“A properly functioning democracy depends on an informed electorate,” said Thomas Jefferson.

Well, at least that’s what Mike Stenhouse of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity tells us. Problem is, that doesn’t sound at all like Jefferson, and I can’t find any reference with a primary source attributed to that quote.* If Rhody’s Littlest Think Tank can’t get a simple quote straight, what’s that say about the level of fact checking that goes on, outside of “I found it on the Internets?”

So what’s got Stenhouse pulling spurious quotations from the Internet anyway? At issue are proposed IRS regulations that might prevent “research organizations,” such as his own, from producing partisan hit pieces or at least prevent them from continuing to pretend these reports are not political activity, distributed under the guise of educating the public. Here’s how Stenhouse describes it:

The Freedom Index is intended as a tool to educate the people of Rhode Island about the activities of their government. However, under many circumstances, the proposed IRS regulations would redefine the publishing of legislator names on any kind of scorecard — such as our Freedom Index — as “political activity.”

Stenhouse frames this as an issue of free speech. But what’s at issue is not his ability to say whatever he likes but rather his organization’s ability to avoiding paying taxes while doing so. And what better way to make that point than to wrap one’s opinions in the “words” of Jefferson? Of course, Jefferson did believe in the importance of an informed electorate and often wrote about the issue. Here’s how Jefferson put it, albeit less concisely:

Whereas it appeareth that however certain forms of government are better calculated than others to protect individuals in the free exercise of their natural rights, and are at the same time themselves better guarded against degeneracy, yet experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts, which history exhibiteth, that, possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.

So what did Jefferson mean by that? He certainly wasn’t envisioning Republican front-groups masquerading as 501(c)(3)s. What Jefferson was actually proposing was the creation of public schools, one of his lifelong passions.

I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised, for the preservation of freedom and happiness…Preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know that the people alone can protect us against these evils [tyranny, oppression, etc.] and that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.
1786 August 13. (to George Wythe)

That’s right, Jefferson was in a sense the Founding Father of the public school system and actually proposed increasing taxes to pay for their creation and support, exactly the kind of activity that would have damaged his ranking as a state legislator in this so-called “Freedom Index.” Wahoowa!

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* I searched as best I could for the source of that quote, but I only found it in blog posts and always without mention of the original source. Also sometimes as “the cornerstone of democracy rests on the foundation of an educated electorate” or as “an educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people.” Monticello lists that as a spurious quotation:

http://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/educated-citizenry-vital-requisite-our-survival-free-people-quotation

Here is the closest quote (mentioned by Monticello’s reference librarian). Stenhouse probably should have used this one:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information.

As I mentioned, the “problem” with that is that Jefferson was writing about public schools. The sentence before that reads (uh, oh!):

If the legislature would add to that a perpetual tax of a cent a head on the population of the State, it would set agoing at once, and forever maintain, a system of primary or ward schools, and an university where might be taught, in its highest degree, every branch of science useful in our time and country; and it would rescue us from the tax of toryism, fanaticism, and indifferentism to their own State, which we now send our youth to bring from those of New England.

I also searched…

• UVA’s Library
• The Jefferson Encylopedia 
• Library of Congress
• National Archive
• MA Historical Society
• Monticello’s Archive of Family Letters

There’s certainly much there to choose from. The Founders were nearly entirely of a class of wealthy landowners, at times more concerned with the protection of property rights than with the protection of what we’d today consider representative democracy. But often the quotes they select reflect only their lack of understanding of what was actually being written, a case of “I found it on the Internets so it must be true.” The latest example comes from local fringe-right darling and GoLocal “Mindsetter,” Travis Rowley. Writing about what he calls the complete disaster of Obamacare, Travis picks this gem:

It will be of little avail to the people if the laws are so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.  – James Madison

Good one, eh? But what was Madison actually talking about when he wrote that? The full quote might surprise you:

The internal effects of a mutable policy are still more calamitous. It poisons the blessing of liberty itself. It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?  — The Federalist No. 62

In fact, Madison was warning of the “mischievous effects of a mutable government” and the dangers of frequent and complex changes to federal law. Yes, what a calamitous thing it would be if the Affordable Care Act were repealed or revised before it is promulgated! It’s hardly worth reading the rest of an opinion piece that begins with a quote skewering the central premise.  But wait a minute, Russ, was Madison saying we should allow bad laws to stay on the books?  If fact, that’s exactly what he was saying with regard to such “great improvement[s] or laudable enterprise[s]” that “[require] the auspices of a steady system of national policy.”

