Progressive News, Opinion, and Analysis
45 minutes of the June 2 RI House debate on a minimum wage bill compressed into less than 5 minutes. Rep. Pat Morgan, a Coventry Republican, suggested making two minimum wages – and used statistics of unemployed people of color to justify the idea. This didn’t go over well with reps. Joe Almeida and Ray Hull, who are both Black.
In what everyone thought would be a firestorm of debate, the RI House of Representatives unanimously passed the $8.7 billion FY 2016 budget with little to no discussion about many of the articles, including the much contested Medicaid cuts and pension settlement, as well as Governor Raimondo’s so called “job tools.” According to a House spokesperson, this is the fastest that the budget has gone through in nearly three decades.
The only budget articles that were seriously debated on the floor were numbers 11, which concerned taxes and revenues; and 18, which provided the funding to HealthSource RI, Rhode Island’s Affordable Care Act state exchange. There were two article introductions during the debate, one concerning the funding for the Rhode Island Public Transit Authority (RIPTA), and one simply to renumber the articles in the bill after its introduction. Representative Patricia Morgan (R-District 26), was going to introduce an article to fund bridge repairs, but recognized that she did not have the support to pass it.
Although discussion was sparse on the floor, Rep. Morgan was one of the few members who continually sparked debate, particularly over article 11, which had the longest discussion out of all of the sections voted upon. Amendments had already been proposed to the article, but had been struck down. Morgan proposed two amendments herself, the first of which would promote lean government standards for the state, and according to her, dramatically decrease costs for running state government.
“Many states at this point, have already started lean government initiatives, and it has given them a lot of fruit,” she said. “There are incredible efficiencies that have resulted from lean government.
Morgan planned to pay for the new service by taking $500,000 from the Newport Grand Casino and putting it towards creating a lean government initiative, which Governor Raimondo has already stated she supports. Her reasoning? That the casino was not in dire need of the funds.
“Last year, the new owner proposed $40 million for remodeling,” Morgan said. “If he has $40 million for that, I guess he can give up $500,000.”
The amendment saw staunch opposition, especially because, according to several representatives, 60 percent of the casino’s money goes directly back into the state.
“Just because Newport Grand may be part of corporate America, we are here to help businesses thrive in our economy,” Representative Dennis Canario (D-District 71) said.
“To take $500,000 out of Newport Grand would jeopardize the integrity of that business,” House Majority Leader John DeSimone (D-District 5), argued.
Although Morgan’s first amendment failed 71-4, she brought up another amendment immediately after that tried to use the same funds from Newport Grand to pay for a 38 Studios investigation.
“The people of this state deserve to know how it happened, why it happened, who did it, and try to keep it from ever happening again,” Morgan said.
Her second amendment did not even get the chance to go up for debate, as it was ruled not germane to the discussion. The ruling was met with cheers from other representatives.
Article 18 funded HealthSource RI, which has been hotly contested over the past few days due to restrictive abortion coverage language. However, Finance Committee Chairman Representative Raymond Gallison (D- District 69) introduced an amendment that would curb such restrictions, and allow access for those who require abortions even if their insurance plan has cited religious exemptions from covering them.
Surprisingly, the amendment passed with no discussion, but the article itself saw debate due to King V. Burwell, the current Supreme Court case determining whether or not states should receive tax subsidies from having their own healthcare exchanges. While some representatives thought that keeping the exchange would make Rhode Island less business friendly, it was upheld in the vote.
What is more striking than what was debated, though, is what was not. Cornerstone legislation in the bill went by without so much as a peep from representatives. Medicaid cuts, the pension settlement, Raimondo’s jobs initiative, professional licensing, all day kindergarten, school construction, and even appropriations of funds from FY 15 are just some of the examples of what saw next to no discussion. Even Gallison’s surprise article that raised RIPTA fares for the elderly and low income to $1, up from no cost at all, saw little debate.
After only three short hours, the budget was unanimously passed, with daylight still shining down on the State House.
“The House of Representatives is very committed to working together on behalf of the citizens of the state of Rhode Island,” Speaker Mattiello said of the speedy voting process. “That the House has worked very collaboratively with the Governor and the Senate President, and that there’s a focus on jobs and the economy. When we put out a pro-jobs budget, pro-economy budget, the members rallied around it and responded appropriately.”
