Justin liveblogs another commission hearing on eliminating the state sales tax, this time concerning the state’s economic modeling of the proposal and alternatives from the Center for Freedom & Prosperity.
Call it an uber-example of regulation, or an example of uber-regulation, or just the regulation of Uber; it illustrates the core ideology of Rhode Island’s governing class; 1) that there is no such thing as an economic right and 2) that all of society is a single collective managed by government.
Optional Sub-Title: Why you don’t find me writing that government should be run like a business.
One of the reasons that Rhode Islanders may seem to suffer slightly less than other states under the mandate-heavy ObamaCare law is because … well, we’ve already been suffering: the Rhode Island General Assembly has heaped the most number of health insurance mandates on us. “On us” because, contrary to the muddled thinking of too […]
As you’ve probably heard, home childcare providers have voted overwhelmingly to unionize.
Justin liveblogs from another meeting of the legislative commission to study the elimination of the sales tax.
The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity released the third and final report on reforming health care, by Sean Parnell, yesterday. The focus is a few steps that Rhode Island could take, accepting that ObamaCare is law and that Rhode Island is not a state to buck it:
It is our Center’s conclusion that it is not feasible that a government-centric, one-size-fits-all approach via the state’s health benefits exchange can adequately address the needs of a highly diverse population. Only with additional patient-centric, consumer-oriented options can we move toward the goal of ensuring that more Rhode Islanders achieve health care and financial peace of mind.
The list of suggestions is actually pretty modest and, frankly, obvious:
Some legislators appear interested in potentially advancing some of these policies, but honesty requires one to acknowledge that it’ll be an uphill battle, for much the same reason that ObamaCare wasn’t challenged in RI. Too many powerful people want to be able to make promises that others have to honor.
But the fact that those four items would be revolutionary is something folks should think about when big-government activists claim our health care system was struggling because it operated by “free-market principles.” (Hard not to laugh, I know.)
In any standoff, doesn’t it take two to tango? And if you think it’s ridiculous to hold up the debt ceiling in order to get changes to the Affordable Care Act, let me ask this. If the Republicans simply approved the debt ceiling increase and then minutes later said, “Ok, let’s talk about changes to ACA now” what do you think would be the reaction from the Democrats? Yep, crickets. I hate horse-trading as much as anyone else but unfortunately, this is how it works.
“Without a doubt it’s a burden,” the commission’s chairman, Rep. Helio Melo, D-East Providence, said of the toll. “But we need to have the funds to maintain these bridges.” [Courtesy Turn To Ten.]
Responding to Justin’s post on the “mediation” process underway in Rhode Island whose ultimate goal is supposedly a change in state pension law, Rhode Island House Republican Leader Brian Newberry offers:
“[I]t strikes me that it would be a complete abdication of our role as elected legislators to simply rubber stamp a compromise that had been agreed to by others – regardless of whether the compromise is in the best interests of those who elected us. On the other hand, even if we fully vet and debate any such compromise to the extent we alter it at all we are, by definition, changing the agreed to compromise which will leave one of the bargaining sides (or both) unhappy and feeling as though whatever deal they had agreed to had not been treated with good faith”.
Chafee’s record; the many ways to spy on civilians; what a constitution is for; when the debate on health-plan abortion?; the “natural right” to work the land.
The tenets of Progressivism, as pursued by President Barack Obama and Congressman Jim Langevin, appear to be of the sort that has caused the state of Rhode Island to regress.
I’ve been trying to figure out if we have any state leadership here in RI. When we have a Governor who gets embroiled in what to call an evergreen adorned in lights in December and a General Assembly who is more concerned about what appetizer they want to endorse, I’m trying to figure out if they have any ability to lead. Apparently, some states have it figured out.
A Providence Journal article about a toll arson is more significant as evidence that the pants of the people tasked to run and to inform the state are on fire.
The Rhode Island unemployment rate went in the wrong direction again in July as did the number of jobs in the state. What did our General Assembly do this past session to fix this years-old problem?