The mutability in the public councils arising from a rapid succession of new members, however qualified they may be, points out, in the strongest manner, the necessity of some stable institution in the government. Every new election in the States is found to change one half of the representatives. From this change of men must proceed a change of opinions; and from a change of opinions, a change of measures. But a continual change even of good measures is inconsistent with every rule of prudence and every prospect of success. The remark is verified in private life, and becomes more just, as well as more important, in national transactions.

Agree or disagree with the law, but there’s little question that changes or repeal would have chaotic effect on the industry. Indeed, as Madison concludes, “What prudent merchant will hazard his fortunes in any new branch of commerce when he knows not but that his plans may be rendered unlawful before they can be executed?” That ship has sailed, so at least for now Teapublicans like Rowley should learn to live with it.

There’s an oft repeated falsehood told in Rhode Island that is repeated enough that those parroting it no longer feel the need to justify the logic of it. This factoid goes something like this, people are leaving the Rhode Island, which proves something is dreadfully wrong (and certainly the fault of Democrats, progressives, unions, fisher cats, whatever).

The latest iteration of this comes from the Arthur Christopher Schaper, “guest mindsetter” at GoLocal, who notes with grave concern that “more people are leaving the state than entering.”

The problem, according the Schaper, is that the Democratic Party like a coven of witches “casting hexes on the unsuspecting citizens” has “cursed the minds and the hearts of the Rhode Island citizenry, convincing them that Republicans have no power, no solutions, and no ideas beyond running against the Democratic machine.”

Yes, that’s right. It’s not Republicans lack of viable ideas. It’s only the appearance of that! Clearly someone has fooled you gullible voters. Lucky for you, smart folks like Mr. Schaper are still around to tell you about it. It’s funny, but it’s also what passes for serious political analysis on Rhode Island’s right.

But what of the idea that we should be concerned that “more people are leaving the state than entering?” This one is a bit more pernicious than the rest of the nonsense in Schaper’s anti-progressive rant because it seems a logical premise:  People gravitate towards “good” places and away from “bad” ones. But just how important an indicator is population growth for prosperity? Turns out, there’s no connection between the two.  Richard Florida of the Martin Prosperity Institute looked for just such an association. What he found was that:

Economists of all stripes agree that rising productivity – fueled by more efficient business practices, more highly skilled and flexible workers, new technology and higher rates of innovation – is the main driver of economic growth.

Productivity and prosperity always go together; prosperity and population not so much… there was no statistical association whatsoever between population growth and productivity growth.

This not only challenges, it definitively disproves, the conventional wisdom that a growing population equals a growing economy. Population growth, in fact, can create a false illusion of prosperity.

Florida explains, that while migration patterns may have mattered in the agricultural and industrial past, what’s import now are those things that matter in the new economy “like education, skills, innovation and creativity.” Unfortunately ideas to promote an environment supportive of those things that matter are among the very things Schaper dismisses out of hand as a focus on “inane and non-pressing matters,” for instance legislation promoting the progressives values of tolerance and equality, which have been positively linked to higher levels of economic growth. That’s not progressive voodoo. It’s simple economic fact.

Competitive Cities Care About Equality
Members of the creative class – the 40 million workers, a third of the American workforce – the scientists and engineers, innovator and entrepreneurs, researchers and academics, architects and designers, artists, entertainers and media types and professionals in business, management, healthcare and law who power economic growth – place a huge premium on diversity. In fact, they use it as a proxy to determine whether a city will provide a welcoming and stimulating environment for them.

Cities that demonstrate such attributes gain a competitive edge, as evidenced by their consistently higher levels of economic growth. As the journalist and demographer Bill Bishop put it, “Where gay households abound, geeks follow.”

I’m hopeful that analysis by economists like Florida will help to convince RI Republicans to abandon their flawed metrics of the past and to begin seriously considering ideas that will make Rhode Island competitive in the future. Hopeful, yes, but in the case of progressive witch hunters like Mr. Schaper, it may take some time.

The latest example of this comes from Justin, Rhody’s littlest think tanker and a guy who truly puts the “dismal” in the dismal science. What’s got Justin so concerned this time is Rhode Island’s ranking in the “Kauffman Index of Entrepreneurial Activity”:

If we accept the proposition that a struggling economy leads more people to start their own businesses in order to generate their own income, then Rhode Island’s position on the Kauffman Index’s ranking is worrisome.  The Ocean State ought to be highly entrepreneurial, because its employment situation is so bad.  The other two states with unemployment rates above 10% are near the top of the entrepreneurialism list.