Mattiello also did not rule out the option of a special fall session to handle Governor Raimondo’s proposed toll tax. It is actually very likely, he said.
As for Rep. Morgan, she believes that she was one of the only members of the House who actively stood up for what they believe in on the floor tonight.
“I’ll fight for the people of Rhode Island all day long. I’ll fight for better government in our state,” she said after the meeting. “But, I can’t do it alone. The people need to send me more support.”
“I don’t know why they didn’t speak up,” Morgan added. “There were things that should have been said. There was debate that should have gone on. There are things that are objectionable. I have no idea why people didn’t stand up and fight for the things that they believe in.”
But, even without the support for her amendments, Morgan still voted in favor of the budget because it was, for the most part, in line with her beliefs.
“I voted for the budget because there were a lot of really good Republican proposals in it, that I think will help Rhode Island, and I didn’t want to see them not get support.”
The bill will go to the Senate floor for hearing on Wednesday, where if approved, will become the official FY 16 budget for Rhode Island.
The Rhode Island House Finance Committee met to discuss Representative Patricia Morgan’s bill to eliminate HealthSourceRI, and turn the operations of our health care exchange over to the federal government. All the sponsors of House Bill 5329 are Republicans, including Morgan, Dan Reilly, Antonio Giarusso, Justin Price, and Michael Chippendale.
Normally a bill like this wouldn’t attract much attention. It would be dismissed as a cynical statement against a successful social welfare program by right-wing ideologues. But Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, a nominal Democrat, has several times suggested that HealthSourceRI is too expensive and that turning the exchange over to the federal government, something that no state has ever done, might be an option.
As Rep. Morgan explained her bill and her reasoning for it, she alluded to the Speaker’s interest, suggesting that the elimination of HealthSource RI might free up money for Mattiello’s pet project of eliminating the state’s social security income tax. Morgan also mentioned that her bill might find the money required to pay for all day kindergarten, a pet project of Senate President Paiva-Weed, perhaps foreshadowing the compromise that will will see both pet projects come to fruition.
As I mentioned, no state with a functioning, successful state-run health care exchange has shut theirs down. So Rhode Island, in choosing such a path, would be charting unknown and uncertain waters. When Rep Deborah Ruggiero asked Morgan, “What is the cost to the state to return [the health exchange] back to the government?” Rep Morgan seemed uncertain, then replied, “Nothing.”
Ruggiero countered that in her discussion with HealthSourceRI director Anya Rader Wallack, the cost to the state to turn over the exchange is actually “somewhere around $10 million.” In addition, said Ruggiero, “we lose control, obviously, because we no longer have the healthcare exchange in our own state,” a point to which Morgan later replied, “Control is overrated.”
Morgan was also unsure of just how many Rhode Islanders benefit from the exchange, claiming that, “on the website it says that 25,000 are actually paying for their insurance through HealthSourceRI,” but when I looked, the number is actually over 30,000.
Right now, the United States Supreme Court is in the middle of deciding King v. Burwell. If the court decides for King, federal subsidies to those states that don’t have their own health insurance exchanges will vanish. According to US News and World Reports, “The likely scenario is a partial or total market “death spiral” like those, respectively, in New York and Kentucky in the 1990s.” Jumping to the federal exchange now seems pretty stupid in light of the uncertainty regarding the Supreme Court decision, but Morgan isn’t concerned.
“In addressing that, I can tell you that the Obama administration is very confident that they will prevail,” said Morgan, “They have four justices already, they only need one more, to win.” That’s pretty weak sauce, since the other side could say exactly the same thing.
Morgan then went the full Scalia when she said, “On the other hand, if King prevails, and the subsidies are only available to the states, I know from reading, and hearing, that the Republicans in Congress are already working on a fix so that people can continue to get health insurance.”
I have to say, when Morgan made this comment, I looked around the room, wondering if anyone else thought her statement was as darkly comic as I thought it was. No one seemed to.
Compare Morgan’s statement with this exchange in the Supreme Court when oral arguments were heard in :
Justice Scalia: What about – – what about Congress? You really think Congress is just going to sit there while – – while all of these disastrous consequences ensue. I mean, how often have we come out with a decision such as the – – you know, the bankruptcy court decision? Congress adjusts, enacts a statute that – – that takes care of the problem. It happens all the time. Why is that not going to happen here?
