Forty-nine of 50 states participated in legal action against five mortgage banks resulting in a $25 billion settlement. The public should wonder, first, what the banks gained from the settlement and, second, whether the whole process is wise to encourage.
The Star Kids Program, in the East Bay, helps the children that Rhode Island might otherwise leave behind to close the graduation gap.
A Swedish man disabled by his love of heavy metal illustrates how, as community standards are pushed closer and closer to the closed-door home, the police of the public sphere are apt not only to defend, but to subsidize material they like.
Family and voluntary associations (including those defined geographically, like villages) are a necessary source of authority to oppose ever-expanding government.
The General Assembly is considering legislation that would require Department of Transportation preference of “complete street” designs, but it isn’t clear that another law on the books is really necessary.
As impossible as it may be to deny the necessary changes in public policy related to the economy and government spending, the will to reform is not strong enough for due speed.
Economic mobility has improved or held steady over the past half-decade, but public perception is otherwise. Arguing hopelessness or dependence may reinforce the trend.
Justin reacts to an initial screening of Stephen Laffey’s movie, Fixing America.
A new Tax Foundation study exposes some of the flaws in RI’s economic development practices.
National Journal ranking of liberal and conservative legislators points to politics and posturing.
Cranston police and fire retirees are receiving double-and-a-half time for holidays that they do not work and would not be working, anyway.
“Fairness” is an ideal term of a sort beloved by politicians: descriptors that sound inherently positive and desirable, but that are completely subjective and can be flipped around every which way to serve any political need, as Gov. Chafee illustrates by seeking parity in raises for highly paid directors.
Central Falls Receiver Robert Flanders’ performance, both on stage and in his job, should spark reevaluation of theories of governance and political expedience.
The education gap and Rhode Island’s economic difficulties converge in such a way as to suggest school choice and a diversification of opportunities for schooling.
The total tax revenue that the State of Rhode Island has received for the fiscal year continued to beat estimates in January, by $57 million (3.6%), but it would be premature to infer either strong economic growth or the disappearance of the deficit expected for fiscal 2013.
Justin indulges his wonkish inclinations writing in from RIPEC’s conference on “Rhode Island’s Business Climate: How Rhode Island Measures Up.”
Justin’s thoughts upon launching the Current.
Justin writes live and off-the-cuff from the RI Senate’s Economic Summit, “Expanding Jobs through Port Resources.”
National studies do not show that standardized graduation tests have a clear and immediate effect on student achievement, but closer examination is required for RI’s specific circumstances, and all students deserve diplomas that are universally acknowledged to have value.
A Philadelphia company illustrates how voluntary action can make very fine and localized adjustments of behavior to repair a short-term error that threatened a long-term community interest, while government regulation would bring about unintended consequences with a much more difficult “undo” button.
Smoking bans and other government regulations may catalyze or accelerate positive changes, but the critical question is whether their results are worth their costs.
The matter of separation of church and state deserves a more dedicated public debate than the heat of individual issues tends to allow. After such a discussion, the U.S. could develop a system allowing for much more variation and diversity than seems possible according to the current terms of the debate.
Other New England states fare almost as poorly as Rhode Island when it comes to taxation, but residents seem more often to get some value for their money.
If there really is such a thing as a “tipping point” in global warming, shouldn’t we begin to figure out the “what then” now?
Education reform has, in recent years, meant a focus on “closing the gap,” but parents of higher-achieving student are justified in their concern that their own children are being short-changed.
On what grounds do we choose which of the three options for life’s big question (fight, surrender, or adjust) to pursue, and (relatedly) what are we intending to find or accomplish by heading upstream, downstream, or cross-stream?
Those of us who have experience manipulating our finances (as well as the people around us) see the state’s methods of handling municipal budgetary problems as a definition of the process. This is how you get out of financial trouble in the future; the habitual path has simply incorporated a pit stop, and “anytime soon” may be sooner than we think.
After reading Throw Them All Out: How Politicians and Their Friends Get Rich Off Insider Stock Tips, Land Deals, and Cronyism That Would Send the Rest of Us to Prison, by Peter Schweizer — a book that he calls “the most offensive and disturbing thing I’ve read since sampling the oeuvre of the Marquis de Sade” — Kevin Williamson illustrates how dangerous the concept of Big can become.