Under the Government’s Wing
Whatever one’s political leanings, the incentives of government must be understood as simply reality. Government agencies don’t have to create a product or service that people will voluntarily purchase. Rather, they must find activities for which they can justify forcing people who are not the direct beneficiaries to pay. This model is justified, in some…
When one of our cars became unusable last year, my family had to buy another, which we did at a dealer in Massachusetts that a friend had recommended. We’ve bought cars in Massachusetts, before, but it appears that something has changed. Registering the car took about a month, during which time we were short a…
Following our first inquiry of Education Commissioner Angelica Infante-Green and the Council on Elementary and Secondary Education about Rhode Island transgender policy in K-12 schools and their non-response, Anchor Rising reached out a second time, this time asking, … current RIDE policy permits schools to discuss transgender procedures with students. RIDE policy also permits schools…
Look, I generally disagree with Attorney General Peter Neronha’s politics, but I could put that aside if I thought he were coming to conclusions reasonably. Unfortunately: I’m certainly not going to defend predatory investment firms, but read the article. Steward Health Care was already dying. The story is of an equity firm finding a way…
So much of Rhode Island’s predicament can be explained by incentives. People who rely on government for their prosperity, for instance, have a great deal of incentive to manipulate the processes thereof, whereas our community lacks institutions with incentive to counterbalance them politically. Something similar and related — though much broader on a social scale…
This has been lingering around my to-do list for a while, but the problem is only getting worse, so for the foreseeable future, it’s an evergreen topic in Rhode Island: Yes, this is a massive problem permeating all of our society, and there’s only so much a small state like Rhode Island can do about…
Don’t let things like this slip under your awareness or your commentary, because plenty of Rhode Islanders have no experience or intellectual foundation to question the reporting: The R.I. Department of Health on Thursday ordered the owner of Roger Williams Medical Center and Our Lady of Fatima Hospital to take immediate steps to stabilize their…
But I have to wonder: as these groups come forward demanding more money, is anybody — whether journalists or state agencies — investigating the services that are being provided, the mandates imposed on the providers, or the nuts and bolts of the organizations providing them? Such stories typically evince no trace of skepticism about the…
Excellent work by Jim Hummel of the Hummel Report with this investigative report, published on the front page of yesterday’s Providence Journal, pertaining to a state mandate that 25% of its vehicles be electric; i.e., zero emission. The goal was to make one quarter of the state’s light duty vehicle fleet EV’s by 2025. So…
I know of at least one Massachusetts town where these new residents are about to enter an understaffed school system en masse. Even more, they are getting free preschool and free transportation to preschool, which for residents is an additional cost that some are deciding is too expensive. We need to understand — and explain…