General Verrilli: Well, this Congress, Your Honor, I – – I – –
(Laughter.)
At least people had the decency to laugh out loud at Scalia’s naiveté. Morgan was actually taken seriously.
Meanwhile, House Finance Chair, Raymond Gallison, promises that there will be full hearings along with full fact finding inquiries conducted before any decision is made on the future of HealthSourceRI.
Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello has been making statements demonstrating his support for “dynamic analysis,” (also known as “dynamic scoring“) a fiscally irresponsible and economically discredited accounting trick supported nationally by congressional Republicans that amounts to little more than rebranded trickle-down economics.
At Saturday’s 2015 Small Business Summit, held at Bryant University, Mattiello defended the $20 million tax break on social security income he’s proposed as a short term economic hit for long term economic gain.
“What I’ve been saying lately,” says Mattiello in the clip below, “is that everything we look at in state government, we look at the wrong way. We look at it from a very static point of view. ‘What is it going to cost us?’ ‘Oh, this year it’s going to cost us $20 million so forget it, we’re not going to do it. If we don’t have room in the budget to do it we’ll kick that issue out. Well, we have a structural deficit in Rhode Island, folks, so under that analysis we’re never going to do anything in Rhode Island to make our economy better. Sometimes you have to prioritize and you have to do what the economy needs to do to move forward.”
Then, in today’s GoLocalProv, Mattiello said, “I know that keeping people in Rhode Island, with more discretionary income in their pockets, will be a significant long-term gain for our economy. This initiative comes with a short-term cost in our state budget. But, we need to start using a more dynamic analysis that takes into consideration long-term benefits, instead of a static analysis that only looks at how much things cost.”
Mattiello has invested a lot of political capital to pass his signature tax break. And to make these tax breaks work, he’s going to cut the state budget accordingly. The cuts are most likely to be in the areas of social services, which the Speaker has repeatedly signaled his willingness to cut. But in order to pass his tax break, the Speaker needs an economic analysis friendly to his idea. Conventional, or what is known as static analysis, does not look kindly on Mattiello’s idea, but dynamic analysis does.
The economic analysis Mattiello wants to use here in Rhode Island is the same as what is being proposed nationally by the Republicans now in control of Congress, and it’s scarily reminiscent of the policies Kansas Governor Sam Brownback instituted in 2012 that eviscerated the economy of that state.
Congressman Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Congresswoman Louise Slaughter of New York penned a piece criticizing dynamic analysis, writing that Republicans “are rigging the rules in favor of windfall tax breaks to the very wealthy and big corporations who can hire high-priced, well-funded lobbyists—once again choosing to leave behind working families. Their plan would further distort the nation’s fiscal outlook by applying this scoring model only to tax cuts—not the economic impact of investments in education, healthcare, infrastructure, and other areas. That means that the value of tax cuts to the economy would be exaggerated, and the value of investments in the middle class would be undercut.”
Shaun Donovan, Director of the Office of Management and Budget at the White House, outlines three reasons why dynamic analysis is little more than a ruse and it’s worth quoting from at length.
First, dynamic scoring requires CBO and JCT to make assumptions in areas with unusually great uncertainty. While all budget estimates are uncertain, there is substantially more disagreement among economists and experts about how policy changes affect the macroeconomy than about most other scoring issues. This helps explain why estimates from different CBO models of the long-run growth effects of a 10 percent tax cut differed by a factor of 15 – and ranged from positive to negative – when dynamic scoring was used.
“Second, and more fundamentally, dynamic scoring would require CBO and JCT to make assumptions about policies that go beyond the scope of the legislation itself. For example, when a tax cut or spending increase is deficit financed, its long-term effect on the economy depends heavily on how and when its costs are ultimately recouped – whether through higher taxes or lower spending, and after how large an increase in debt. When the legislation itself is silent on these questions, Congressional scorekeepers would have to make an assumption – potentially putting scorekeepers in the game, rather than just referees. Moreover, in standard models, these assumptions are often the difference between a positive or negative effect on the economy.
