only real Republican and then he is stiffing the GOP convention. According to Newton, politics is about process and the convention
is part of that process.
Yorke offered that perhaps Laffey was afraid of getting “his head handed to him.” To this, Newton mentioned that someone had pointed out that at the straw poll in Newport a few weeks ago, Laffey didn’t show up at, but he won. Thus, Newton didn’t know if a fear of losing was keeping Laffey away.
Newton also believes that an endorsement of Chafee is not a “slam dunk.” Though he did assert that the Laffey campaign hasn’t been focusing on convincing the delegates of the state central committee to vote for him.
SIDE NOTE: By the way, I’m awaiting the Mea Culpas from those who stated that Sen. Chafee would be running as an Independent. (Just stirring the pot).
UPDATE II: Senator Chafee spoke with Yorke on the air during the 5 O’Clock hour and offered two basic themes. His primary point was that he was the only electable Republican vs. Whitehouse, especially since Mayor Laffey enjoys nearly 100% name recognition and still polls 30 points lower than Whitehouse. Secondarily, Chafee believes that Laffey is being disrespectful to the GOP by not showing up at the convention.
Both Senator Reed and Senator Chafee voted against the Flag Burning Amendment (story), which failed by one vote. Senator Chafee, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Robert Bennett of Utah were the only Republicans who voted against the Amendment.
UPDATE: Andrew emailed me to say it was worth noting that Langevin voted for the House version and Kennedy against.
Suppose the electric company offered you a rate cut. Would you answer…
- “Yes, I’ll take it”, or
- “No thank you, I’d prefer that my rates be stable instead of low”.
In mid-2005, National Grid was making a Standard Offer of 6.2¢ per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) of electricity to its customers. Because of rising fuel costs, National Grid determined that a rate increase was necessary, made the appropriate filings, and received permission from the Public Utilities Commission to raise rates to 10.0¢ per-kWh beginning January 1, 2006.
National Grid and the PUC, however, overestimated how much fuel costs would rise. By the end of March 2006, it was obvious that millions of dollars more were being collected from customers each month than was needed to pay for electricity. To reconcile the overcharges, National Grid asked the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission on March 31 of this year for permission to lower its rates.
On your behalf, the Public Utilities Commission initially answered don’t bother — keep your rates high if you want.
Here are the details. On March 31, National Grid sent a letter to the Public Utilities Commission stating that the utility expected to collect $31,900,000 more from ratepayers by the end of 2006 than was needed to cover costs and that the Standard Offer to electricity customers should be reduced from 10.0¢ to 9.4¢ per-kWh to reconcile the overcharges. But before the PUC took any action, National Grid revised its estimate. In an April 21 letter, National Grid said, due to changes in fuel costs, they had revised their year-end overcharge projection to $14,600,000 and that a reconciliation would only require dropping the Standard Offer to 9.7¢ per kWh.
Four days later, the Public Utilities Commission — without holding any public hearings dedicated to the subject — issued a recommendation in response to National Grid’s filing. The PUC’s recommendation was that no reduction in electricity rates occur, despite the projected overcharges. The PUC based its decision on a doctrine of price stability…
If price stability is the objective, then a prudent course of action may be to defer any action on the standard offer price at this time and continue to monitor the fuel markets and their effect on the underlying cost to serve the standard offer customer base. Another month or so of market information would be helpful in assessing what type of rate effects might occur in 2007 from a price reduction in 2006.However, on May 31, National Grid revised upward its estimate of how badly it was overcharging its customers. Now, National Grid projected that, if rates were held constant, $48,400,000 more would be collected from ratepayers by the end of 2006 than would spent on electricity. But despite the fact that the projected over-charges to Rhode Island customers were 50% higher than in their March estimate, National Grid now parroted the PUC line, withdrawing its rate lowering request and declaring that the price changes were too difficult to follow, so rates should just be kept high, regardless of actual costs…
The Company believes that, given the difficulty of predicting the reconciliation balance with a reasonable degree of accuracy by more than two or three months, the best course of action at this time is to maintain a stable Standard Offer Service rate at the current level. We will continue to monitor fuel prices and their affect on both the projected and actual Standard Offer reconciliation balance.Eventually, in June, in light of the electricity overcharges now averaging $100 per-ratepaying household (and because, I suspect, of the attention being brought to the problem by Bill Harsch) the PUC recommended a modest lowering rates to 9.6¢ per kWh starting on July 1.
