Under the Government’s Wing

“The fire codes are still outlandish”

By Monique Chartier | January 1, 2009 |

So sayth Justin. And with that adjective, he understates the case. In 2003, before (before) the new fire codes uselessly promulgated as a result of the Station Night Club fire went into effect, Rhode Island had the highest per capita expenditure on fire prevention. Imagine how much higher that number now is and how much…

The Business of Poverty

By Justin Katz | December 18, 2008 |

Marc and Matt talked Poverty Institute research last night on the Matt Allen show. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

Embrace Your Inner Underfunded Pension!

By Carroll Andrew Morse | December 1, 2008 |

According to RI Future contributor Pat Crowley, if your pension plan is underfunded don’t think of it as a bug, think of it as a feature…An unfunded liability may in fact enhance the security of the plan because it requires more caution, therefore, more long term thinking.I wonder if progressives will apply this line of…

Isn’t This Just Social Security on Steroids?

By Monique Chartier | October 26, 2008 |

Possibly hoping to tap disenchantment with the recent performance of the stock market, Workforce Management reports that Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive. House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George…

Mitigating Circumstances?

By Marc Comtois | October 9, 2008 |

I don’t know anything other than what’s reported below, but this strikes me as heavy-handed, no? A 20-year-old woman pleaded not guilty to animal cruelty charges this morning after authorities accused her of muzzling her two pit bulls and abandoning them in an apartment before she went to a hospital to give birth. Judge Jeanne…

Comparative Welfare

By Justin Katz | March 11, 2008 |

The Providence Journal, as represented by Steve Peoples, still isn’t giving the whole story when it comes to Rhode Island’s Family Independence Program: Lawmakers spent yesterday afternoon poring through Governor Carcieri’s 101-page plan that would dramatically cut benefits to the poor, while encouraging a “work-first” model and promoting “healthy marriages.” The governor’s sweeping proposal, if…

Facing Reality on RI Poverty

By Justin Katz | March 9, 2008 |

The point’s a little bit of a tangent from poverty advocates’ request for more workers to make food stamps easier to claim and disperse (which always raises questions about the responsibility of the government to promote its handouts), but this closing quotation illuminates one of the indistinct areas in which liberals and conservatives move toward…

What’s “Financial Aid” in Spanish?

By Justin Katz | February 1, 2008 |

Consider this vignette from Katherine Gregg’s Projo story on Rhode Island’s misuse of federal healthcare funds: Emma Villa told the lawmakers what would happen to her, as the operator of a small day-care business in her Laban Street, Providence, home, where she looks after two children in addition to her own. With the help of…

Well, It’s a Start

By Justin Katz | January 18, 2008 |

Representative Kenneth Carter (D, North Kingstown/Exeter) deserves credit for putting forward one piece of the solution: “… a humane society is concerned about all its members, including those who must pay the bill for the needier,” he said. “We cannot continue to drain others dry so that individuals on public assistance are able to do…

Bakst’s Worthy Question

By Justin Katz | November 27, 2007 |

Charles Bakst presents a question that he thinks the governor ought to ask himself, and although my way of answering it mightn’t be what Bakst expects, I think it’s a worthy consideration: I said Carcieri would say he wasn’t calling them bad people, only that they’d made bad decisions. [URI Feinstein hunger center director Kathleen…