“Finally, dynamic scoring can create a bias favoring tax cuts over investments in infrastructure, education, and other priorities. While the House rule would require dynamic scoring for legislation making large changes in revenues and/or mandatory spending, and makes it permissible at the option of leadership for any such legislation (even if modest), it would not apply to discretionary spending, ignoring potential growth effects of investments in research, education, and infrastructure. More insidious, economic models that find large growth effects of tax cuts are often based on the assumption that they would be paid for entirely through reduced spending – without taking into account at all the economic consequences the reduction in government investment.”
Speaker Mattiello seems intent on implementing the kind of economic policy here in Rhode Island that has long benefited the rich and connected over the middle class and the poor. These policies have led to massive wealth acquisition by the very few amid crushing poverty for many. In doing so Mattiello has aligned himself with the Republican Party and against the Democratic Party of which he claims to be a member.
Update, Jan 8: In response to our request House spokesperson Larry Berman sent the following reply:
Speaker Mattiello, “means that if we alleviate poverty, there will be not need for a safety net. He wants to improve the economy and get people working to eradicate poverty.”
Speaker Nicholas Mattiello established himself as a cartoon super villain at the 7th annual Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty Vigil when he told an assembled crowd of faith leaders and poverty advocates that when it comes to ending poverty, job creation and appropriate funding of the social safety net are important, but, “the focus has to be on eradicating the safety net and not bolstering the safety net.”
It’s obvious that the Speaker is no longer pretending to be a Democrat. You can hear the entirety of Mattiello’s short speech below.
“I should emphasize that being an atheist would neither recommend nor disqualify [Jorge Elorza] from being Mayor of Providence,” said Bishop Thomas Tobin in a surprising, recent Facebook post, but before celebrating Tobin’s tolerance and openness, we should read on, “But I wonder if an atheist mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of believers (of all faiths) and to encourage and support the many contributions the faith community makes in our city and state.”
Thus, Tobin slyly implies that atheists are intolerant.
Put aside, for a moment, the idea that atheists may be more or less intolerant than a conservative, Republican, Catholic Bishop and ponder a moment what Tobin’s words would sound like if he were talking about group of people other than atheists.
“But I wonder if a Jewish mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of Christians (of all denominations) and to encourage and support the many contributions the Christian community makes in our city and state.”
“But I wonder if an Asian mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of citizens (of all races) and to encourage and support the many contributions non-Asian communities make in our city and state.”
“But I wonder if a woman mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of men and to encourage and support the many contributions men make in our city and state.”
“But I wonder if a Catholic mayor would be in a position to respect the sincere convictions of Protestants and to encourage and support the many contributions Protestants make in our city and state.”
A candidate’s religious convictions (or lack thereof) are not relevant to their fitness for office, unless those beliefs run contrary to the Constitution of the United States. Article VI, paragraph 3 of the Constitution reads, “The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.”
If your religious beliefs run counter to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, and you attempt to act on those beliefs in your official capacity as an elected official or judge, then you are unfit for office. Unless one has good reason to suspect that a candidate will not uphold the Constitution, questioning their fitness for office on the basis of religious belief or unbelief is bigotry, pure and simple.
I take a pretty dim view of the way most of RI’s political commentators describe the situation at the General Assembly. On the left, you tend to hear the argument that conservatives within the Democrats have at least veto power over the Democratic agenda (and often it’s claimed conservatives control the GA) and these conservatives need to be overthrown. On the right, you’ll hear the argument that X number of years of ultra-liberal rule have doomed this state. Both of these narratives are simplistic and wrong.
The problem is both of these arguments rely on nothing more than feelings. That’s mainly because we lack any sort of data at all when it comes to the political positioning of state legislatures.
Luckily for us, political science professors Boris Shor and Nolan McCarty have not only addressed this lack of data, but they’ve made it free for anyone with a spreadsheet program (which is literally anyone with a computer) to use. The caveat is that it only runs from 1993 to 2011, and not all of it is complete. It also measures the median legislator.
So where does the RI General Assembly fall in this data? Well, first draw a vertical number line where -2 is far left and 2 is far right. Keep that in mind when you examine the graph below:
The Republicans turned right from 2008 to 2011. This seems to be because the 2008 elections knocked out some Republicans, and the 2010 elections brought more right wing candidates into the fold. But the interesting part about this graph is that while the Senate Democrats went more left following 2008, the House Democrats turned right.
