In Great Britain, political parties are sending targeted campaign literature to people based on healthcare services that they've received. Welcome to the information age in the era of big government.
The RI General Assembly budgets like drug-addicted gamblers.
Andrew Morse notes attorney general candidate Erik Wallin's old fashioned belief that legislation should be unveiled before it's just about to be passed.
The General Assembly looks likely to give the Tiverton School Department $684,319 more than expected. Good thing we voted for a massive tax increase to compensate for the shortfall!
When specifics come up in the regionalization/consolidation debate, I'm even less convinced that it's the way to go.
The notion of social change as evolutionary misses the central fact about biological evolution: it occurs in response to stimuli for survival, not to desire for political gain.
The Tiverton Town Council has decided to pretend that the law doesn't apply to them. With the exception of Jay Lambert, none of them can be trusted to stand up for clear and open processes in the interest of the people of Tiverton.
Ed Achorn suggests that the Central Falls "bankruptcy" is ushering in a form of dictatorship. That may seem humorous at the municipal level, but the point is that it's a warning of things to come higher up the chain or command.
NJ's Governor Chris Christie and I agree: freezing public employee remuneration, especially in the schools, is a better solution than canceling programs and firing teachers.
The RI Federation of Teachers had its Central Falls problem fixed prior to backing Race to the Top, and now the National Education Association Rhode Island wants its East Providence problem fixed. Hint, hint.
One thing that financial regulation legislation seems likely to accomplish is giving greater and more arbitrary authority to the federal government. Surprised?
63% of Rasmussen respondents now favor the repeal of ObamaCare. Americans can see where it's going.
In Tiverton, it's not inconceivable that building permits could double the cost of a children's pool.
Julia Steiny describes the result when a school makes student success, not teacher employment, its number 1 priority.
You know, I'm not so sure that it's economically healthy to throw barriers in the way of foreclosure.
Whether with federal finance industry regulation or the rules governing municipalities tax increases, leaving the specifics of law up to bureaucrats decreases our freedom and muddies our democratic system.
Voices from the losing side of Tiverton's FTM now join those of other Rhode Islanders who cannot shake the sense that there are two classes here: One subject to economic reality, and one not.
Government expansion in the United States may very well be the uber bubble, and the world will crack when it bursts.
Rhode Island's gutter-dwelling is going to be a long-term state of affairs, and so will be the fix.
So, in Lincoln, they're actually seeing a tax levy decrease. Every town is different, of course, but come on.
The movie Avatar could have been great. Instead, its creators chose to bash humanity.
It may not be news, but it's worth reminding ourselves that the U.S.A. is a land of opportunity, provided you are willing to take the initiative.
Race to the Top is just a huge bundle of money being used to persuade state and local officials and bureaucrats to seek special-interest buy-in.
The West Warwick School Committee is making similar sounds to those squealed by its Tiverton counterpart in the run-up to the financial town meeting. It's like there's a template.
I've got nothing against ghost written speeches — just against expensive, badly written ghost speeches.
Somehow, I fear that the current legislators in Rhode Island's General Assembly are just the gang to make our situation worse by trying to improve our tax policy.
Guess what. Tax cuts for the rich were not a significant contributor to the federal government's swing from surplus to deficit.
Monique Chartier, on the Matt Allen Show for Anchor Rising, raised the topic of legal settlement money from a Rhode Island tragedy to prevent the political advancement of the current attorney general.
Yawning, another natural function that human beings appear to have gotten backwards.
And now, a possible tax on soda. Funny how your indulgences line their pockets.
A Web site that posts your purchases online in real time? What could go wrong?
The balance of military and political authority can be difficult in war, but it's necessary. Of course, one wonders whether it's for the best that military strategists are planning around politicians.
Comparing forms and rates of taxation across the Rhode Island/Massachusetts border might suggest one underlying cause of Rhode Island's poor economic condition.
Now that it's been deemed legal, the Mojave cross has been stolen. I can't help but see the act as emblematic of what some folks intend by "separating" church and state.
When it comes to dealing with poverty, there are two irreducibly incompatible perspectives. It shouldn't be difficult to guess which one I favor.
We'll get the details tomorrow, but there's apparently an agreement in the final stages to bring the current teachers of Central Falls High School back into the fold.
To compensate for the down note of the FTM, I've posted a funny line that I'd just read by Mark Steyn. Of course, looking beyond the one sentence, Steyn's commentary is not quite a pick-me-up.
I've posted a post-game for the FTM. Taxes are going up, and the demographic balance appears to be shifting toward a majority that can vote for more for itself from other people. But maybe there's a thread of a silver lining.
I liveblogged from Tiverton's second stage of the financial town meeting, this morning. (We lost.)
It looks like the candidates for RI governor are differentiating themselves. Well, at least the Republicans are differentiating themselves from everybody else.
Tiverton School Committee Chairman Jan Bergandy continues to offer proof that the town's taxes may not be the amount agreed to at the financial town meeting, because his budget request (and an amendment by Deborah Pallasch) would put the town on the hook for any decreases in state and federal aid.
Oddly, Congress has not been grilling the one group on which it should most focus: Itself.
During yesterday's lunch half-hour, I ruminated on the cultural lessons of my trade of carpentry.
