Rhode Island Politics

The cost — to the company — of Bank of America’s fees was all of my business. The final straw came when I found out the hard way that, when the bank automatically transferred funds from savings to checking to cover checks, it took the fee from the checking account, thus increasing the odds of…

Would it be hoping to much to believe that more noises like this might bring advances for the RIGOP in the next election? House Republicans have promised to boycott all legislative grants in the coming year and have threatened to sue the General Assembly leadership to stop the disbursement of the modest checks to local…

There could hardly be a better symbol for the errors — becoming ever more detrimental to the people of Rhode Island — in mindset of the General Assembly than Senator Dan Issa’s perennial bill to tax expensive clothing: At some point, though, he said, “expensive clothing goes beyond being about filling a basic human need…

In expressing reluctance to cut social programs, some Democrat leaders in the General Assembly have placed such programs in the context of compassion. In point of fact, Rhode Island spending on all social services in Fiscal Year 2005 was in the top third nationally [we are ranked fifteenth]. Our spending in the category of “Medicaid/Vendor…

Charles Bakst does readers the service of eliciting the sort of comments from legislators that one would expect him to want to hear: Interestingly, Senator Montalbano’s speech quoted Hubert Humphrey’s plea to care for the sick, the needy and the handicapped. Montalbano told me that, sure, the budget must be balanced and there’ll be pain…

I’m afraid I have to say that I don’t share Dan Yorke’s optimism. I’m coming to believe that the silent (read: apathetic) majority that many of us have assumed to exist is dwindling toward mythdom. I’ve been beating this drum regularly, of late, but allow me to repeat: Almost 30,000 fewer Rhode Islanders lived in…

A recent op-ed by House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino (D, what else) further illustrates the game playing that our legislators apparently intend to perform instead of fixing Rhode Island’s deep and structural problems: RHODE ISLAND’S fiscal crisis is also our moment of opportunity. By finding ways to make our tax dollars go further, we…

Justin wisely warns that we should pay attention to what our legislators are (or aren’t saying) when it comes to Rhode Island’s “looming financial crisis.”TM For his part, Dan Yorke has blogged his prediction for what’s going to happen. For some reason (heh), Dan predicts that the state’s political class will fail to properly address…

Members of the General Assembly were setting up a lie even before their first meeting of the year (if you can call it that). From Sunday’s Providence Journal: The legislature and the governor promise no tax increases. Legislative leaders repeat: “Everything [else] is on the table.” Interest groups fear the coming session will be “the…

I’m glad I wasn’t in the midst of a gulp of coffee when I read this yesterday: “We are not here today to cast blame on anyone,” House Speaker William J. Murphy, D-West Warwick, said of the huge back-to-back deficits. “The time for finger pointing is over.” Uh, yeah. I’d say there’s still a-plenty of…