Essay
The headline of Friday’s Providence Journal article Proposal would disband the EDC is incomplete. Let’s look at a description of the proposal from the article: The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation would be dismantled and reorganized with three components — one strategic office attached to the governor’s office, one university-led research arm and a reconstitut…
Via Ted Nesi comes a Bloomberg column by Josh Barro. It’s one of those commentaries in which it isn’t quite clear whether the author is offering pure political advice or expressing his opinion, so I’ll assume the latter. In that context, here are Barro’s thoughts on the balance of the economy and government: If you…
Mitt Romney has selected conservative Congressman Paul Ryan from the swing-state of Wisconsin to be his Vice-Presidential running mate. The possibility of Ryan as VP has been gaining ground over the last few days. Politico ran a piece over the supposed “split” within GOP over the notion: Ryan advocates, including some of his colleagues and…
Jim Taricani invited me and RIFuture.org owner/editor Bob Plain to sit in for 10 News Conference, this morning. The topics leaned more toward politics than policy, but we bloggers did manage to pull the conversation toward political philosophy a bit. Specifically, we discussed economic development, the RI economy, the Congressional district 1 race, and the…
Hm. I’m not sure what I think about this idea of a an instant runoff election, yet. In an instant-runoff election voters will rank candidates by preference. If in the election no candidate wins a majority the last place candidate is eliminated and the second choice pick of voters who selected that candidate counts. The…
Rhode Islanders, mainly from the East Bay, have organized a protest at Clements Market in Portsmouth, this afternoon, against tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge. The hope is that the language that the General Assembly passed into law, this session, as Article 20 of the budget bill (7323Aaa) can be reversed. That article and the…
Thanks to the General Assembly, the new Sakonnet River Bridge gets a toll booth next June. The cost one way will be $4; $.83 for residents with an EZ pass. It seems to me pretty unfair to suddenly drop tolls on everyone in an area where no tolls had previously been. Tolls are one of…
I had to laugh when I read an excerpt on an On Politics post by Ian Donnis by Cicilline campaign manager, Eric Hyers: This is what they do. They distract, distract, distract. It is the Republicans who don’t stick to the issues and try to wave a shiny object in front of the voters so…
On the latest State of the State with John Carlevale, I discussed Rhode Island’s civic scene and how residents can begin to get involved and sort through the system along with Lisa Blais, of Ocean State Tea Party in Action, and Marina Peterson, of East Bay Patriots. Of particular note, related to my habitual role…
The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has posted a hub page to explain and trace the development of Rhode Island’s health benefits exchange into a full fledged “dependency portal,” drawing people into government programs. As much as I strove to explain the concept on that page, two of the five points that one advocacy…