Rhode Island is tenth from the bottom.

Fair enough, and for the fringe-right that’s more than enough to begin wailing that the sky is falling. But what Justin doesn’t tell you, is that there are big regional differences between the states and that the index slants heavily towards those states with large construction sectors, an immediate disadvantage to densely populated states like RI.

But the larger point here is an obvious one:  not all states start at the same place! In fact, Rhode Island has shown incredible growth in the amount of entrepreneurial activity.  RI saw an increase of 71% in the past decade (comparing 1999–2001 to 2009–2011)! That’s 49 percent more than the national average and 5th nationally, behind only Nevada, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and Georgia for growth in entrepreneurialism. Another decade of “underperformance” like that and Rhode Island would be in the top 10. Of course that little tidbit must go unmentioned because it doesn’t fit neatly into Justin’s “everything here sucks” worldview.

Look, it’s dangerous to read too much into these state to state comparisons, especially when drawing conclusions about a state this size. My take, take these studies with a healthy grain of salt… and ignore the fringe-right’s dismal science entirely.

Regular readers of the blog know that Treasurer Raimondo has become a lightening-rod for criticism of the state’s recent changes to the public employee pension system.

As a tactic, I’ll admit it’s a good one, simultaneously riling up the base and drawing media attention to the union and retiree’s position. It’s also the first salvo in what’s bound to be a contentious Democratic primary for the Governor’s office. But is the General Treasurer actually at fault? Consider the duties of the office.

Duties
The General Treasurer receives and disburses all state funds, issues general obligation notes and bonds, manages the investment of state funds and oversees the retirement system for state employees, teachers and some municipal employees. She is also responsible for the management of the Unclaimed Property Division, the Crime Victim Compensation Program and the state-sponsored CollegeBoundfund.

Noticeably absent is any mention of negotiating union contracts. That’s simply not her job. What critics would have you believe is that Treasurer Raimondo should have essentially “gone rogue” and usurped the Governor’s duties and possibly those of the General Assembly. L’état, c’est Gina? I’m not convinced. This blog has even gone so far as to suggest that the General Treasurer should be more concerned with “main street” than with the state’s investments and bond rating.

I’ve been a fairly consistent Raimondo supporter, but I was also present at last year’s State House protest adding my voice to the position that the plan asked too much of the neediest pension recipients. In fact I agree, as Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Healthcare Professionals president Frank Flynn put it, that it’s “not a simple math problem as some people describe it.”  But that isn’t the job of the General Treasurer. For a treasurer, it is a math problem, and we shouldn’t expect otherwise.

And Raimondo spent an inordinate amount of time speaking with voters, union members, and retirees throughout the state before making her proposal. Oddly that’s what now seems to rile opponents. As Paul Valletta, the head of the Cranston fire fighters’ union said, “It isn’t the money, it’s the way she went about it.”

I’m not sure what else she could have done. Valletta is essentially complaining that the General Treasurer acted within the duties of the General Treasurer. That’s what we as taxpayers pay her to do! If the unions and retirees are unhappy with the absence of a formerly negotiated outcome, let’s be honest. It’s the Governor, not the General Treasurer, who’s to blame.

I’ve also been concerned that many progressives seem intent on framing the General Treasurer as some union hating, right-wing ideologue. It’s not a fair characterization given that we know little yet about what priorities Raimondo would bring to the Governor’s office, and what we do know is largely in line with progressive priorities (a social liberal who believes in marriage equality and respects the rights of immigrants). During the Carcieri years, we’d have been thrilled with a candidate with progressive credentials a fraction of hers. Yes, she has been at the forefront of a pension reform movement heralded largely by the fringe right. But to assume that makes her one of the fringe right, ignores how seriously underfunded the pensions have been here in Rhode Island. It’s quite a different thing to enact reform out of a sense of obligation than to do so because of an ideological desire to eliminate them entirely.

Ms. Raimondo also learned early on about economic forces at work in her state. When she was in sixth grade, the Bulova watch factory, where her father worked, shut its doors. He was forced to retire early, on a sharply reduced pension; he then juggled part-time jobs.

“You can’t let people think that something’s going to be there if it’s not,” Ms. Raimondo said in an interview in her office in the pillared Statehouse, atop a hill in Providence. No one should be blindsided, she said. If pensions are in trouble, it’s better to deliver the news and give people time to make other plans.

