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A social system built on big government is rooted in myths and destined to increase the distance between the powerful and everybody else.
It’s beyond dispute that progressive activists don’t really believe in a right to free speech, in the sense of the American founding, and where that will take the country ought to be of desperate concern of Americans who value freedom.
Justin liveblogs from another meeting of the legislative commission to study the elimination of the sales tax.
Speeches at the 2013 National Summit on Education Reform by Theodore Olson and Arthur Brooks offer a lesson on civil rights and the pursuit of happiness.
In dismissing a request from the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, the State Labor Relations Board has put itself in the position of inappropriately limiting its own authority, without legal reasoning.
I slipped, again, and read today’s Froma Harrop column. Here’s the breezy way in which a pro Projo columnist characterizes the legal and political debate around ObamaCare:
Nothing the Tea Party people demand can’t be had through the normal political process. It happens that a duly elected House and Senate passed Obamacare. And when asked, the U.S. Supreme Court said it’s cool with it.
That’s that, sneering away so much legitimate argument that a reader remembers why he’d determined her columns not worth the effort. The “Tea Party people” are “tyrants.” Condescendingly: “They are martyrs, you see” — out there in their filthy, suspect difference.
Harrop should read an excellent column by Andrew McCarthy, who argues that the passage of ObamaCare was pure unconstitutional “fraud” and will be back before the Court on additional grounds. For the likes of Harrop, one senses, the intellectual validity of a law is chiefly determined by whether or not they like the result.
So, she insists, the tyrants are not those who control most of government, who managed to push through an ideological boondoggle as law because there was nobody with power to enforce the rules, and who are now putting up absurd barriers and shutting down businesses deliberately to cause people pain, while proving the “most closed, control-freak administration” ever (even in the eyes of a New York Times reporter). The tyrants are not the ones who apparently used the IRS and other agencies to target the Tea Party for engaging in “the normal political process.”
Rather, in Harrop’s view, the tyrants are ordinary people with the effrontery to utilize our system’s deliberate protections for political minorities. Kinda makes you worry what’s to come as our betters forget that old yack about sticking up for process and remembering that we’re all Americans, doesn’t it?
Eileen Power on the Fall of Rome – Selections from Chapter 1 of Medieval People: The decline of Rome preceded and in some ways prepared the rise of the kingdoms and cultures which composed the medieval system….No observer should have failed to notice that the Roman Empire of the fourth and fifth centuries was no […]
We live surrounded by people who do not hold themselves in high esteem, perhaps with good reason. These people want the equality of all men to be immediately and forthwith proclaimed; equality before the law is not enough for them: they long for a declaration that all men are equal in talent, sensibility, refinement, and degree of feeling. Every day that goes by without the triumph of this unrealizable leveling is a cruel day for these resentful creatures, who feel themselves fatally condemned to form the moral and intellectual plebs of our species. Left to themselves, they taste gall and wormwood…
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.
An in-home child-care worker who has come forward supporting unionization of those with similar businesses has also advocated for a national tax on Christmas trees and special treatment of farms for the estate tax.
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.
In the name of the cause of same-sex marriage, American government is completely flipping requirements about who must follow what laws when in their work, freeing government and shackling citizens.
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.
Hesitancy about conspiracy theories notwithstanding, the system of incentives that we’re allowing to work itself into our government and our society does not bode well for the future.
IRS targeting, news media nonchalance, and the interweaving of private political groups with government illustrate a system at all levels designed to exclude and counter people of different views.
Undermining the civic structure of the United States is a bit more serious of an act than should be compartmentalized in balance with endearing sci-fi references.
A sort-of liveblog culled from Justin’s tweets during the reemergence of Sakonnet River Bridge tolls in the legislature.
1. S1038: Requires the Rhode Island health benefits exchange to offer alternative plans that do not cover abortions, as a direct complement to every plan offered that does. (S Judiciary; Tue, Jul 2)
2. S0794: Unionizes child-care providers who receive financial assistance from the department of human services, allows the union to collect dues from qualified providers who choose not to join the union, and provides the union with the same arbitration and mediation options as state employees. (S Labor; Tue, Jul 2)
3. S0768: The title of the bill is “Drivers licenses for foreign nationals”. The text of the bill makes no reference to illegal or legal immigration status, though it’s hard to see why a legal immigrant to Rhode Island would want the second-class driver’s license created by this bill, if he or she is eligible for a regular one. The bill requires “foreign nationals” to “present evidence of pre-paid liability insurance for the term of one year or proof of financial responsibility” and to “submit fingerprints to the Rhode Island state police who shall conduct fingerprint-based criminal background checks” when applying for a license. And when renewing the license, the foreign national must “provide evidence of having filed both state and federal taxes”. (S Judiciary; Mon, Jul 1)
4. S0246: Repeal of the sales tax (though judging by the amended House version, it will probably be replaced by a study commission). (S Finance; Mon, Jul 1)
5. Four bills from the economic development package; H6063 creating the Undergovernor for Commerce; H6069 creating an advisory statewide economic planning council; H6070A creating an advisory council of economic advisors and H6071 renaming the “Economic Development Corporation” the “Commerce Corporation” (and placing the new Undergovernor in charge of it). (S Commerce; Tue, Jul 2)
The unexpected twists of the RI House budget debate indicate much deeper changes in Rhode Island’s political landscape, and voters should pay attention.
