Analysis of the state law purporting to protect Rhode Islanders from eminent domain suggests that RhodeMap RI makes government takings significantly easier.
Don’t let people scare you into what “could” happen at the Constitutional Convention. Vote YES on Question 3 and let’s take this opportunity to fix the government and improve the way Rhode Island works.
My op-ed in today’s Providence Journal places the match of Rhode Island’s experience of the tobacco settlement money (a one-time-fix turned bad debt) on the pile of bad decisions that the state government has made in the past decade or so:
According to a review by ProPublica, Rhode Island has just refinanced some of the resulting debt, with the expectation that “the deal would shave $700 million off a $2.8 billion tab due on the bonds in 2052.” In that regard, it’s a bit like the state’s pension reform, which was marketed as salvation but merely shaved about $3 billion from $9 billion of unfunded liability.
The people who operate Rhode Island’s government are racking up quite a list of these liabilities.
My op-ed in today’s Providence Journal places the match of Rhode Island’s experience of the tobacco settlement money (a one-time-fix turned bad debt) on the pile of bad decisions that the state government has made in the past decade or so:
According to a review by ProPublica, Rhode Island has just refinanced some of the resulting debt, with the expectation that “the deal would shave $700 million off a $2.8 billion tab due on the bonds in 2052.” In that regard, it’s a bit like the state’s pension reform, which was marketed as salvation but merely shaved about $3 billion from $9 billion of unfunded liability.
The people who operate Rhode Island’s government are racking up quite a list of these liabilities.
… is that they don’t have a union:
Rhode Island’s 276 public schools are aging rapidly, and, at the current rate, it would cost $1.8 billion to bring them up to good condition, according to a state study.
The General Assembly in July extended a three-year moratorium on new construction until May 2015, to give leaders time to devise a way of paying for major school renovations. But superintendents say that every year the moratorium is in place, crucial maintenance and repairs go undone, driving up the cost and making bond referendums less palatable to voters.
In any given organization, the people who implement the budget will look at the revenue that they expect to bring in versus the needs of the organization (the expenses). That includes long-term planning, estimating the life of buildings and planning for improvements.
When it comes to government schools, though, the law requires that some money be siphoned off in order to pay a labor union to be constantly advocating to increase the cost of personnel. Because they are public-sector unions, their advocacy extends to getting people who are sympathetic to their cause in office — both on the school committee that is supposed to negotiate on behalf of taxpayers and in the state legislator and executive roles that set the larger framework in which the government schools operate.
This practice corrupts the ability of school departments and the public to prioritize anything other than higher pay for employees. Things like ensuring that a century-old building isn’t going to fall apart around the students must be accomplished in addition to the unions’ demands. Either the extra costs for buildings must be hidden within state-level taxes, or the dollars must be borrowed.
Inevitability is difficult to prove, but it seems likely that Rhode Island’s current predicament — falling into a downward spiral when it comes to building maintenance while also failing to get satisfactory results despite high spending on employees — is inevitable when employees are required to organize to control all sides of every negotiation.
Justin and Bob Plain talk transportation infrastructure funding.
Channel 10 has a report up on the sorry state of Rhode Island’s roads and bridges and the absence of funds to address the problem. Here’s the missing question that really needs to start being asked: Where is all the money going?
From 2003 to 2013, Rhode Island’s budget increased from $5.4 billion to $7.7 billion. That’s a 42% increase, or 3.56% per year compounding. Over that same period, the gross state product (GSP) went up 32% (2.79% compounded per year), and inflation was 27% (2.39% per year). (From 2005 to projected 2015, by the way, the state budget increase is 46%, or 3.88% compounded annually.)
With the government’s budget growing so much more quickly than either the state’s economy or inflation, where is all the money going?
According to WJAR’s Susie Steimie:
President Barack Obama is pushing Congress to put $300 billion toward road repairs. The president warns if we don’t put money toward infrastructure repairs the economy will suffer.
We must stop letting politicians off so easily. $300 billion doesn’t materialize out of nowhere. From where does Obama plan to take that money, and why won’t that hurt the economy?
Unless we move past the superficial analysis of noting problems and insisting that the solution is money, we’re like children being governed by the Coachman on Pleasure Island.
If only every city and town had at least one person motivated to make videos like this one, about Warwick potholes:
My only suggestion would be to make the comparison between the reduced funding for infrastructure and the city’s exploding employee benefits budget earlier in the video and more frequently. That really is a core reality that Rhode Islanders need to learn.
Government does everything backwards. Officials negotiating contracts seem to start with what employees deserve. Budgets are built based on what the government says it needs. The money has to come from somewhere, of course, and taxpayers revolt if it all comes from them. So… potholes.
