Rhode Island Economy
Maybe we should start a betting pool for the dollar amount of November’s supplemental-budget shortfall. I’ve got a fiver on $364 million — a number plucked in the rough-ballpark fashion of The Price Is Right. Already, though, I can hear the voices (even of those who generally agree with me): “Whoa! Isn’t that a bit…
A recent post, Lessons for Rhode Island from Silicon Valley: An historical reflection on an actual innovation economy, discussed what made Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial culture so unique and what some of its economic growth policy lessons are for Rhode Island. In the latest edition of The Weekly Standard, Thomas Hazlett has written about the book,…
The RI Senate has passed the budget 36 to 2. Again, “the plan softens the blows to some programs hit hard under the governor’s original budget proposal.” How’s that? The Providence Journal report on last night’s House offered this noteworthy commentary: Indeed, lawmakers couldn’t recall another budget vote that passed without a single “No” vote.…
One hates to see children harmed, but we must face the consequences of our policies: Among the 2,800 already removed from RIte Care, just under half are illegal immigrants. But the other half have the right to be here. And all of them are children. Some, in fact, are very sick children. Neighborhood Health Plan…
I have to admit that NEA head Bob Walsh’s proposal to give the public sector pension system “equity” from the state lottery instead of this year’s cash contribution confused me. Most prominently, I don’t see how a government that habitually spends hundreds of millions of dollars over its revenue can be presumed to need a…
This week on our Wednesday stint on the Matt Allen Show, Don summarized his latest post addressing a turnaround in the Rhode Island economy, streamable by clicking here (or download).
With the economic crisis in Rhode Island, there is much talk (e.g., my recent post and Ian Donnis) about what it will take to generate real change and economic growth in the state. Leonard Lardaro, professor of economics at URI, offers his thoughts in a ProJo editorial Only RI Cure: Cut spending and taxes, where…
Periodically, somebody on the Left will throw in some anti-corporate rhetoric and sneer about the “free market.” Mark Patinkin’s column on the state’s difficulty attracting doctors provides yet another example illustrating that one can hardly point to our problems in condemnation of economic freedom: I began by asking where he’d rank us nationally in fees…
A handful of items that are blogworthy, but not extensive, have been building up on my desk, so herewith, some quick hit thoughts: An objection was made, last week, to my mention of the exceedingly sparse Projo Jobs section that it was a holiday weekend and thus hardly representative. Well today’s Jobs section may (or…
Jay Fitzgerald of the Boston Herald reports on a long-shot but interesting economic development project for Rhode Island…Woburn’s Terrafugia Inc. hopes its futuristic car-plane business takes off in Massachusetts. The maker of the hybrid car-plane contraption – which theoretically will both drive on roads and soar through the sky – plans to meet with officials…