Justin’s back at the State House for round 2 of the House budget debate.
If House leadership is allowed to move to reconsider bills when they don’t like the results, but rank-and-file members who differ with leadership aren’t — and are even punished for trying to do so — then the Rhode Island legislature cannot be said to be functioning as a democratic decision making body. This can only be fixed with a combination of substantial rules reform, including a rule that committee members cannot be removed from their positions without their consent (as is the case in the Rhode Island Senate) and a liberalizing of discharge petition rules as well as the removal from their positions of representatives who have a history of disrespect for the democratic process.
Justin writes live from the floor of the House on budget night.
The spokesman for Speaker of the House Gordon Fox says that economic development legislation passed by the Rhode Island House involves “a bold and aggressive plan to do away with the EDC”. If you read the bill, you will see that this is not true.
We’ve got a short summary of the EDC reform bill that helps make this clear.
The mounting scandals of the Obama Administration are washing away the boundaries that we’ve imagined exist between representative democracy and tyranny.
1. S0968: A new set of regulations related to the state’s educational assessment program. (S Education; Wed, Jun 5).
2. H5365: Eliminates the sales, meals and beverage, and use tax in Rhode Island, beginning on October 1, 2013. (H Finance; Tue, Jun 4)
3. S0718: Renames the Economic Development Corporation as the Commerce Corporation, adds the chairperson of the governor’s workforce development board to the board of the renamed EDC (as the one member who can’t be removed by the Governor), enumerates “role[s] and responsibilities of board members”, requires the board to establish rules and guidelines for loan and loan guarantee programs, and requires an audit be conducted every three years.
This bill could become an opportunity for Republicans who believe that the EDC should be repealed to use the Frank Ciccone rule to hold a floor vote on the issue. (S Commerce; Tue, Jun 4)
4. S0828: Allows the General Treasurer to withhold non-education state aid from communities that do not make their full, actuarially determined pension fund payment in a given year. (S Finance; Tue, Jun 4)
5. H6161: Sets the term of office for all municipal elected officials at four years “unless the governing body of a municipality votes not to follow”. (H Judiciary; Tue, Jun 4)
1. S0246: Eliminates the sales, meals and beverage, and use tax in Rhode Island, beginning on October 1, 2013. (S Finance; Thu, May 30)
2. On Wednesday, May 29, the House Finance Committee will hear the House leadership’s “economic development package”. The major legislation in this package A) creates an undergovernor, to perform duties with respect to commerce that the Governor is unable to do or that he is uninterested in B) changes the name of the “Economic Development Corporation” to the “Rhode Island Commerce corporation” while leaving its quasi-public status and most of its powers untouched and C) directs the renamed Economic Development Corporation to “provide a concierge-level of call service…to assist businesses in navigating through the various permitting and regulatory requirements and to reduce obstacles to growth within the state”.
3. S0334: Legalizes (not just decriminalizes) “actually and constructively using, obtaining, purchasing, transporting, or possessing one ounce (1 oz.) or less of marijuana”. (S Judiciary; Tue, May 28)
1. S0266: Creates an “inspector general” position for the state of Rhode Island. I’ve been lukewarm to this kind of proposal in the past, but given how an Inspector General was critical in uncovering the political targeting done by the IRS, I am reconsidering. I do remain skeptical of the provisions that lay out specific qualifications for an IG, as there is a strong case to be made that top government positions should be open to everyone in a democratic republic. (S Finance; Tue, May 21)
2. H6098: Requires General Assembly ratification of rules promulgated by any state agency. Pre-ratification, regulations have “immediate effect”, but “permanent effect” does not occur until post-ratification. If this doesn’t mean that the legislature wants to reserve for itself the right to change administrative rules in special cases, without having to pass a law via the regular lawmaking process, then what does it mean? (H Judiciary; Tue, May 21)
3. S0312: Requires the school committee and town/city council of every community that would send students to a proposed mayoral academy to approve the mayoral academy’s charter school application. (S Education; Wed, May 22)
4. H6101:/H6111: Bills to allow Coventry fire districts (but really just the Central Coventry Fire District) to adopt a four-part property tax classification scheme, and to impose the previous year’s budget on taxpayers if the current year budget referendum fails. (H Municipal Government; Thu, May 23)
5. S0826: Authorizes cities and towns to enact separate tax rates for owner versus non-owner occupied residential properties. (S Finance; Tue, May 21)
Governor Chafee rewards with a judgeship the man who laid the vital groundwork for gutting ethics in RI government and who paid the third highest ethics fine in Rhode Island history.
The RI General Assembly will be taking up same-sex marriage legislation this week, and the bills on the table vary substantially with regard to the religious protections afforded those who disagree with the move
Answering confusion about the import of RIGOP chairman candidate Dan Harrop’s withdrawal from the race, a GOP insider explains the options that were on the table for his supporters.