Mr. Harsch does not believe this to be sufficient… [Open full post]
In addition to rejecting John Kerry’s hard deadline for withdrawing from Iraq, the Senate on Thursday also voted on an Iraq proposal sponsored by Democratic Senators Jack Reed and Carl Levin. The Reed-Levin amendment was a non-binding resolution that called on the President to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq by the end of this year and to submit estimates for further withdrawals beyond 2006, but established no final deadline for completing a withdrawal. The amendment failed by a vote of 39-60.
I am not sure what the public gained through the “debate” of this proposal.
Reed-Levin would not have mandated — nor even suggested — any change in the President’s current Iraq policy. Here’s what the resolution asked of the President…
(D) the President should–Yet according to the June 9 International Herald Tribune, the beginnings of withdrawal from Iraq, to occur this year, are already planned…
(i) expedite the transition of United States forces in Iraq to a limited presence and mission of training Iraqi security forces, providing logistic support of Iraqi security forces, protecting United States infrastructure and personnel, and participating in targeted counterterrorism activities;
(ii) after consultation with the Government of Iraq, begin the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq this year; and
(iii) submit to Congress a plan by the end of 2006 with estimated dates for the continued phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, with the understanding that unexpected contingencies may arise;
(2) during and after the phased redeployment of United States forces from Iraq, the United States will need to sustain a nonmilitary effort to actively support reconstruction, governance, and a durable political solution in Iraq; and
(3) the President should carefully assess the impact that ongoing United States military operations in Iraq are having on the capability of the United States Government to conduct an effective counterterrorism campaign to defeat the broader global terrorist networks that threaten the United States.
The subject of future troop levels is certain to be an important part of President George W. Bush’s two-day war cabinet meeting, which will start Monday at Camp David in Maryland. Senior U.S. commanders in Iraq will join the meeting by a video link.So suppose the President brings home 15,000 troops by Christmas and announces tentative plans to withdraw more troops after that. That meets conditions spelled out in the Reed-Levin amendment; how then has the amendment altered the US war plan?
In preparation, military planners in Iraq and at the Pentagon have been refining troop-rotation proposals that, in the best case, would reduce levels to between 110,000 to 120,000 troops by the end of December, from current levels of about 130,000, administration and military officials said.
Most Republicans, rightly, voted against this proposal because it would have made American policy look weaker than it actually is. Passage of the amendment would have created a perception that any forthcoming withdrawal of American troops from Iraq was the result of American division and inconstancy and not of the consideration of the facts on the ground.
Forcing a vote on this kind of resolution shows that the Democrats do not understand how critical avoiding an unnecessary perception of weakness is to a deterrence-based defense policy. There is no advantage in focusing on low-substance but high-profile atmospherics that make an existing policy look weaker than it is. And it is neither good military strategy (because it boosts enemy morale) nor good political strategy (because it reduces the room that domestic hawks have to compromise) to make considered political/military decisions look like purely military retreats. [Open full post]
Confirming reports from the ProJo 7to7 Blog and NBC10 ‘s Bill Rappleye, Major General Reginald Centracchio, former Adjutant General of the RI National Guard, confirmed that he was entering the GOP primary for Lt. Gov. on the air with Dan Yorke this afternoon. Centracchio had previously said he wasn’t going to run. He also told Yorke that he asked the other GOP candidate, Kerry King, to step aside. Apparently King wasn’t very happy. (No Kidding!)
Yorke asked Centracchio “who came to you” and asked you to run. Centracchio first said his family and then friends and then stated that no GOP political players had a part. He also said he notified Gov. Almond yesterday.
UPDATE: Yorke spoke with Chuck Newton from the State GOP for reaction. Newton said that he thought it was “terrific” because it energizes all within the party. When asked if the party would ask King to run for General Treasurer instead, Newton said it’s possible but no such talks have been held. When pressed, Newton proffered the line that each candidate was his own man. He also implied that some in the GOP were excited by Centracchio’s entrance into the race, while others had a different view. In short, he continued to toe the line that it would energize the party. (He also hinted that another Republican would be making a bid against Patrick Kennedy).
