Converse It!

Council 94 strikes back

In the ongoing saga between the Governor and Council 94, the union has filed a labor complaint against the Governor. Essentially the complaint alleges that the Council and the Governor did NOT engage in negotiations during at least 30 meetings held between January and mid-June of this year.

Huh?

So these were merely, ‘discussions’ and the memorandum of settlement was just a note amongst ‘friends’? Puhhleaassee.

The leadership of the council got caught with their pants down and now want to cry foul about it. Knowing Rhode Island, the governor is likely to lose. But you never know, every once in a while a blind one handed man can take Nolan Ryan deep. Maybe this is just such a scenario for the governor.

Posted in RI Unions, Rhode Island | No Comments »

Take it easy, Tim

Tim Russert passed away yesterday. He was a favorite of mine, without a doubt.

He’ll be missed.

Posted in 2008 Presidential Election, Elections 2008 | No Comments »

It’s all about the money

Twelve thousand dollars. Essentially, that’s all the money the RI GOP had in it’s coffers at the beginning of the year. Twelve measly thousand dollars. It may not be small potatoes to you or I, but even in a state so small it’s pales in comparison to the approximate 102 thousand the Democrats had.

This might explain why, as a candidate in 2006, I received no help from the GOP in terms of actual dollars. Even a fundraiser I attended that was supposed to net me $25 dollars, I never received a dime from. I’m not here to rant on the RI GOP; I’ve done that ad nauseum before and what I really would like to see is a true strategy to get more conservatives elected.

From an economic standpoint, the Republican party is well positioned in this state to make a comeback. RI is overtaxed, overspent, and underpaid which are key elements to the GOP message and certainly resonate in our communities. Even if RIGOP focused on 10 races in 2008 in terms of lending financial support to state level candidates that might have a significant impact. When you’re opponent has nearly nine times more money than you do, unless you have candidates who can commit to campaigning 30-40 hours a week, it’s a difficult climb. You need cash to get out your message and until the RI GOP faces the facts that we need a strong statewide organization, let’s just kiss our state’s future goodbye.

Posted in Rhode Island | No Comments »

The keys to beating Obama in November

Time has an interesting compilation of what it will take for John McCain to beat Barak Obama in November:

• Paint Obama as a false Messiah.
  • In technical terms, he would be a false Messiah if he indeed did claim to be the Messiah. However, McCain is going to seek to bring down the aura of ‘wow’ that surrounds Obama
• Work, Woo, and Win the Referees
  • Simple theme here: Get the media on your side. I think this will be a bit difficult given the objective of the previous strategy to defeat Obama. Reporters are totally captivated by Obama unlike any other politician who lived beyond the 60’s.
• Meet with the People, and force Obama to Follow
  • The McCain team think McCain has an advantage over Obama in town hall meetings. They’re already pushing for these. Don Roach free prediction: McCain makes a major gaffe at one of these meetings in the fall. Major!
• Claim the High Road without leaving the Low Road
  • One of the more interesting subtitles of the Time article - you probably can infer it’s meeting. Isn’t this every election? Why are we - America - so swayed by negative campaigning is my question???
• Use a Vice-President to temper the age issue
  • Age isn’t an issue for me in this campaign. Seems to be for reporters, but think about this you’ll have millions of boomers hitting retirement this year and in the next twenty years. You think they’ll be concerned about McCain’s age? Don’t think so. Younger voters? Maybe. But if McCain wins the elderly like Clinton has over Obama, he won’t be in terrible shape.
• Make inroads among traditional Democratic voters
  • I’d have to say this is McCain’s most tenable and potentially fruitful option. Obama will try to paint McCain as ‘another four years of Bush policies’ but that’s only rhetoric that Average Joe America will easily flip aside as bull. Why? McCain is so not Bush it’s almost a disingenuous argument. But what McCain is is a moderate Republican who speaks to Average Joe America. And that’s certainly makes him a dangerous general election candidate.
• Rely on the Historic RNC Advantage
  • The machine that is the RNC definitely has/had an advantage over the DNC in terms of knowing what makes voters tick and giving their candidates access to that information. Is 2008 more of the same or will Obama and the DNC bring about another historical ‘change’?

What Time did not address and what I believe is a major point for McCain is Latino voters. McCain comes from a state with a high number of Latino voters and these same voters are not as enamored with Obama as other groups have been. McCain needs to drive home that he’s the candidate for Latino voters and has the track record to back it up. In my opinion, McCain needs to win Latino voters 60/40 to have the best chance to win in November. But, Time does present other interesting options if not retreads from reporters who cover both politicians.

Posted in 2008 Presidential Election, Elections 2008 | No Comments »

Redefining Marriage: The Rhetorical Challenge

In the ensuing decades since Roe v. Wade supports of abortion have performed admirably in framing the abortion debate. They have changed pro-lifers in to anti-abortionists, pro-choice into abortion rights. Subtle play on words but quite effective at changing the dialogue on this issue. Most newspapers no longer cite a ‘pro-life’ group as pro-life. Instead, they label these groups anti-abortionist which has a much negative ring to it.

