Justin Katz
What’s up with the Providence charter push; why RI schools lack warmth; how pervasive is progressive destruction; and how an island is like policy knowledge. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…
Taft-Carter takes the Iannazzi mantle; RI back to pre-democracy; the ascendance of unaccountable bureaucracies; and America gone mad (with the Big Blue Bug) Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…
Rhode Island’s employment results, as reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), would surely surprise the tens of thousands of Rhode Islanders who are struggling to survive the state’s continuing downturn: For the second month in a row, the Ocean State led the nation in employment growth. The state still has the second…
Over on Anchor Rising, Marc Comtois has pulled together a handful of stories in the subcategory of “two Americas”: Hendrickson puts some stock in the so-called “Curley Effect”, named after the former Boston Mayor. Basically, it has two parts: first, that politicians provide enough incentives to their own voters to ensure continued support; second provide…
Readers of Philip Marcelo’s article, in today’s Providence Journal, about restoration of the historic-structure tax credit program in Rhode Island should see some warning signs indicative of a broader flaw in government economic development: … the national recession and a 2008 moratorium on the tax-credit program brought such projects to a near halt. Dozens stalled…
Election season and other contingencies led me to miss the single-family home sales data for September, but compared with August, Rhode Island’s real estate market appeared to near or perhaps finally to reach the bottom in October. For the state as a whole, median sales prices were lower in the last 12 months than in…
On the politics (and policy) of exit polls, social issues, statism, and hugging. Continue reading on the Ocean State Current…
To be blunt, I think Patrick’s analysis relies too heavily on one of the two clichés about Rhode Island politics that ought to be discarded. Last night wasn’t the RIGOP’s fault, in any institutional way. It isn’t some strategic error that’s led to the party’s status. It’s the society in which the RIGOP has to…