Rhode Island Politics
Both Justin and I mentioned NEA President Bob Walsh’s rather intemperate anti-business comments last week: “We are never going to compete with folks, with employers who are so ridiculous they do not provide retirement security plans for their employees….If they don’t, they are terrible people and they shouldn’t be allowed to exist and that’s always…
The Governor is presenting his 2009 budget right now. Here is the prepared text, the actual components of the budget can be found here. This FY 2009 budget contains general revenue expenditures below our Fiscal Year 2008 spending, both enacted and revised. The reductions in this budget are necessary because our FY 2009 resources will…
I gotta say, even I was surprised to learn that somehow RIPTA depended on Medicaid money to keep running. A federal clampdown on the state’s Medicaid program will cost as many as 18,000 needy Rhode Islanders their free bus passes and will force the state to make up for millions of dollars in lost transit…
On the back of the Rhode Island section of today’s paper is a Timothy Barmann piece on Governor Carcieri’s efforts to “encourage healthy lifestyles”: The majority of Rhode Islanders could stand to shed a few pounds, and Governor Carcieri wants to help. Yesterday, the governor launched what he’s calling Healthy Weight in 2008, a campaign…
If the “Economic Growth and Fairness Act” proposed yesterday by RI Representative Arthur Handy (D, Cranston) and Senator Paul Moura (D, East Providence) becomes law, it will blow away any lingering wisps of hope that our state can pull out of its current crisis without utter collapse. Based on a report (PDF) issued by The…
Here’s how yesterday’s Peoples and Gregg production begins: Desperate to close the state’s largest budget deficit in modern history, former Gov. Bruce Sundlun did not wait for labor union leaders to come to his office to discuss the situation. The Democratic governor went to them. In 1991, several weeks after he was elected, Sundlun personally…
Ian Donnis points to a “strong post” (alluded to earlier) which illustrates how approximately $11.2 million of taxpayer dollars are going to government supplied health care for workers who don’t get health care through their jobs. Where is that money going, you might ask…. It is going to Bank of America, and their 382 employees…
Set aside whether or not he did it in a legit manner, there’s just something wrong when 10 years of public service gets you a $110,000 / year pension: At the end of last month, [former Providence City Administration Director John C. Simmons] retired from his $160,837-a-year post as director of administration for Mayor David…
I didn’t see or hear Governor Carcieri’s state of the state speech last night, and I haven’t had a chance to catch up on my news reading, yet, so there’s not much that I can say about the specifics. (Of course, I suspect that anybody who follows the local news without the inherent denial of…
Here is Governor Carcieri’s prepared State of the State speech. The ProJo covers it and gets reaction from the usual suspects complaining about how the Governor isn’t working with them. “He says, ‘This is my agenda and everybody has to work on it.’ That’s a corporate approach. That’s one-side unilateral approach. That doesn’t work,” said…