UPDATE II: Yorke also spoke to Kerry King. King said he’s not bowing out and that he’s going to win. He related that he told Centracchio that “You’ve got to be kidding” when Centracchio called King last week to tell him he was entering the race. King also said that Centracchio told him he had the support of “the Governor.” Governor Carcieri called King and told him he had his support. Then Centracchio called King again and said he’s out. Then, after this past weekend, rumors began floating that Centracchio was going to jump in after all. King characterized Centracchio’s back-and-forth as not showing leadership but opportunism.
Yorke asked King if anyone had asked him to back out from the State GOP or if they had asked him to run for some other office. King said “no.”He said that, like Nathanael Greene, he had been keeping his powder dry and that his organization has been out raising money for the stretch run. Now he’s ready to fight a tough campaign.
According to his television ads, Rhode Island Senate candidate Sheldon Whitehouse wants American troops to leave Iraq “by the end this year”.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate rejected a measure sponsored by Senator John Kerry that would have required most American troops to leave Iraq by mid-2007 by a vote of 13-86.
The overwhelming margin of defeat of the amendment shows how far outside of the mainstream Sheldon Whitehouse is. His ideas on Iraq lie outside not just the national mainstream, but far to the left of the conensus of the national Democratic party. Is a candidate who promotes the foreign policy ideas of the radical fringe really a suitable representative of the citizens of Rhode Island?
Yesterday’s Best of the Web from the Wall Street Journal offers this story:
Horrific news out of Iraq, where two U.S. soldiers, Pfc. Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker, were either killed or captured and later killed in an enemy attack Friday. Their bodies were found Monday, CNN reports, “mutilated and booby-trapped”:
The bodies also had been desecrated and a visual identification was impossible–part of the reason DNA testing was being conducted to verify their identities, the sources said…
Not only were the bodies booby-trapped, but homemade bombs also lined the road leading to the victims, an apparent effort to complicate recovery efforts and target recovery teams, the sources said.To most of us, this is a reminder of the depravity of our enemies. But blogress Jeralyn Merritt sees it as a reminder of America’s sins:
Violence begets violence. Inhumanity and cruelty bring more of the same. The whole world is watching and we don’t have the right to claim the moral high ground so long as those responsible for the abuses at Guantanamo and detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan go unpunished, the policies stand uncorrected and the Pentagon continues to prevent the media from learning the facts first-hand.
The always excitable Andrew Sullivan similarly laments “the cycle of depravity and defeat.”
This rhetoric about “cycles” appears to reflect a theory of moral equivalence, but in fact it is something else. After all, if the two sides were morally equivalent, one could apply this reasoning in reverse–excusing, for example, the alleged massacre at Haditha on the ground that it was “provoked” by a bombing that killed a U.S. serviceman–and hey, violence begets violence.
But America’s critics never make this argument, and its defenders seldom do. That is because it is understood that America knows better. If it is true that U.S. Marines murdered civilians in cold blood at Haditha, the other side’s brutality does not excuse it. Only the enemy’s evil acts are thought to be explained away by ours.
Implicit in the “cycle” theory, then, is the premise that the enemy is innocent–not in the sense of having done nothing wrong, but in the sense of not knowing any better. The enemy lacks the knowledge of good and evil–or, to put it in theological terms, he is free of original sin.
America ought to hold itself to a high moral standard, of course, but blaming the other side’s depraved acts on our own (real and imagined) moral imperfections is a dangerous form of vanity.
But they claim to support the troops and don’t want anyone to question their patriotism.
[Open full post]One of the central lines of Dennis Michaud’s criticism of Governor Carcieri is that he has a poor relationship with the General Assembly (Remember: “He’s a fighter, I’m a lover.”). Any follower of contemporary Rhode Island politics would probably agree, but that doesn’t mean that tough-minded negotiating on both sides can’t yield positive results. In short, there is no logical link between KUMBAYA circles and fiscal sanity. Rhode Island still has a ways to go, but it appears as if the Governor’s managed to extract some concessions out of the House (and, yes, vice versa).
“I believe that my fundamental principle, which is that we have to live within our means, has finally begun to sink in,” Carcieri said yesterday as he praised the House budget, which raises spending 4.9 percent.
Is that a responsible increase when inflation rose only 2.5 percent last year?
“I would like to see it lower,” the governor said, “but to get a budget that everybody can agree to, you’ve got to compromise on some things.”