How much easier it would have been, how much less detrimental to her political future (at least with the progressives of the state) to simply enact some changes around the margins and kick the can down the road for someone else to address (historical the way most pols have handled the problem). Should we as progressives be critical of the Raimondo plan? Absolutely, but let’s not shoot down a potential rising star before she’s even had a chance to announce her platform.

We’re the folks on the front-end of our mortgages, who bought at the height of the boom in Providence and elsewhere and who have diligently made our mortgage payments. We’re the ones who decided to ride out the storm and who have the misfortune of not having a loan owned by Fannie or Freddie, with the potential for a below market refi. Our mortgage rates are near double the current rate and the banks have next to no incentive to modify the loan. Hey, we’re the ones who are still paying! Yes, if you’re like me there’s been no bailout for you, and unfortunately the “grand bargain” (Orwellian language if I ever heard it) may put you into foreclosure. Progressives take note.

At issue is the elimination of the so called “tax loophole” of the mortgage deduction. You may not be in this position, but if you’re a homeowner, a second round of foreclosures in the neighborhood is the last thing you need and is a recipe for a double-dip recession if I ever heard one. The question for progressives is, what grand bargain do we strike with the Obama administration? Is our support unconditional? A Romney administration would certainly have been worse, but is a restoration of the Bush tax cuts to the modest levels of a decade ago enough?

Progressives, the time is now to speak up. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid are all on the table, yet again asking the working class to bailout the bankers. I say a vote for a grand bargain is a vote for a grand betrayal, further sinking the middleclass. Will progressives demand more?

You’ve seen it so many times before it’s almost a cliché:  An anti-tax, corporate front group produces a report on taxes, and Rhode Island ranks unfavorably.

Invariably next, the fringe-right echoes the findings as confirmation of the correctness of their own solution to every problem, tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy paid for by slashes to government services and to benefits of government workers… win/win in their book. While it’s dangerous to dismiss these out of hand, the rest of us have learned to take these “studies” with a big grain of salt.

That’s why the headline of the recent PBN story caught my interest, “Providence ranked 15th in U.S. for favorable business tax structure.”

Say what? I almost didn’t believe it myself. Who produced that thing, Kate Brewster? Actually it was KPMG, not exactly a liberal front group:

Among a survey of 73 U.S. cities that offer the most favorable tax structures for businesses, Providence ranked 15th overall…

KPMG compiled the ranking using total tax index, a measure used to compare tax burden by comparing the total actual tax cost in U.S. dollars for each jurisdiction…

Among the U.S. cities, Providence ranked ninth for corporate income tax rate, 13th for its other corporate taxes rate, 59th for its statutory labor costs and 15th for its total effective tax rate.

That’s right, 9th and 13th for corporate taxes, offset only by our labor costs, little surprise given the higher cost of living in Northeastern cities. Is there more we can do to attract business? Sure, but the next time you read one of those studies suggesting cuts to spending on infrastructure, schools, and social programs to pay for reductions in corporate taxes don’t forget to ask yourself, is that really the best way to attract business?

Hundreds of mayors from across the United States this weekend called for new laws letting parents seize control of low-performing public schools and fire the teachers, oust the administrators or turn the schools over to private management.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors, meeting in Orlando, Florida, on Saturday unanimously endorsed “parent trigger” laws aimed at bypassing elected school boards and giving parents at the worst public schools the opportunity to band together and force immediate change.

Mayor Taveras, it’s worth noting, is part of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and a member of the Jobs, Education and the Workforce committee.

Parent trigger laws, popular with education budget hawks, allow parents to wrest control of public school from elected officials and either shut them down or outsource operations to a private charter school company. Lately, such laws have caused controversy in California and there’s a new movie about the concept, in the same vain as Waiting for Superman coming out in the near future. The parent trigger act is piece of ALEC model legislation (cached ALEC doc). RI Future correspondent Aaron Regunberg wrote about parent trigger laws this weekend for GoLocalProv.

Giving parents so much control over a school’s destiny is, frankly, nuts, as Diane Ravitch put it. Parents, of course, don’t own the public schools and more than picnickers own Central Park .

A parent trigger — a phrase that is inherently menacing — enables 51 percent of parents in any school to close the school or hand it over to private management. This is inherently a terrible idea. Why should 51 percent of people using a public service have the power to privatize it? Should 51 percent of the people in Central Park on any given day have the power to transfer it to private management? Should 51 percent of those riding a public bus have the power to privatize it?