The other thing this graph points out is that among state legislatures, the Republican Party in the RI General Assembly is essentially dead center. Meanwhile the Democrats are center-left. Among other things, this points out the Moderate Party was always going to be a waste of time. RI’s general assembly isn’t being pulled between two poles of left and right, but between center and center-left.
Now, before everyone leaps to the comments to proclaim how stupid liberals are, let’s pause a moment and compare the caucuses to their counterparts in other states. We have two options here. We can use the most recent data that Shor and McCarty provide – which ranges from 2006 to 2011 depending on the state OR we can use 2006 across the board, which is where we have complete data for all legislatures. I’ll use both, and you can decide which you prefer. Note that Nebraska has no House of Representatives, and Pennsylvania’s most recent data is missing its Senate.
For the most recent data:
For the 2006 data:
So what does that tell us? Well, that among Democratic state caucuses, RI Democrats sit in the right wing. Certainly, among Northeastern Democrats, RI Democrats are noticeably right wing. However, they’re still left of center. It’s because of the GA’s Republican caucuses that RI’s legislature (among all members) is one of the most centrist and least polarized legislatures in the country. I know I’m out on a limb here, but this is what the data’s demonstrating.
This is a state of affairs that disappoints both left and right and wins no accolades from anyone. Activists on both sides will call for their leaders to move towards the wings, and they’re likely to be successful in doing so.
Let’s jump track and look at the findings of Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett in The Spirit Level, which found that while Vermont and New Hampshire pursued two very different agendas (one on the left and the other on the right), they’ve arrived at roughly the same outcomes for their people. That’s ultimately what the General Assembly is judged on: the outcomes of the state. And I know people will dislike this, but some of it is simply beyond our control. Republicans in RI were lucky enough to preside over a period of industrialization, cheap labor, and prosperity from the mid 1800s to the early 1900s. Democrats in RI were lucky enough to preside over the broadening of that prosperity and the deepening of that industrialization, and unfortunate enough to preside over its collapse as well.
A lot of that wasn’t because of government policy, but because of events and technological advances no one would’ve foreseen. How a government creates or fosters broad prosperity is less important than that it does so. And it could very well be its own centrism that’s hamstringing the General Assembly from taking any action of importance for the economy.
Luis A. Vargas, the new Director of Strategic Initiatives for the RI GOP has been tasked with “spearheading” the new initiative, “‘Oportunidad para Todos,’ aimed at reaching out to Rhode Island’s Hispanic population.”
It is difficult for the GOP to make significant inroads with the Hispanic population, as the conservative, anti-immigration policies mostly favored by that party tend to alienate potential voters. So what can a young, conservative pre-law Roger Williams University student highlight about the Republican Party that might appeal to Hispanic voters?
Religion, of course.
This seems like a good bet, because the GOP has benefited in the past from the crass exploitation of religious values, courting voters on divisive social issues such as reproductive and LGBTQ rights even as they ignore the deeper issues of economic and political injustice. Part of this strategy has always involved denying certain historical truths about United States history, one of the biggest being:
This was in response to the Humanists of Rhode Island’s announcement of the Day of Reason. Think about this for a moment. This guy wants to be a lawyer, but he does not understand one of the essential building blocks upon which our country was founded. As legal scholar Garret Epps wrote in the Atlantic:
The words “separation of church and state” are not in the text; the idea of separation is. Article VI provides that all state and federal officials “shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.” The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause… provides that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”–meaning that not only no church but no “religion” could be made the official faith of the United States. Finally the Free Exercise Clause provides that Congress shall not make laws “prohibiting the free exercise” of religion. (These prohibitions were extended to state governments by the Fourteenth Amendment, whose framers in 1866 wanted to make sure that the states maintained free, democratic systems instead of the old antebellum slave oligarchies that spawned the Civil War.)
More insultingly, Vargas goes to a University that is named for the man who first coined the phrase! More from Epps:
In 1644, the American theologian Roger Williams, founder of the first Baptist congregation in the British New World, coined the phrase to signify the protection that the church needed in order to prevent misuse and corruption by political leaders: “The church of the Jews under the Old Testament in the type and the church of the Christians under the New Testament in the antitype were both separate from the world; and when they have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the candlestick, and made his garden a wilderness.”