Another core reality that Rhode Islanders need to learn is that a healthier two-party system — with two parties that actually are different, not just shades of the same ideology — would go a long way toward ensuring that every city and town (and the state) had an opposition with incentive to shine a light on what the people in power are doing badly, and voters would have an option upon discovery of those problems.
If you’re among those Rhode Islanders unaffected by the possibility of tolls on the state’s bridges, take a moment to consider this:
With pressure mounting to avert a transportation funding crisis this summer, the Obama administration Tuesday opened the door for states to collect tolls on interstate highways to raise revenue for roadway repairs.
The proposal, contained in a four-year, $302 billion White House transportation bill, would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition on most interstate tolling.
How about an EZ-Pass station across route 95 just before every exit, like the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey used to be? That would generate some revenue!
As with the Sakonnet River Bridge, I’ll reiterate that I support, as a general rule, a transition to user fees, rather than broad taxes, in most circumstances. Of course, it would be legitimate for Rhode Islanders to conclude that the ease of moving around the state is a key advantage the Ocean State has and should not be disrupted with tolls.
If, however, we move toward tolls rather than taxes, it ought to be just that: rather than. As the Washington Post article linked above indicates — surprise! — that isn’t what’s being contemplated. Tolls would represent a search for new money, not a replacement as other taxes, like the gas tax, are phased out. In Rhode Island, specifically, the approach is always to collect fees in addition to taxes.
As it tends to do, government puts things backwards, paying for things first that people might not willingly fund and last that they consider critical. Priorities should work the other way, and every dollar in projected toll revenue should be offset with decreases everywhere.
Rhode Island is rapidly becoming an economy in support of a government. Again, that’s reversed from what it ought to be.
So, the Tiverton Youth Soccer league — an independent community group in our town that works with networks in Rhode Island and Massachusetts to provide (not-for-free) year-round soccer programs for interested children in the town — has sent out an interesting request by email:
Dear Parents,
Every year the town has rolled our fields at the beginning of each season. With the recent departure of our Town Maintenance Person and helper the DPW said it is too busy to do it at this time.
If you have a roller or access to a roller and could possibly complete such a task please reply to this email ASAP.
In general, I’m energized by the idea of people in the community coming together to accomplish things for each other without having to make people who aren’t interested pay the bill. But here’s the thing: The fields are town property, and maintenance is factored in to our tax bills. This is a service for which we’re paying.
So, what were the circumstances of “the recent departure of our Town Maintenance Person”? Well, Channel 10 filmed him stealing time from the town, doing work on his own rental properties while on the clock.
And what were the circumstances of the departure of his “helper”? Well, the (now-former) town administrator fired him for being a whistleblower, which is explicitly against the law, and for which the town is now being sued.
The Tiverton Town Council allowed both the maintenance foreman and the administrator to retire gracefully (while being dishonest about the background of their decision). In fact, Maintenance Foreman Bob Martin is technically still employed by the town, until his retirement on April 22.
The local political action committee Tiverton 1st, which promoted the current town council and worked closely with Democrat state Representative John “Jay” Edwards, ran on assertions that they were the real supporters of community and alternatives were evil interlopers trying to “destroy the town.” Somehow, I don’t think the folks who voted for them thought they meant that they’d build our sense of community by forcing us to do volunteer labor because corrupt town employees were busy enjoying early retirements.
The more I look into the situation at Tiverton’s Stone Bridge site, the better it illustrates the dysfunction of our system of government. First of all, it isn’t clear who’s paying for the project.
The parcel is owned by the town. The latest Fall River Herald article mentioning the renovations says the $2.6 million project will be funded by the RI Dept. of Transportation. Most reports put the dollar amount at $2.3 million, so the Herald article may be including the DOT money to purchase the gas station.
An older article from the Herald, now available only in cache, says it’s a mix of federal and state funding. The town’s Economic Development Commission (EDC) claims the town has received “a federal grant of $2,300,000.” The latest Dept. of Environment Management assessment of the site, however, states that “currently available funds are well below the amount required to the satisfactorily rehabilitate the east abutment,” although that’s dated 2006.
So, it looks as if some federal money, flowing through the DOT, is being mixed with state and town money to fund the project. In addition, the town, state, and federal governments will all be giving up whatever tax income they might have derived from private ownership and (perhaps) commerce on the site.
At the federal level, a couple million dollars isn’t even a drop in the bucket of $17 trillion in national debt, so nobody blinks to promise it for a walking-and-fishing park. At the state level, officials look at their investment of a few hundred thousands of dollars as a way to “bring in” much more in federal money. (“Bring in” to whom?, one might reasonably ask.) And locals in town who’ve disliked the eye-sore of business on their morning strolls commit their neighbors to a few hundred thousand more (when all is said and done) to buy the land.
