Justin Katz
In what’s beginning to feel like a Rhode Island tradition, seven ballot questions will be posed to voters on November 6 having to do with casinos and debt. Those with a personal financial or ideological stake are making their cases, but small-government, free-market ideals should lead voters to be wary of the pitches. Continue reading…
The national political scene saw quite a stir, the first week of October, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported a huge jump in employment and corresponding drop in the unemployment rate. As I noted at the time, a large percentage of the increase was attributable to people who are involuntarily working part time,…
According to a press release from the RI Department of Labor and Training — the last to report this data before the election — Rhode Island’s unemployment rate dropped to 10.5% in September, its lowest level since April 2009. The change was on the strength of the state’s ” largest monthly increase of employed RI residents since…
It’s hardly original to suggest that the real detriment of our era of political correctness isn’t so much the specifics to which we’re asked to conform, but the habits of thought that the overly sensitive ear engenders. That’s actually a detriment with two parts. First, it makes discussion a power play. Even in the long-gone…
Travis Rowley takes on the talking point that the “Bush tax cuts” and the deregulatory impulse are what (say it with me) got us in this mess in the first place. The core of the argument goes to those government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) that backed mortgages for lower-income families: Whenever Democrats cite “the failed policies of…
In today’s Saturday column,Ted Nesi voices reasoning that is only possible in a society that’s become hubristicly accustomed to economic growth as an inevitability: If bond investors are offering Rhode Island the lowest interest rates in its history, shouldn’t the state be borrowing more money right now? Gina Raimondo has hinted she’s thinking that way,…
Observing the VP debate from within; flight from a failing region; surprising beneficiaries of a government bailout; a fable. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…
Checking in on single-family home sales across Rhode Island, as I did for July and 1Q12, reveals a mixed picture. Results for the state are mildly improving, but the “downward spiral index” worsened for 22 of the 38 listed cities and towns. The downward spiral index is the sum of the three percentages given in…
In a white paper out yesterday from the Cato Institute, Governor Lincoln Chafee (as the chief executive of the Rhode Island government) received a score of D for fiscal policy. His score of 41 is based on spending, revenue, and tax changes that he proposed and/or that were implemented under his watch from January 2010…
People across the United States should consider Rhode Island as a canary in the ObamaCare coal mine, whistling the tune of the President’s larger public welfare project. When he spoke on the first night of the Democratic National Convention, RI’s Lincoln Chafee introduced himself as “the nation’s only independent governor.” That’s “independent” as in belonging…