Public schools don’t belong to the 51 percent of the parents whose children are enrolled this year. They don’t belong to the teachers or administrators. They belong to the public. They were built with public funds. The only legitimate reason to close a neighborhood public school is under-enrollment. If a school is struggling, it needs help from district leaders, not a closure notice.

Let’s hope this idea receives the reception in Rhode Island it deserves.

Saturday, July 28th
Start – 8:15 AM, Naval Station Newport
Finish – Potters Cove, Jamestown

The event raises hundreds of thousands of dollars and supports an organization important to all Rhode Islanders.

Today, a Bay without Save The Bay could be defined by: a nuclear power plant at Rome Point; a failing municipal sewage treatment plant at Fields Point, dumping millions of gallons of raw sewage into the upper Bay; a 60-ton-per-day sewage sludge incinerator at Fields Point; shores unprotected from oil spills; a large-load container port at Quonset built, in part, by filling 144 acres of the Bay; no marine science in Providence’s public elementary schools; lost salt marshes and historic herring runs; a reputation for being a place where development rules — even when wetlands, shorelines and public access are compromised; eelgrass extinction.

I’ve written on this blog about many of Save The Bay’s important efforts, including the Roger Williams Park ponds restoration and oversight of the polluting special interests along the waterfront.

The photo to the right is of last year’s start (I’m in there somewhere). Swimmers affectionately call these starts the “washing machine” where you contend with the flying hands, arms, legs, feet, and bodies of other swimmers. I just call that good fun! My goal again this year is to swim my age in minutes as part of the Jim Mullen Challenge. This challenge honors the memory of Jim Mullen, who participated in the swim for nine years. Jim set a goal each year to complete the swim in the number of minutes that equaled his age or less. Last year I finished in just over 51 minutes so I need to get a little faster, a little older, or both (and hope for flat calm).

For me the swim is both a personal challenge to motivate me in the long winter months in the pool and a way to demonstrate the importance of the Bay for the state and for the health of all Rhode Islanders.

WE SWIM because we treasure Narragansett Bay and its watershed as a natural resource.

WE SWIM because we believe environmentally sound management of the Bay is important to our way of life and the economy that supports it.

WE SWIM because it is one thing to say you are “for the environment” but quite another to get involved and dramatically demonstrate that clean water is a public health issue.

Since 1977, the Swim has been a tangible reminder that when Save The Bay speaks, it speaks on behalf of people who care about the Bay in extraordinary ways.

Again, please consider making a donation to support this worthy cause!

Iran 2012:  Iraq 2003 All Over Again?

Essentially panelists sought to convince progressives that although sanctions in Iraq led eventually to the disastrous invasion and occupation, this time it will be different. War weariness, a faltering domestic economy, a changed Middle East, and the “one extraordinary difference, unilateralism,” as Senator Reed put it, make it different than 2003. Certainly there are some differences, but I couldn’t help but think the panel should have asked, Iraq 1990 All Over Again? As the Times put it in 2003:

For many people, the sanctions on Iraq were one of the decade’s great crimes, as appalling as Bosnia or Rwanda. Anger at the United States and Britain, the two principal architects of the policy, often ran white hot. Denis J. Halliday, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Iraq for part of the sanctions era, expressed a widely held belief when he said in 1998: ”We are in the process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and terrifying as that.” Even today, Clinton-era American officials ranging from Madeleine K. Albright, the former secretary of state, and James P. Rubin, State Department spokesman under Albright, to Nancy E. Soderberg, then with the National Security Council, speak with anger and bitterness over the fervor of the anti-sanctions camp. As Soderberg put it to me, ”I could not give a speech anywhere in the U.S. without someone getting up and accusing me of being responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children.”

I asked exactly that question when given the chance. I traveled a bit in the Middle East in the 90s and was approached by an Iraqi who begged me to tell people back home the effect the sanctions were having on Iraqi civilians. “You’re killing the children and old people,” he said with the hope that if Americans only knew we’d stop. That’s a difference now too. Americans can no longer claim to be unsure or blissfully ignorant. We now know the effect these sanctions will have on the civilian population.

As Madeline Albright said it, “this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.” Heather Hurlburt, a speechwriter for Albright, similarly defended the calculus of the collective punishment of civilians as preferable to war. But these rationalizations conveniently omit the effect the sanctions and the Clinton administration’s eventual signing of the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 had in laying the groundwork for the Bush invasion. By 2003 the die was cast, and progressives could do little to stop it. The question now, will we do it all over again? Just don’t say you couldn’t have known.