Fiscal Policy
Here’s an index of the major items in Governor Donald Carcieri’s supplemental budget reconciliation plan. “Major” in this context is defined as any item saving $10 million or more for FY2009; the 10 items below account for $305 million of the $357 million deficit (85% of the total). Eliminate General Revenue Sharing to Cities and…
Greg Mankiw: Congratulations, Senator Obama. You ran a good campaign, and you racked up an historic victory. As you get ready for your new responsibilities, let me suggest four ways for you to become a reliable steward of the economy: Listen to your economists. During the campaign you assembled an impressive team of economic advisers…
UPDATED ON SEPTEMBER 8 & 9 Incentives drive human behavior but, especially in government where there are no market forces, rarely does anybody pay attention to the impact of the incentives created by laws, regulations or government actions. Which is why government actions will always create “unintended” consequences and less than efficient solutions. There is…
Robert Walsh‘s controversial proposal to permanently dedicate a portion of Rhode Island’s gambling system to the state pension fund makes the lede of the Katherine Gregg/Paul Grimaldi article in today’s Projo even more eye-catching than it would normally be…The owners of Twin River are offering the state upward of $500 million up front in return…
I found this article by the pseudonymous “Spengler” of the Asia Times interesting for at least two reasons…The big-picture view of finance, demographics and debt he offers suggesting that increased transfer of American capital to foreign markets and the sub-prime mortgage crisis are bigger than anything that’s fixable with a few new regulations (note: in…
These results are so counter-intuitive, someone needs to double check that I haven’t made a mistake, but I think I have all the formulas in the right place. Using NEA-RI Executive Director Robert Walsh’s suggested pension analysis parameters, 13.5% of salary contributed to the fund each year, 8.25% investment growth and a 75% benefit after…
James Cournoyer‘s observation, made in his May 5 Projo letter-to-the-editor, that contributions from employees into the Rhode Island public pension system don’t come anywhere near to covering the amount that the system is obligated to pay out, shouldn’t take anyone by surprise. Pensions (and defined contribution plans, for that matter) work on the principle that…
At the Taubman Center panel on the Rhode Island budget crisis I attended at Brown University a few weeks ago, several members of the audience attempted to attribute at least part of the state deficit to Federal cut-backs in domestic spending forced by the costs of fighting in the Iraqi theater in the War on…
A relevant thought for the day from Claremont’s Richard Reeb: Entitlements ought to be understood only as goods or honors that we have earned, not something we think that we, or someone else, ought to have. That necessarily and unavoidably entails taking from one person or group and giving to another. The impolite word for…
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…