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.
A Fall River Herald article gives the impression that East Bay legislators foresee the disappearance of the tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge.
Rep. Raymond Gallison (D, Bristol, Portsmouth) and Sen. Christopher Ottiano (R, Bristol, Portsmouth, Tiverton) were at the progress-proclaiming meeting but were not quoted.
I’m still skeptical, and here’s why:
Increased fees on gas, driver’s licenses, car insurance and car inspections are all on the table, Edwards said. Estimates are as high as $300 million a year for the next decade to completely repair all the state’s roads and bridges.
“We have to come up with an alternative funding source,” Edwards said. “I believe what we need to do is dedicate the money we raise every year on our inspection fees, our license fees and our speeding fees.”
There’s a reason the legislature hasn’t already done the obvious and prioritized infrastructure: The tax base is maxed out and too much money goes to things it shouldn’t, but about which somebody powerful cares enough to defend it. A few hearings from a special legislative commission don’t change that or make it likely that legislators across the state want to announce a major tax/fee increase during an election year at the same time they’re tearing down an expensive tolling system on the SRB.
The most likely explanation is that this remains about political cover for local politicians. If an increased toll is coming, appearing to have been out-manned or even duped helps East Bay reps and senators stay on the us side of us versus them.
Last week, Brett Smiley announced his candidacy for Providence’s mayor and came out with a mind-boggling idea. Let’s tax gun owners to pay for non-violence programs. Again, we’re going to punish the law-abiding to pay for the ones causing the problem. The ones causing the violence problems are not the ones who will be paying […]
Eliminating the sales tax remains the most attractive tax reform on the table, but if government officials find the risk to be too great, then reduction to a 3% rate looks like the way to go.
State Director of Revenue Analysis Paul Dion’s objections to the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity’s municipal revenue projections need adjustment for both policy realities and existing law.
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.
Justin writes live from another hearing to study the possibility of eliminating Rhode Island’s sales tax.
A video by Justin, profiling former pet store owner Don Russell and his tribulations with the Rhode Island economy and state sales tax.
Justin liveblogs from another meeting of the legislative commission to study the elimination of the sales tax.
Some elaboration on a point about affordable housing subsidies and the 8% tax on rents (in lieu of property taxes) that makes developments profitable for their owners and investors.
Justin writes live from the commission to study elimination of the sales tax.
Former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy gave students at Texas State University some insight into how the United States Congress works out its differences and hones bills down to well-deliberated new laws, regarding his mental-health-parity legislation:
“I called my dad and said, ‘Dad, it’s sitting in the Senate, it’s not passing, you got to call somebody.’ Of course my dad had lots of favors to call in,” he said. “He called, and Chris Dodd said: ‘I’ve got just the answer.’ ”
The mental health bill passed the Senate after it was tacked on to the federal bank bailout, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, in September 2008.
So, as Rhode Islanders may recall, the healthcare-related bill became a necessary appendage to an economy-related bill. The timing of this anecdote is especially auspicious, given Democrats’ and media’s heated insistence that it is inappropriate for House Republicans to link healthcare-related policy with budget legislation.
Kennedy also called for more civility in politics, while passing off barbs against the Bible Belt and Texas.
Will anyone sit opposite Stenhouse on Newsmakers this Sunday and make the case in favor?
Back when the idea of government-run health insurance exchanges first entered into Rhode Island state government policy, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity warned that they were being set up to become “dependency portals“:
The exchange will become a dependency portal when other forms of public assistance — from food stamps to cash-payment welfare to child-care subsidies — are integrated into the system and promoted to the exchange user based on information that he or she provides while seeking health coverage — perhaps automatically enrolling people with the merest expression of consent.
As James Taranto points out, the evidence wasn’t long in arriving upon the exchanges’ unveiling:
… Brendan Mahoney [is] 30 years old, a third-year law student at the University of Connecticut. He’s actually been insured for the past three years … through “a high-deductible, low-premium plan that cost about $39 a month through a UnitedHealthcare subsidiary.” But he wanted to see what ObamaCare had to offer. … Now, he says, “if I get sick, I’ll definitely go to the doctor.” Even better, if he stays healthy, he won’t need to go to a doctor, and his premiums will support chronically ill policyholders on the wrong side of 40.