No matter how the funding breaks down, though, it’s difficult to understand how our system of government can find millions of dollars for an out-of-the-way nook for pedestrians when there are still high-traffic sights like this East Providence photo across the state:
Want some explanation for my general frame of mind and occasional testiness about things Rhode Island? Step 1: Read this article by Sandy Seoane and Ethan Shorey in the Valley Breeze:
Rhode Island Department of Transportation Director Michael Lewis has a message for those traversing the state’s shoddy and weatherworn roads: Get used to it.
Crumbling roads and bridges across the state, Lewis told The Breeze, aren’t likely to get fixed anytime soon because the department’s funding sources are drying up …
Step 2: Read through the entirety of Governor Chafee’s proposed budget for FY15. I won’t steal the thunder from a wasteful spending report on which I’m working (to be released in a few weeks), but when you review the priorities for which we somehow have money and weigh them against an upwardly revised unemployment rate and the fact that there’s no money left over for the infrastructure that we all use and need for everything else to happen, it’s tough not to think some folks deserve a good talking to around here.
Wait, look! A social issue in Arizona we can argue about!
Jason Becker poses some questions to Justin on tax policy, government services, and the migration of Rhode Islanders.
Jason Becker poses some questions to Justin on tax policy, government services, and the migration of Rhode Islanders.
The flow of money through the State of Rhode Island’s budget illustrates the perpetual scam that is government budgeting and should inspire Rhode Islanders to realize that they are allowed to make the machine run the other way.
Travis Rowley’s weekend column takes up the topic of Swipely CEO Angus Davis versus a proposed downtown parole office. Travis focuses on the identity-politics response from progressives.
I take a somewhat different view.
Let me stipulate that I’m absolutely certain there are reasons to be cynical and disapproving of this particular choice of location. But a rich guy not wanting those people near his business is not one of them.
Not putting a stop-in center for convicted rapists next to a women-only gym, or for car thieves next to the airport parking lot, would be one thing. But simply not wanting people who are marginally attached to the criminal justice system anywhere near a general business-to-business company is less easily justified.
Travis quotes Davis from Dan Yorke’s State of Mind program:
The statistics say that somewhere between 19 and 27 percent of the folks that are served by this office that are on parole or probation are there for a violent offense. And statistics say that 61 percent of those folks are going to commit another offense.
Conspicuously, Davis didn’t offer any more specificity. How much onsite activity does the parole office have, and for whom? More directly, what do “the statistics say” about crime in the vicinity of a parole office? I’d be tempted to guess that ex-cons tend to be in a less-recidivist frame of mind while running the errands that keep them out of prison.
But nobody has raised the most important point: People are parolees because they’re presumably not to be an active threat to society, at least to the extent that they are trusted among the large numbers of people waiting for buses even closer to Davis’s office. If that’s not the case, then fighting over where they check in for a reminder to be on their best behavior is just a test of who has the political clout to keep them at arm’s length.
An invoice for a Sakonnet River Bridge-related E-ZPass transponder creates unease about the entire system.
The Providence Journal editorial board fires off another knee jerk missive, complaining that legislators are passing knee jerk legislation. The writer should have done a bit more research and offered a bit more explanation.
Taxpayers in Little Compton feel as if they’ve been thrown under the bus and plan to prove it to elected officials.
Interpreting the travel of the Sakonnet River Bridge toll legislation is apt to make a Rhode Islander even more cynical.
A sort-of liveblog culled from Justin’s tweets during the reemergence of Sakonnet River Bridge tolls in the legislature.
Two distinct responses: one to a Ted Nesi chart; one to a Bob Plain political barb.
The unexpected twists of the RI House budget debate indicate much deeper changes in Rhode Island’s political landscape, and voters should pay attention.
A proposed new quasi-public authority with powers of trespassing and eminent domain bring into question legislators’ beliefs about rights, particularly in contrast with another bill to make it more difficult to restrain potentially dangerous patients and students.
Writing live from a House Finance committee hearing on the Sakonnet River Bridge toll.
The City of Central Falls, emerging from bankruptcy, is apparently being run by a crew of young adults with a compelling vision for the city that might not be plausible if public dollars weren’t so easy to acquire.
The World Bank’s deadline for solving global “extreme poverty” echoes a charity proposed by Herman Melville’s Devil, with a lesson that applies the world over.
Extremely thin ridership on the Wickford Junction train points to the same conclusion as everything else in Rhode Island: Government needs to let the economy happen.
Justin writes live from the Senate Finance hearing on repealing the Sakonnet River Bridge toll.
Legislation just submitted would not only compound irresponsible taxation and spending, but the fine print would create a new source of revenue for the government’s pet projects.