RI Congress ’10
Today, I touch briefly (for me) on long-term vs. short-term recovery, who’s better off, RI’s long spiral (and potential for quick resurgence), and the significance of different ballot types in Cicilline-Loughlin.
This paragraph, from a post-election article by Providence Journal staff writer Peter Lord deserves some reflection: For much of the general election campaign, polls indicated there was no contest. Cicilline was running ahead by 20 points or more. And he raised and spent about $1 million more than Loughlin, though that included financing his primary…
There are multiple proposals for preventing the sudden Social Security benefit cut that is projected to be necessary around the time that people now in the mid 30s to early 40s are ready to retire, under the program’s current structure. This past July, the Congressional Budget Office issued a report where several of the options…
Perhaps the most helpful aspect of the Providence Journal’s PolitiFact feature is the significant degree to which it illustrates how even basic discussions of facts become deeply muddled in subjective context. As I’ve previously pointed out, when Democrat David Cicilline makes a statement about Republican John Loughlin’s position on Social Security that is substantively a…
Philip Marcelo‘s story on Providence City Auditor James Lombardi’s memo expressing “grave concern regarding the financial stability” of Providence is running in today’s Projo. The memo addresses several issues, one of which concerns the reserve fund that the City is supposed to maintain. According to the memo, the balance in the “reserve contingency funds cash…
Former Projo reporter, now Congressional Quarterly reporter Steve Peoples has the numbers from the National Republican Congressional Committee internal poll showing the First District race tightening…Many believed that Cicilline would have a relatively easy victory in the heavily Democratic Ocean State. But the Public Opinion Strategies poll found that the mayor has high negatives and…
As currently structured, Social Security benefits are projected to be cut by 25% in the year when people currently aged 35 will first become eligible to retire (age 62). And those who are 43-and-under right now and who don’t retire until age 70 will find themselves in the same position — every check received under…
While doing some mindless paper-cutting tasks, I’m watching WPRI’s online video of last night’s Congressional district 1 debate between Republican John Loughlin and Democrat David Cicilline, and the first thing to catch my ear came right at the beginning, during discussion of Social Security. Cicilline ran through his accusation that Loughlin wants to privatize the…
As the Social Security program is currently constructed, a permanent 25% cut in benefits paid is projected to occur in 2037. Those figures are projected by the Social Security Trustees themselves. I know people of my generation tend to view a date of 2037 as the far-future, when we will all be flying our jet-packs…
With U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, the federal budget deficit estimated at from $1.3 to $1.5 trillion and the economy in a deep downturn, the nation needs to get real value for every dollar that we spend on national defense. Unfortunately, many members of the House and Senate, including Rep. Jim Langevin (D-RI),…