Last night, I gave Matt Allen Show listeners a quick update on happenings in Tiverton. I'll be on the John DePetro Show at 6:20 this morning for the same purpose.
An investment firm in the center of controversy in West Warwick has offered to return the money.
The Providence Journal has published an essay that I penned after Tiverton's financial town meeting, take one, which questions what a "sense of community" entails.
Ever interested in informed voting by the public, I've posted the tax implications of the various school budget proposals before the voters of Tiverton.
I've been trying to figure out the financial consequences should the School Committee follow through on its threat to close one of Tiverton's brand new elementary schools. The task has been made more difficult by the fact that nobody has researched the issue before... including the Tiverton School Committee.
Tiverton's tax assessor, David Robert, who actually lives in another town, has taken to the local press to call a certain group of politically active residents "disingenuous." If only he'd learn about the actual ongoing debates first.
Bureaucrats are prosecuting politicians for their political platforms right in the middle of the democratic West.
Predictably, the teachers' unions are using the Race to the Top funding competition as a bargaining chip to eliminate two recent threats to their hegemony.
We're potentially within a few years of seeing the credit rating of the United States of America downgraded. That is all.
There's reason to doubt that ObamaCare's increased coverage of the population will result in better health... and reason to fear that it will exacerbate doctor shortages.
I think it might be time for Rhode Islanders to stop talking about how to prevent the state's collapse and begin to consider what to do when it happens.
Here's how we got where we are, with the School Committee claiming that it has hinged the viability of our children's education on a single vote of an erratic town meeting, despite open labor contracts and a seven-figure windfall of federal dollars.
I've described the events at Tiverton's financial town meeting over on TCC's Web site.
A strange notion of "community" was evident at the first assembly of this year's Tiverton Financial Town Meeting.
A delay in tax returns by the State of Rhode Island proves that there are cracks in the system. We're no longer in a position to deal with unexpected catastrophes without deterioration of basic government activities.
Rob Long imagines negative ads that the Democrats could run against... the American people.
Arrests of town councilors in North Providence remind us all that Rhode Island's governance is corrupt from top to bottom.
Judging from a Providence Journal report, RI's candidates for governor adjusted leftward for a left-wing audience.
Andrew Morse gave an excellent conceptualization of what reamortizing RI's pension debt would mean, financially.
Yes, Wall Street investors are greedy and scheming, but we shouldn't let that opinion lead to the delusion that we, as a society, didn't overlook warning signs.
The Log Cabin Republicans are a welcome addition to the RIGOP, but it should not become the case that intra-Republican disputes between traditionalists and the Log Cabins are a matter of bigotry versus tolerance.
Helping small businesses has been all the buzz in Rhode Island, recently, but it it largely misses the point that the operation of government itself is the problem. Faster permitting is nice, but not the real problem.
News of the evening in Tiverton: Town Council votes to keep FTM this Saturday, and the School Committee voted to lower its budget request in light of legal advice from the Department of Education.
Factoring in inflation caused by ObamaCare, our healthcare system is bound to become much more expensive and much less efficient. Current problems, in other words, have been exacerbated.
Education involves subjectivity in execution and in evaluation. The current union structure of our public schools simply doesn't allow that to be the case.
Perhaps the overlap shouldn't be surprising, between cap-and-trade environmentalism, big government advocates, the authors of the housing boom, and participants in the financial collapse.
I've collected and reviewed the splash of recent letters to the editor, in Tiverton, and realized that for just sixteen cents per week on the average tax bill, I could be liberated from the necessity of working.
Only in government — public schools, in the case at hand — could there be incentive to attract fewer clients.
Under cover of controversial Wall Street–related legislation, the Democrats are attempting to create new powers for the Federal Trade Commission to regulate the Internet. I spot two signature moves of Obama and his Congress.
It ought to set off red flags when the government begins changing its own rules to ease the path toward a favored industry, even when that industry is as politically popular as wind power.
My Rhode Island Catholic column for April looked at Jesus' interaction with Pilate and its implications for power.
Along with video from the last Tiverton School Committee and a chart, I've endeavored to explain the essential significance of "restricted aid."
Functional cultural institutions (like churches and marriage) face a continual tension to become more accommodating, but thereby less able to prove its own value.
I'm not sure how "moderate" Moderate Party Gubernatorial Candidate Ken Block really is.
Taken in context, St. Paul unequivocally pointed Christianity and Western Civilization in the direction of tolerance and compassion. Whatever those who trademark "tolerance" might say.
One of the shadier aspects of the battle over the upcoming property tax increase in Tiverton came to light at the end of the last Town Council meeting, when members of Tiverton Citizens for Change raised the issue of Town Administrator Jim Goncalo's falsified package to the state requesting an uncertified waiver to exceed the 4.5% tax cap with one over 9%.
An Attorney General who is not only friends with an apparently corrupt mayor, but also dates one of that mayor's top staffers, should not remain a viable candidate for governor of the state. End of story.
The Tiverton Town Council's attempts to grease the skids for a massive tax increase seems to have subsided, at least in its overt form. Of course, ungreased skids can still slide.
It's interesting to watch Tiverton Town Councilor Louise Durfee attempt to treat Town Treasurer Phil DiMattia as if they aren't elected in parallel by the people.
The Supreme Court has ruled that a plain cross in the desert does not establish religion in violation of the Constitution.
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