Rhode Island Politics
In a ProJo story about the impending state job layoffs instituted by Governor Carcieri, we are treated to a preview of the sort of tete a tete between the unions and various advocacy groups that will become common over the next few months. Carcieri had been scheduled to meet with labor leaders this afternoon to…
…by 20%, what if the General Assembly made a couple cuts from their own budget. The budget for the Legislature includes funding for Legal Counsel. Last year there was funding for 15.4 positions at a total of $863,875 ($56,095/lawyer). This year they jacked it up to 16.6 positions for a total of $971,249 ($58,509/lawyer). Let’s…
You many have noticed the price of oil heading towards record highs. That should imply that the people living in oil-producing countries are doing well, right? Well, not all of them are. According to Reuters, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s socialist management of his nation’s oil wealth is creating shortages of basic products and crushing the…
Last week, certain leaders of organized labor in Rhode Island called for the resignation of the Chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party, Giovanni Cicione. They referred to his “insensitive and hurtful statement” about the Governor’s proposed layoff of 1,000 state workers, his use of the term “poverty pimps” and his “remarks equating unions with…
Marc Comtois has noted the revised (upward) state operating deficit which stems from a decline in income and sales tax revenue. Before we go bounding off to look for replacement tax revenue, let’s take a quick look at “How Rhode Island’s State and Local Expenditures Compare – 2006 Edition”, an analysis compiled by RIPEC. Per…
No one should be surprised that the State is looking at a $450 million shortfall for FY08. Governor Carcieri has been warning us that we would have to cut State programs and payrolls in the near future. Turns out his idea reduce state spending by $200 million was based on a downright rosy forecast. Knowing…
This week, we’ve discovered that Gary Sasse is leaving RIPEC to take over the RI Department of Revenue. Sasse’s replacement will be John Simmons, Providence Mayor David Cicilline’s Director of Administration. Simmons himself has been at the heart of a controversy concerning who were the anonymous sources of a large portion of his compensation (via…
It has been a week since my growing personal disgust with the state of Rhode Island’s politics and politicians publicly overflowed with the creation of the web site www.moderate-ri.org and an accompanying opinion piece in the Providence Journal. In this time, almost 200 Rhode Islanders from many political ideologies lent their voices for the stated…
Comrade Donnis shine’s the light on a bad veto-override: Justice Brandeis famously said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. So it is with campaign donations and the public’s ability to scrutinize them. If people know who and what is funding their lawmakers, it makes it that much easier to guard against criminal behavior and garden-variety…
My emailbox is aflood with announcements of the General Assembly’s overrides of Governor Carcieri’s latest vetos. Not a single press release contains the phrase “failed to override.” Some highlights of the GA’s actions-by-override: Created another voice for established players to govern healthcare in Rhode Island — a Health Care Planning and Accountability Advisory Council —…