Basic Government Functions
Sometimes RI’s most essential problem (the failure of its insider class to recognize reality) comes at us from all directions. One example is the call from Joseph Paolino to use the feds COVID gift to Rhode Island government “to change our economy.” How? Let’s look at what our state really needs and invest in them…
Katherine Gregg frames her story about state health facilities’ challenges getting by without unvaccinated employees for the Providence Journal in terms of the government’s incompetence at replacing them: Despite promises made to the state Department of Health to bring in replacements for unvaccinated staff, neither the state-run Eleanor Slater Hospital nor the Veterans Home has…
The Rhode Island General Assembly is calling its page for information about ideas and proposals related to its federal COVID handout the “American Rescue Plan Act State Fiscal Recovery Fund Recommendation Portal.” The Associated Press article about the portal maintains that framing: Rhode Island’s legislature has created a website to post the proposals it’s receiving…
The featured image for this post is the power outage map for National Grid at 7:00 a.m. Power is out across the entire state. It doesn’t have to be this way. Wires could be put underground, except that our government squanders as much money as it can so as to charge us additionally for basic…
Understandably, the president and CEO of the New England Cable and Telecommunications Association, Tim Wilkerson, is striving to get out ahead of rumors that the state government might give government-run Internet a try. Not only do such projects have a track record of failure, but also: Rhode Island already is one of the best states in…
Introducing discrimination into state contracting based on “equity” demands will create dreams deferred.
On first look, Rhode Islanders might not be inclined to despair that our capital city ranks 89 among 150 cities reviewed for on the WalletHub list of “2021’s Best- & Worst-Run Cities in America.” Our state has been run so poorly for so long that being (roughly) middle-of-the-pack on a list is something of a…
One long-time wish list item from Rhode Island cities and towns has been for the state to start taking ownership of the fixtures that illuminate roads the state owns, and it is now doing so. Of course, with new lighting technology, the savings to municipalities won’t be huge by local-budget standards (averaging a little more…
If the development on which Nicole Dotzenrod reports for the Valley Breeze begins appearing in other communities, it could be a sign of a worrying trend. In the town’s most-recent hiring effort, five applicants met the minimum standards, one chose a different career path, another didn’t pass the interview and background check, and one rejected policing…
Mark Zaccaria argues, for Rhody Reporter, that local officials should start getting used to having a line item for cyber-security as more and more of their activities move online. Of course, it would be nice if the costs of new technology could be offset (and then some) by the savings in labor and productivity that high-tech…