And now, the gay marriage supporters are trying to do the same thing with marriage. They have coined the phrase ‘marriage equality’ which serves two purposes.

One, it redefines marriage as the union between two people of the same sex. This has never been the definition of marriage no matter how many animals in the wild exemplify such unions. But the proponents of gay marriage don’t want you to know that or even acknowledge it. On the contrary, they drill ‘marriage equality’ as they did ‘abortion rights’ hoping to ‘trick’ you into accepting the new definition of marriage as status quo.

Two, they make gay marriage into a civil rights issue. We could debate whether MLK and other civil rights leaders of the 60s would be on the stump for gay marriage, but I highly doubt that King’s vision for America included the union of a man with another man calling it a ‘marriage’. Instead, gay marriage proponents are abusing the memory of the civil rights struggle in equating their aims with the struggle of minorities seeking fair treatment. This line of argument might serve when fighting for voting, housing, education, and other gains, but one thing these folks fail to realize is that marriage does not equal a woman with a woman or man with a man. Period. Thus, it’s no more a rights issue than my ‘right’ to marry a monkey. Civil rights and gay marriage are…pun intended…not married at all.

My exhortation to you Rhode Island is this: don’t allow the Ivory Tower types to reframe the question at hand in order to place you in a moral quandary. Marriage is a sanctified – if imperfect – union between a man and a woman. It is the fabric upon which we have built our family and society. If indeed we as a state and nation decide to make a change in the definition of marriage, and my hope is that we do not, then let us not be fooled by the liberal ‘rights’ police forgetting our roots in order to cling to a false notion of marriage without weighing the consequences. Rhode Island’s future depends upon us making an informed and non-linguistically challenged decision.

Posted in Homosexuality, Rhode Island | 2 Comments »

Housing prices continue to fall…

So I bought a home in Cranston last fall and thought I got the steal of the century. Looks like I didn’t even get the steal of the year. Home prices continued their steady decline and fell 9.4 percent in the quarter this year compared to last year. And we’re probably no quite at rock bottom, either. If you’re thinking of purchasing a home and have the cash/credit to do so, my opinion would be to go for it. I was hoping that when I purchased I was at the bottom of the bell curve but that is obviously not the case.

As we’ve been asking, what will the General Assembly & Governor do? Further, should they do anything as this could be a sign that the market is merely correcting itself. Problem is, the people who hurt most are you and I - average Joe taxpayer.

Gotta luv it!

Posted in Housing Crisis, Rhode Island | No Comments »

Obama changes positions…within the same interview

I still like Obama, but the juxtaposition of the bolded phraseology from Meet the Press this morning gives me great pause:

You know, you asked earlier in the interview about, you know, issues of my patriotism and being attacked by Republicans. One thing I’m absolutely confident about, Tim, the more I travel around the country, people don’t think of themselves first as Republicans or Democrats, they don’t think of themselves first as black or white; they think of themselves as Americans. And if we can tap into that spirit and that core decency and generosity, then we can solve health care, we can solve energy. If we don’t, if we’re continued to be distracted by the kind of games that we see typically out of Washington, then we’re going to have missed our, missed our opportunity. MR. RUSSERT: So if you win Indiana and North Carolina, you don’t think the race is over? SEN. OBAMA: Well, I don’t think the race is over until Senator Clinton decides that she’s getting out or until all the primaries and caucuses have taken place. And we know that’s all–you know, that’s only a month away. MR. RUSSERT: But if you lose Indiana and North Carolina, are you on your heels? SEN. OBAMA: No. I–you know, we are going to keep on going, and we feel confident that, ultimately, I’m going to be the Democratic nominee. MR. RUSSERT: Here’s the latest elected delegate count. These are the elected delegates: Obama, 1492; Clinton, 1338; an advantage of 154. The superdelegates: 274 declared for Clinton, 253 for Obama, 268 are uncommitted, which gives you an overall lead of about 133 if you combine those two numbers. This is what you said in New Albany, Indiana, the other day. (Videotape) SEN. OBAMA: If we’ve won the most delegates from the voters, seems to me that it might be a good idea to make me the nominee. (End videotape) MR. RUSSERT: It’s doesn’t appear mathematically possible that Senator Clinton can overcome your lead of elected delegates. SEN. OBAMA: Hm. MR. RUSSERT: If the superdelegates got together, the undecided superdelegates and said, “You know, Senator Obama, we think that Hillary Clinton is a stronger candidate against John McCain. Here are the latest polls in the swing states, the overall national polls. You’ve run a wonderful race, but we’re going to go with Senator Clinton as our nominee,” what would you do? SEN. OBAMA: I don’t think that’s going to happen. I–let, let me say at the outset, I want a Democrat to win in November, so even if Senator Clinton were the nominee instead of me, I would still be campaigning for Democrats because we haven’t talked much about John McCain today, and the one thing I’m clear about is he wanted–wants to continue George Bush’s foreign policy, he wants to continue George Bush’s economic policies. He said George Bush had, had made great progress economically. And his proposals, which are essentially $300 billion worth of corporate tax cuts that aren’t paid for that would add to our deficit and increase the imbalance in our tax code, I think is the exact wrong prescription for America.

