Rhode Island Politics
This week, I lost over a third of my income owing to a corporate layoff. I can’t blame the Massachusetts research company for which I’ve worked for nearly a decade, because it is just trying to do what it deems necessary to survive, and to be honest, I welcome the opportunity to reshuffle the deck.…
Dan Yorke has called attention to this piece of legislation–Brought to you by Reps. Slater, Naughton, Diaz, Almeida, and Lima–which amends the current RI Sales tax code to read: A tax is imposed upon sales at retail in this state including charges for rentals of living quarters in hotels, rooming houses, tourist camps, all services…
At last night’s East Providence GOP event, I had the opportunity to talk with State Representative and House Finance Committee member Jack Savage (R-East Providence) and turn Anchor Rising’s attempt to read the tea leaves with regards to the state budget deficit into a few concrete questions… Anchor Rising: Some recent comments made by public…
The East Providence Republican City Committee held a fundraiser last night where State Representatives Jack Savage and Susan Story, City Councilman Robert Cusack, School Committee member Steve Santos, and State Republican Officials Jon Scott, Dave Cote and Donna Perry all spoke to the assembled crowd about issues and Republican prospects for the future. Councilman Cusack…
Dan Yorke just had Warwick City Councilman Steve Merolla on to talk about why the City of Warwick has eschewed an additional $1 million in cost-savings by deciding to stay with Blue Cross/Blue Shield instead the cheaper United Healthcare as manager of the City’s employee healthcare plan. (The “manager” distinction is important–Warwick pays its own…
Kudos to State Rep’s Carol Mumford (R, Scituate/Cranston) and Peter Kilmartin (D, Pawtucket) for today’s op-ed in the ProJo in which they propose raising the Rhode Island inheritance tax threshold from $675,000 to $1 million. Protection of assets acquired over a lifetime, coupled with a desire to leave the next generation a small inheritance, now…
The budget disgrace of Mike Napolitano. A case for recall. Not only did Cranston Mayor Michael Napolitano propose a FY 2008 budget that asked for a maximum tax-increase while offering no funding increase to the school system, but according to a Cranston Herald letter-to-the-editor from former City Finance Director Jerome Baron, the proposed budget also…
An update on the status of two old and one new ethics complaints, both reported by the ProJo’s Bruce Landis. First the new, from the ProJo’s : State Sen. Frank A. Ciccone III yesterday denied parts of the ethics complaint filed against him the day before and said that one element of it, his failure…
Pah! Who needs $1 million? Before a room packed with apparently health-coverage-minded municipal employees, the Warwick City Council voted 5-4 last night against giving United Health Care the city’s health care contract – even though a switch to United Health from current provider Blue Cross would have saved the city a significant amount of money.…
It turns out that the budget cut proposed by Governor Carcieri won’t go far enough, so what is the solution? The ProJo’s Steve Peoples went to the usual suspects: “There’s no easy fixes. The programs that all Rhode Islanders support are in danger,” said Ellen Frank, senior economist at Rhode Island College’s Poverty Institute. “If…