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Sun, 28 Jun 2009
I asked the likely gubernatorial candidates what they think about Rep. Scott Guthrie's proposed amendment to the budget last Wednesday. This amendment would have frozen the "flat tax" rate at the current 7% limit and appropriated the savings to revenue sharing for cities and towns. The amendment failed 23-52. Do they concur with the House leadership that this was not a good idea?
Frank Caprio:
"We need comprehensive tax reform, and we need to start by thinking about having a singular, consistent approach, not a dozen continuously changing tax policies. Our tax strategy needs to focus on helping businesses, particularly small businesses, create jobs."
Elizabeth Roberts:
"No one element of tax policy can be considered in isolation. What RI needs is a coherent, integrated tax policy that meets the goals of: fairness to all Rhode Islanders, regional competitiveness, lowering the tax burden on the middle class and working Rhode Islanders, and supports a comprehensive economic development plan."
These, of course, are not what you'd call answers to my question. Patrick Lynch and Lincoln Chafee both declined to comment, both saying it was because they're not official candidates yet.
In other words, none of them were willing to express an opinion about how our government ought to be funded.
00:47 - 28 Jun 2009 [/y9/jn] link
Sat, 20 Jun 2009
I just finished reading an interesting report, out last week from the Rhode Island Coalition for the Homeless and RI Legal Services, about the plague of foreclosures and evictions upon us. It's an interesting read, and filled with useful maps about where evictions have happened, and which banks are doing them. (See rihomeless.org.)
Sadly, many foreclosures happen on rental property, and many banks routinely evict all the tenants when that happens. Since sales rates are way down, lots of these properties end up boarded up and vandalized, while the evicted families end up, well, evicted. It is just as dumb as it sounds, but these banks have chosen not to be in the property-management business, an understandable business decision -- if you ignore the damage they're doing to our state.
14:14 - 20 Jun 2009 [/y9/cols] link
Thu, 18 Jun 2009
The California Budget Challenge
Check out the California Budget Challenge. It's good for one's humility.
19:18 - 18 Jun 2009 [/y9/jn] link
Sat, 13 Jun 2009
Bill numbers for Covanta trash bill
The bills that would reverse Rhode Island's incineration ban and qualify waste-to-energy as a renewable energy source are H6053 and S933. Please tell your representative or senator to oppose them. Read below for more.
21:19 - 13 Jun 2009 [/y9/jn] link
I was passing through Portsmouth a couple of weeks ago, and couldn't help noticing that the town is now home to a second giant wind turbine, which seemed pretty cool to me. The new turbine is owned by the town, and generating electricity that the town sells to National Grid. Electricity isn't the only thing Portsmouth sells, though. They also sell something called Renewable Energy Certificates (REC).
An REC is sort of like a green blessing for a megawatt of electricity. Better yet, think of it as the bragging rights for using that green electricity. If you have the certificate, you have a legal right to claim you've used a megawatt-hour of renewable electricity. Portsmouth is allowed to issue one REC for every megawatt-hour they produce.
RECs are important because electrons are electrons, and they don't come with little labels saying how they were generated. An electron that comes out of the socket in your wall is the same whether it was generated by Portsmouth's wind turbines or by an ancient and filthy coal-fired generator in Ohio.
21:13 - 13 Jun 2009 [/y9/cols] link
Tue, 09 Jun 2009
Dept. of Reaping What's Been Sown
On the news that George Tiller's family is not interested in being picketed, protested or shot. From the Times
Even some abortion opponents, who had long devoted their efforts to closing down Dr. Tiller's clinic, said they did not wish to see it happen under these circumstances. Last week, Troy Newman, the leader of Operation Rescue, had said that closing the clinic now would send a worrisome message. "Good God, do not close this abortion clinic for this reason," he said in an interview with The New York Times. "Every kook in the world will get some notion."
Wonder where they will have gotten it from?
14:21 - 09 Jun 2009 [/y9/jn] link
Sat, 06 Jun 2009
The fun only lasts until the music stops
A couple of weeks ago, during a hearing at the Senate Finance committee, chairman Daniel DaPonte (D -- East Providence and Pawtucket) made some disparaging remarks about our cities and towns. In response to a witness who made a comment about how cuts in municipal aid were forcing cities and towns to raise property taxes, Senator DaPonte said, "There's no evidence that giving cities and towns more money will result in property tax cuts. We've raised municipal aid and property taxes haven't come down."
In fact, the chairman is right that municipal aid has gone up a lot, but he's wrong, too. Municipal aid grew from $28 million in 1990 to $234 million in 2008. What are the towns doing with all that money? Flushing it down the toilets in town hall?
In fact, they can't flush it because they don't get even half of it. That number serves to nurse the standard story about what's wrong with local government, but it doesn't have much to do with paying bills at town hall. You see, to make the sum as large as $234 million, the state budget writers include $135 million in reimbursement for car taxes. This is real money, certainly, but it goes to taxpayers, not towns. It does not help balance municipal budgets
08:01 - 06 Jun 2009 [/y9/cols] link
Fri, 05 Jun 2009
My favorite part of the Cairo speech
It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered."
I think the moral high ground is routinely undervalued in discussions of international (and national) affairs. The contrast between South African and Palestinian history of the last 50 years could hardly be more stark.
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