As to Vargas’s second contention, that “our government isn’t secular,” that’s equally ridiculous. If our nation isn’t secular, then it must be religious. If it is religious, then what religion is it? No fair saying “Christian” because Christianity isn’t a religion, it’s a label for a set containing many different beliefs all of which are considered to be inspired by Jesus. This set includes Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, Evangelicals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Congregationalists and many more, perhaps too numerous to count.
The reason all these contesting Christianities can get along (and get along with members of other religions and yes, get along with those of us who have no religion) is that we live in a country that grants no favor to one form of religion at the expense of another. All these different forms of belief and non-belief exist within a secular framework, our government.
If, as Vargas maintains, our government is not truly secular, then it is malfunctioning. That’s where groups like the Humanists of Rhode Island and the ACLU come in. We fight for freedom of conscience, religious liberty, and a secular world in which all are free to believe as their conscience dictates.
This is not the end of Vargas’s foolish pronouncements. He also denies that our country is a democracy, preferring to call it a Constitutional Republic instead. Of course, the word democracy is not in conflict with the ideas of a Constitution or a Republic, but Vargas doesn’t care about things like facts. When pressed, Vargas presents a strict definition of democracy as “one person one vote” and makes up a brand new term to describe our government. We are not a democracy, we are “an accommodating republic.”
Got it. If you can’t win on the merits try to blind ’em with bullshit.
It’s often said that you’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts. Hopefully, as Vargas continues his education, he’ll gather more facts and revise his opinions.
One final point:
Pandering to religion isn’t the sure bet it once was. A new Pew Poll reveals that 18% of Hispanics are religiously unaffiliated. The Catholic Church is hemorrhaging Hispanic numbers at a rate that suggests that in the very near future most Hispanics will not be Catholic, even if most Catholics are Hispanic. In light of such polls the GOP might think about crafting policies that benefit potential voters rather than pander to their religious biases, but I wouldn’t count on that happening. It’s much easier to hire someone like Luis Vargas, who wears his religious bigotry on his sleeve as he tweets out such beauties as:
Vargas is obviously a great, forward thinking addition to the RI GOP team.
As more and more Americans accept the obvious reality that economic benefits don’t trickle down, that they’re not part of economic growth and that global warming is both real and expensive, conservatives need to reach further afield to support their losing arguments. Nothing shows this more clearly than the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity’s latest research report.
This time, their trying to gin up anger to the states Renewable Energy Standard and the electricity surcharge that funds it. Like all their reports, it’s a laugh-riot full of skewed findings and childish assumptions.
Nobody has the time to parse every piece of tomfoolery in the report. I just want to touch on their major findings and a couple of other tidbits.
Like all their reports, this is a solution in search of a problem. News flash: renewable energy efforts cost money. Duh. Alternative energy is more expensive than fossil fuels. Duh. Perhaps saving money is not the totality of the point here. Cheap electricity isn’t the solution; it’s the problem.
These boys also need to realize to whom they are in opposition—and it ain’t just pinkos like me. Insurance companies tolerate none of these shenanigans because they are on the hook for global warming-driven weather catastrophes. Securing America’s Future Energy is mostly old-school, big-business and right-wing. Even the US Army recognizes how vulnerable we have made ourselves by insisting on fossil fuels.
RI F&P represent a far-right fringe community that is drifting further and further from even the GOP. One of the tidbits will point this out in all its glaring ugliness.
The first major finding reports that RI’s RES will cost ratepayers $150mm in additional energy costs over the next seven years. They then tie this seemingly giant amount of money to a struggling economy. But that’s just silly when compared with another energy-related cost increase: gasoline.
Because oil prices have exploded over the last decade, Rhode Islanders pay an additional $400mm each year just to get around. (That’s a conservative, back-of-the-envelope estimate; it could be as much as $600mm, depending on household size, driving distance, etc.) Over the same seven year period, this would come to $2.8b—almost 20 times more than the electricity rates. Imagine what that sum of money could do for our beleaguered public transit system.
The only other major finding they offer seems to be a typographical error. They claim that electricity rates will increase an additional 1.85% by 2020. TWO PERCENT! Seriously, either they misplaced the decimal point in that one or they need to look up the definition of the word “major.”
First off, the charts in this piece are distinctly poor. Because they lack clear labels, they don’t deliver much impact. Maybe this is intentional because the underlying data are weak. Or maybe they just glossed over the details. Either way, it’s really unprofessional.