So, Obama presents his change argument by demonstrating that Americans don’t think in Democrat & Republican primarily when seeking to address issues facing our nation. That type of message does indeed appeal to many Americans; the politics of partisanship have grown very wary upon the ears of regular Joe America. Yet a few comments later, Obama states he wants a Democrat in office in November. So which is it? Do we, as Americans, need to think as Americans and not as party partisans or do we need to elect a Democrat as president? Obama gave two different answers today and it’s scary to think that he is continuing to reverse himself at almost every breath.

Posted in General, Immigration, Nuttin' but da news! | No Comments »

And the supplemental budget becomes law

Governor Donald L. Carcieri today signed into law the FY 2008 supplemental budget plan that was approved by the General Assembly.

“I’m pleased that both the House and the Senate have acted on this important fiscal austerity measure,” Governor Carcieri said. “Approving the revised budget for the current fiscal year is the first step to solving the state’s fiscal crisis.”

“Unfortunately, we have much more work ahead of us,” the Governor said. “In fact, next year’s budget problems will likely be even more difficult to resolve. I look forward to working with the legislature to enact the spending reductions necessary to eliminate the projected budget deficit for the fiscal year that starts in July. Working together, I believe we can build on the progress made today by addressing next year’s projected spending shortfall without raising broad-based taxes.”

The only question that really remains is whether the tax and spend crowd will learn to face reality. If we can’t afford certain programs, they are going to get cut. You can do one of two things: you can a) seek to increase revenue streams as the House did earlier this week by approving 24-hour gaming or b) reduce spending, which is what happened through the passage of this budget.

I prefer the latter in most instances and especially when the increase in revenue comes (again) from gaming. We’re becoming way too reliant upon gaming and gambling is a zero-sum game…for as many winners there are countless more losers. It builds up a culture - in my opinion - of ‘luck’ versus working hard. Don’t get me wrong, not everyone who goes to Twin River is a gambling addict but my point is that the underlying morality we’re building, explicitly or otherwise, is one wherein we look to luck and the quick hit versus day to day hard work in order to achieve success. I think that sets us up for failure and also creates a situation where we’re gluttons for gaming. And in the end, we’re going to end up with nausea.

Now that I’m getting off my gaming soapbox, I’ll get back to the point of this press release. Yes, the supplemental budget has passed and yes the governor is praising the assembly for coming to their senses with respect to the real shortfalls, but why didn’t we do this in year’s past. The governor would probably state he had too much opposition in the General Assembly. While that might be true, the governor is Mr. Fiscal Fitness and it should not have taken so long to get a budget done that addresses the real fiscal issues facing our state because the issues we’re dealing with now were identified long ago. On the flip side, maybe the real problem was the General Assembly who continually balked at the governor’s reduced spending proposals and they are the ones waking up and smelling the deficit coffee. Whatever the case may be, as Rhode Islanders we should be wary about two things:

• We have a Fiscal Fitness governor but it took him what, 5-6 budgets to really take a bite out of the deficit. That’s not good news in terms of his power of persuasion or truly being fiscally sound.
• We have a General Assembly that reacted (finally) to reality. Next budget we face an even more daunting task. I doubt the governor would approve raising taxes but the GA might override his veto if they put forth a significant tax increase. Still, we need to hold our elected officials more accountable to their actions and our state’s fiscal health. We need a GA that will be proactive in addressing problems not reactive. But how much faith do you have that this GA will become just that?

In the end Rhode Island, we need to be more attune to what’s going on and more equipped to battle the fiscal problems facing our state. This supplemental budget was a good first step, but we’ve got many, many, many more to go.

Posted in Rhode Island, Rhode Island Budget | 1 Comment »

Hi new readers

Based on the blog stats, looks like we have new readers.

First, welcome. I’ve been blogging since late 2004 on and off again. It ain’t easy fosheezy.

Second, there was a problem with adding comments so you will be able to do that going forward.

Third, life will just not allow me to write a RI Legislative Roundup on a daily basis. I’m going to try to make it weekly, but I want it to be informative to you all and not merely cuts and pastes of what you can already see at the General Assembly website.

And finally, thanks again for stopping by and I hope this blog causes us all to think about the issues facing our state and our nation.

Posted in General | No Comments »

Mayor of Providence: Tax cuts for the poor

Mayor Cicilline unveiled the first ever Working Family Property tax credit:

The Working Family Property Tax Credit would be targeted to single-family, owner-occupied homes valued under $200,000 and multi-family, owner-occupied properties valued under $300,000. Under the proposal, the City’s finance officials say approximately 6,500 homeowners would see a credit of approximately $250 on their tax bill.

So 6,500 x $250 translates to about 1.625 million the city is most likely going to need to make up elsewhere. It appears the Mayor is making it up and more so with a 3 million dollar hit to the education budget. He’s also proposing (in the press releases verbiage), “10% across-the-board cut in grants to community agencies that perform important services to residents”.

It seems that tax and spend ideology is finally coming home to roost and that the mayor is still trying to be the champion of the ‘working families’. I wonder how many of these working families would rather a tax break versus filling the education budget’s shortfall?

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »