Sat, 28 Feb 2009

RI's film industry: Easy come, easy go

What would you pay so that William Murphy, the Speaker of the House, gets to meet Richard Gere? You wouldn't? Well, you did.

Last year, the state spent around $13 million in tax credits for movie production companies who make films here. What does Rhode Island get for that money? Good question.

The tax credit is for a fraction of money spent on some film in our state, so $4 million of credits -- what we awarded to "Bridesmaid Productions", the company set up by 20th Century Fox to produce "27 Dresses" -- means $16 million in shooting expenses. (Gere's "Hachiko" got $3 million.) Proponents of using tax policy for economic development will frequently tell you that lower taxes means higher tax revenue, but it wasn't true then and it's not true now. In this case, using some fairly generous assumptions, the state Department of Revenue estimated last summer that the state gets back a bit more than a million for the four we put in. The state isn't near to making money on the deal.

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11:05 - 28 Feb 2009 [/y9/cols] link

Fri, 27 Feb 2009

RIPR 35

RIPR issue 35 is out!

• Index to past budget suggestions -- all still before their sell-by date.
• A review of theories of market failure -- asymmetric information, market power, the works.
• The real triumph of the civil rights movement.
• Review of Nixonland by Rick Perlstein. (It's great.)

Didn't you mean to subscribe already?

Also, next week, come one, come all to hear "Ten Things You Don't Know About Rhode Island,", a talk by, well, me, about taxes, planning, the annual state budget fiasco, and how state house policy makers continue to ignore a certain colossal event, the biggest in our nation's history. Also, an appearance by the famous mystery graph. The event is next Thursday, March 24, at the Rochambeau Library, in Providence. Talk sponsored by the Progressive Democrats of America RI chapter. Details here.

21:55 - 27 Feb 2009 [/y9/fe] link

Sat, 21 Feb 2009

What happened to our towns?

When I was 16, I went SCUBA diving off Jamestown a few times with my friends Nat and Phil. Once, right after we came off the bridge, we headed south to Fort Wetherill, with Phil driving. We passed a police car headed north and a moment or two later Nat said, "There," and pointed at another police car, parked on a side road. "Great," said Phil, and floored it. As we hurtled down the narrow country lane at about 70, I gripped the seat and asked what he meant. "Jamestown only has two police cars," he laughed, "so we can do what we want now."

Needless to say, Jamestown has more than two police cars, now. But why? Did they expand their police force only in order to pad the town payroll? That's what Governor Carcieri would like you to think. Last week, in his State of the State address, the Governor clucked his tongue at the cities and towns, because over the past 20 years, while the state payroll has dropped by a quarter, the total number of municipal employees has gone up by 38%. Shocking, isn't it?

Well, not really. What's shocking is that someone thinks he can run the state with "information" like this: half-digested red meat to be thrown to the angry mobs of talk-radio callers. Let's get real. Town payrolls have gone up because towns have grown, and because of requirements imposed on them. Jamestown has twice as many year-round residents, and many more summer houses, than it did back in the days of two police cars. Rhode Island has about the same number of people as a generation ago, but our little towns are bigger and our cities are smaller. We have spread out across the landscape, and that has real consequences.

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16:33 - 21 Feb 2009 [/y9/cols] link

Sat, 14 Feb 2009

A Stimulating Man

It seems the stimulus package has survived the Congressional gauntlet, but wounded. It's fairly clear that "centrist" and Republican changes have removed some of the most effective provisions from the package -- around half a million jobs -- and that they've been allowed to do this because of widespread misunderstanding of what stimulus is.

Here's some review: fiscal stimulus is therapy for a failing economy that we partly owe to British economist John Maynard Keynes, but first to Marriner Eccles, the remarkable chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank from 1934 to 1948. Eccles was a brilliant and thoughtful man who, in 1931, stopped a run on his Utah bank by instructing all his tellers to count the money twice, slowly, and double-check all the signatures. When cash was delivered, borrowed from the Salt Lake Fed, he made the guards bring it through the crowds in the lobby, instead of coming through the back door, defusing the tension by an obvious show of cash. His chain of 28 banks, all over the mountain west, survived the Great Depression without a single failure, while banks all around them fell like autumn leaves.

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00:05 - 14 Feb 2009 [/y9/cols] link

Sat, 07 Feb 2009

Voting issues

A fractured week means three items for today.

First item: Are you concerned about the effects of outside money on elections? Upset that donors with deep pockets seem to get to call the shots with candidates for office? Me, too. Here's something to do about it. Maine and Arizona have passed legislation called "Clean Elections" that provides a stipend for people who are running for office. Candidates show they have support by collecting as many $5 donations as they can. If you can meet a threshold of public support this way, the state provides a small budget for your campaign. If your opponent chooses not to participate, and accepts private donations, the state promises to match those donations. The result is that no candidate has a fundraising advantage over any other.

In Maine, the result has been to dramatically lower the barriers to election, and more people run and more new candidates win. I heard recently from a friend of mine who served in the Maine legislature before and after the law went into effect. He said the difference was tremendous: he was able to spend his time talking to people about issues instead of cadging money.

Senator Rhoda Perry and Rep. Edie Ajello have a bill in the Assembly (again) this year to establish a clean elections system like this here. Perhaps this is a year it could go further than it has in the past. Check out ricampaignfinance.com to see who your legislator's donors are, then call him or her and ask how much of their time is spent fundraising. That's time they don't spend talking to constituents. Make them spend a little more time talking to you and call today to tell them to support changing the rules of the game. It might cost a little money, but if we're not paying it, who is?

See more ...

00:02 - 07 Feb 2009 [/y9/cols] link

Fri, 06 Feb 2009

What is the point of the White House press corps?

Here's an interview with members of the Knight-Ridder team of reporters who were not fooled by administration stooges during the run-up to the Iraq war. Here's another. Ancient history? Not when stuff like this still passes for news (and runs on the front page, to boot). Reporters ought to report about stuff that matters, and do it well. Otherwise, what are they for?

11:07 - 06 Feb 2009 [/y9/fe] link

Stimulus sense

From the Washington Post of all places. But from their business columnist, not their political reporters.

09:35 - 06 Feb 2009 [/y9/fe] link

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