So, how much of a premium is strapping young Brendan Mahoney paying to help make ObamaCare work? Oops. The Courant reports that Mahoney “said that by filling out the application online, he discovered he was eligible for Medicaid. So, beginning next year, he won’t pay any premium at all.”
Sure, it’s just one anecdote, but a policy sold on bringing healthcare to the uninsured appears to be structurally indistinguishable from a policy designed to push people who are willing and able to take care of themselves into dependence on government.
RIFuture’s Bob Plain is reporting that a judge has dismissed the marijuana possession charge against him and, indeed, that the local police have returned the drugs that they confiscated. (Which is peculiar, because I never got back the Super Soaker that police took from my car in the parking lot before a rock concert at Jones Beach on Long Island twenty years ago.)
I’ve written that I disagree with the “obstacle course of compliance” that tripped Bob up, so I’d hate to appear to be flipping sides now that the incident is history, but there is a legal question in play, and Bob says the judge didn’t state his reasoning. The medical marijuana statute contains two relevant sections.
One says that use of pot is assumed to be medical if the user is “in possession of a registry identification card.” The other says that other people aren’t breaking the law if they’re in “constructive possession… or any other offense” for being in the presence of somebody using marijuana medically or for helping somebody to do so.
It’s a bit of a leap from that to the argument that simply knowing somebody with a registry ID card who is willing to claim ownership allows anybody in Rhode Island to carry otherwise illegal drugs around.
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.
An interesting discussion is taking shape on National Review’s the Corner concerning the propriety of the U.S. Senate’s amending a budget bill. Mark Steyn offers the latest word:
… had the British or Canadian House of Commons, the Australian or Fijian House of Representatives, the Indian Lok Sabha, the Dáil Éireann, the Bahamian or Bermudan House of Assembly, etc, etc, etc, voted as the U.S. House of Representatives did, that would indeed be the end of the matter. The blurring of responsibilities between the Upper and Lower Houses is a not insignificant reason for the fiscal debauchery in Washington.
In a big-picture way, I’m inclined to agree. As a practical matter, however, I’d suggest that Steyn’s argument pretty much became moot after the ratification of the 17th Amendment, which Rhode Island made the inconsequential mistake of affirming earlier this year. (See the fourth section, here, for some argument on that).
Justin liveblogs another commission hearing about repealing the sales tax.
I had to pause from folding laundry to make a comment when this Randal Edgar article came to mind. Think about this: the governor and the treasurer are preparing to enter into a settlement to modify a law duly passed by the people’s representatives in the General Assembly. By what authority?
If the law is constitutional, these two executives have no authority to modify it unilaterally. If it is unconstitutional, it should fall to the legislature to modify it. The governor and treasurer should not gain legislative power just because a judge prefers the outcome that way.
Let the people see the real consequences of the unions’ stranglehold.
Rules, rules, rules — whether for the experience of modifying houses, business activities, or Bob Plain’s arrest record — keep our community from realizing its potential.
Justin Katz and Bob Plain argue about unionizing child care workers whose clients receive state aid.
Justin writes live from the legislative commission to study the sales tax repeal.
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 unionization of child care providers in Minnesota concerned Jennifer Parrish, because of both the method by which the union pursued it and the effect that it would have on her as an independent businesswoman.
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.
Governor Chafee’s veto of a minor bill to create “Choose Life” license plates indicates a belief that, democracy notwithstanding, people with views different than his must be excluded from the activities of government.
“The rest of us, taxpayers and business owners, are left to deal with real life.”
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.
Every year at the end of the General Assembly session, we see late nights and Representatives getting a little hot under the collar, both literally and figuratively. For some reason, our legislature thinks it’s a good idea to hold all the important bills until the last minute when everyone is tired and just want to go home.