House Finance Committee Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, added: “This was a budget of shared priorities in a lot of cases. Were there some philosophical disagreements? Yes. But ultimately I think we worked through a budget.”
In fact, things were so cordial between the House and the governor’s office that Carcieri’s chief of staff Jeffrey M. Grybowski celebrated the budget’s passage in the speaker’s office Monday night with Costantino and House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox, D-Providence.
The budget includes several issues that Carcieri and Democratic lawmakers can take credit for in November.
Take the car tax.
Carcieri had proposed raising the exemption from the first $5,000 in value to $5,500. Lawmakers went to $6,000.
The same can be said about local school aid.
Carcieri increased school funding by $20 million. Lawmakers added another $13.3 million, although some communities saw less under their plan than Carcieri had proposed. But in the end, both parties can take credit for more school aid, which in political circles translates into “property tax relief.”
“I bet you have to go back to the late ’90s to see a local-aid package as large as this,” Carcieri said yesterday.
Lawmakers restored many of the cuts Carcieri made in welfare and subsidized health care for the poor, but did end up going along with a few of his reductions. The legislators can campaign that they helped the poor while Carcieri can take credit for “reforming” part of the system.
“They came not as far as I might like to see,” the governor said, “but they came quite a ways toward what we wanted to accomplish.”
For years we have seen the slow, inexorable power of incrementalism on the part of traditionally Democratic constituents who rely on–and demand–tax revenue taken from the wallets and pocketbooks of average Rhode Islanders. This week we’ve seen property tax reform coming from the Senate side and a Budget compromise–that includes tax reductions–coming from the House side. Perhaps this is the beginning of a slow (I won’t say inexorable!) move in the other direction.
In an election year, even Democrats see the wisdom of letting the taxpayers keep more of their own money. These are positive developments. However, we still need to keep the pressure on. Should all of this legislation pass, we still need to make sure that the legislature doesn’t try to take away these tax breaks next year. Re-electing Governor Carcieri would go a long way in ensuring that won’t happen.
With a vote of 36-0, the State Senate passed a bill that would slow down and then limit the amount that a community could raise property taxes in any given year.
The bill would lower the maximum annual increase to a community’s tax levy from the current 5.5 percent to 4 percent gradually, starting in fiscal 2008 and reaching 4 percent in 2013.
Rather than imposing a 4-percent cap immediately, [Senate Majority Leader M. Teresa] Paiva Weed said she chose the gradual cap to give cities and towns time to adjust. When Massachusetts capped local tax increases at 2.5 percent, she said, “a dramatic decrease overnight did have a negative impact on municipal services.”
There were quite a few changes made from the original proposal, including:
…a provision instructing judges to consider the caps in deciding whether to allow school committees to seek a higher appropriation than they receive from a city or town council.
The bill would apply the same percentage caps to school-spending increases as it would to tax levy increases….
Another amendment would excuse school committees from including state and federal aid in computing compliance with the cap….
The bill contains an exemption from the cap in four cases:
if a city or town experiences a loss in revenues other than property taxes, such as state aid or gambling revenues,
if a city’s or town’s health-insurance costs, retirement contributions or utility expenditures rise at a rate more than three times the cap specified for that year,
if a city or town experiences debt-service costs that exceed the prior year’s costs by a percentage greater than the cap specified for that year,
if a city or town “experiences substantial growth in its tax base as the result of major new construction which necessitates either significant infrastructure or school housing expenditures . . . or a significant increase in the need for essential municipal services.”
The original bill would have required a special election, paid for by the state, to override the cap in those circumstances. The bill, as passed, instead requires a supermajority vote — four fifths of the full membership — of the city or town council.
The Governor supports the measure, but it’s still up in the air as to whether or not the House will take it up. I’m betting against that happening. Nonetheless, kudos to Sen. Paiva Weed and the Senate for making the attempt.
[Open full post]I’m sure everyone will let me know if I missed this already, but included in his new website “Solutions America“, Rudy Giuliani has a section for those Republicans he has endorsed. For Rhode Island, he has endorsed Lincoln Chafee, which really isn’t a big surprise. But perhaps the bigger point is the whole concept of this website. Why have it? Apparently, the “Solutions America” organization has been around since 1998. Nonetheless, the effort to publicize the website launch seems to be a clear indication that Giuliani is engaged in some base-building for an ’08 Presidential run.
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