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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter that looks at local, state and federal policy issues that affect life here in the Ocean State. Each issue focuses on particular policy areas of interest. Future issues will examine controversial aspects of environmental policy, health care, state tax reform, and education spending. The intention is to look at action rather than talk. RIPR also issues a weekly column about public policy, carried by ten of Rhode Island's finer newspapers. See here for an archive of recent columns. If you'd like to help, please contribute an item, suggest an issue topic, or buy a subscription. If you can, buy two or three (subscribe here). Search this siteAvailable Back Issues:
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Links:Links pageRSSRIPR is primarily a print publication (yikes! how 20th century!), and the work it represents is supported by its subscribers. Feel free to use this link to an RSS feed for the blog, but the real meat is in the newsletter, so come back and subscribe when you have a chance. Responsibility: Tom Sgouros
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Thu, 28 Oct 2004
A follow-up to the DOT remarks
A friend writes:
What about the matching Fed $???? Use it or lose it - right?
The money is question is $30 million. We could have three times that much by restoring the income tax to the level of the bad old days of 1996. Did you know you got a 10% tax cut between 1997 and 2002? Most people didn't even notice. We ought to spend that money to get the federal funds, but we ought to do it by appropriating it and spending it, instead of bonding and eventually spending twice as much. What we do now is only digging us into a hole, just the same way my sister did with credit cards a few years ago. The reason our budget is in disarray is that we had competing tax giveaways in the 1990's, as both Almond and the legislature competed to see who could give away most. They had a golden chance then to put issues like this to rights, and they blew it.
14:56 - 28 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc] link
Wed, 27 Oct 2004
In deference to the election coming up, we've rushed the October issue onto the web site a little early. There is a question about funding DOT bonds on the ballot (Question 3), and the newsletter is at least partly relevant.
The issue looks a bit at RIPTA's budgetary woes, and at DOT's. A comparison is made...
18:52 - 27 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc] link
(Submitted to the Providence Journal, but to no avail.)
In a recent Journal op-ed, James Capaldi, the director of our state Department of Transportation claims that all road construction in Rhode Island depends on passage of the transportation bonds on Question 3 this November. But he is being slightly disingenuous. Road construction will not halt if the $66 million in bonds are not approved; the construction lobby employs too many people around here, and too many of them have friends in the administration and in the legislature. But what will happen if approval is not granted is that the state may have to come up with a more sensible way to fund road construction.
DOT has been funding routine construction with bonds for years, which makes it seem normal. But it's not. Among all the states, we are the exception, not the rule in the matter of debt. Lots of states borrow for this or that big road or bridge project, but we borrow $30 million every year, except for the years in which we borrow much much more (like this one). Projections have us borrowing the same amount each year into the foreseeable future.
The question is why? If we're borrowing $30 million every year, then there's no need to amortize, it's already amortized, at $30 million a year, and we should just budget for that. Roads are a kind of investment, but not one with returns--especially not roads built to replace existing ones, which is what most of the next decade's cost is for. Constant borrowing like this is a perfectly common financial strategy, but one that often ends in bankruptcy court.
12:23 - 27 Oct 2004 [/y4/oc] link
Thu, 21 Oct 2004
For the past four years, I have been touring around the country, to theatres and universities, with a one-man, one-robot show. It's been an incredible experience, and I've learned a lot, but some of what I've learned -- about airport security and air cargo -- is a bit unsettling.
Judy (the robot) is too big to fly with me as luggage, so she goes in her custom-made travelling compartment (some might call it a "crate") and flies air cargo. When she flies on airlines, she flies in the same airplanes you do.
After September 11, 2001, new rules were put in place, and in order for me to ship Judy air cargo, I had to become a "known shipper." I've passed this process three times now, for two major airlines and one air cargo company. This is what happens: an official of the airline comes to my house, and checks to make sure it exists. They ask me for a driver's license, to make sure I exist. Then we're done. They don't ask to see what I'm shipping, they don't ask what business I'm in, they don't ask for references.
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