Take a look at Table 6 on page 11. It mixes dollar costs and megawatt hours. Only they don’t bother to tell you which column uses which metric. Something in the chart represents thousands of somethings (000). My guess is it’s thousands of megawatt hours. But that would make the dollar amounts pretty small. Oh, they’re probably per household per year. Again, how can you tell.
More significantly, they make quite a bit out of the idea that states with RES mandates have higher electricity rates. They draw this from a study by the Centennial Institute’s Kelly Sloan. Where to start…
The report seems to imply a causality—that renewable mandates drive electricity rates—but the underlying report only states an apparent correlation. What’s more, even a cursory analysis shows that many other factors likely drive electricity rates.
For example, Sloan’s report has top and bottom 10 lists. The top 10, of which RI is a member, includes seven geographically contiguous, northeastern states stretching from New Jersey to New Hampshire. More importantly, Alaska stands as a glaring honker at number five. Alaska has no renewable mandate and is a major producer of fossil fuels. Clearly, factors other than renewable standards drive electricity rates. So this whole strain of thought is a childish red herring thrown in as if nobody would bother to look at the underlying data.
(For additional laughs, check out the Centennial Institute, a think tank at Colorado Christian University. These are the wacko birds the arch-liberal John McCain talks about. How wacko? Dick Morris and Mike Huckabee are on a poster from their 2013 conference under the heading “Cool Kids.” I mean…right?)
Equally childish, we find the assertion that the shale oil boom in North Dakota will yield lower energy costs. That is, in a word, insanity. The shale boom would never have happened but for the high oil prices that make this kind of extraction profitable. At no time in the future will oil prices decline in a significant way. That is a right wing pipe dream that they really need to get over.
Finally, we see the continued insistence that natural gas represents the ecologically sound and cost effective source of future energy. Disregard the fact that while they were writing this report, natural gas prices doubled. This concept requires the two-dimensional worldview that greenhouse gas emissions associated with natural gas represent the totality of its environmental impact. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Non-traditional gas extraction (aka, fracking) remains the biggest looming threat to the US environment. Most realistic thinkers assume that the absurd rules the gas industry somehow finagled out of the EPA are a legal smokescreen to hide an ugly, ugly reality.
This is almost certainly a case in which what we don’t know will kill us. Because the specifics of this practice remain cloaked in secrecy, environmental activists can only hunt-and-peck to find environmental impacts. But already, anecdotal evidence is showing that major fracking operations have major impacts. If, for example, fracking causes minor earthquakes, how is it plausible that any unrecovered chemicals won’t leech into ground water? Also, what chemicals does this extraction technique use? That might be a nice thing to know.
At some point in the near future, something horrible is going to happen to a community that has taken the money the gas industry offered. At very least, that’s a better bet than lower oil prices.
For all of our sakes, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity should follow their own recommendations in a very real, money-where-your-mouth-is kind of way.
First, sell oil futures short. It’s only a matter of time before the shale glut collapses prices, right? Second, buy coastline real estate…and live there. Global warming is a liberal myth, so there’s no chance that you’ll get swept out to sea in a mega-storm.
That’s the sort of thing that only happens in New York City. And you know what kind of commies they are down there!
Not only did GOP operative Chuck Newton lose his State House job for helping Senator Nick Kettle mock a Democratic colleague with a fake Facebook page, but the move also cost him his position with the East Greenwich Republican Town Committee. He resigned from his position as chairman earlier this week, according to East Greenwich Town Council President Michael Isaacs.
Newton (a former employer of mine) is still listed as the chairman on the group’s webpage.
“Chuck accepted responsibility,” said Isaacs, who has advocated for less anonymous political attacks on the internet. “I think the whole thing, it was almost sophomoric. Unfortunately it’s indicative of the negativity that pervades politics on both sides.”
Senator Dawson Hodgson, a Republican who represents East Greenwich and is running for attorney general, agreed.
“I thought that was appropriate [that Newton be fired] because he created that in his state office on state time and we as a Republican Party stand for wise use of public resources and that is not consistent with how we operate.”
Hodgson said he did not believe a crime was committed. Steve Brown, executive director of the RI ACLU, agreed.
In a letter to Attorney General Peter Kilmartin, Brown wrote, “Indeed, as you are aware, the courts have set a very high standard for public officials to pursue even civil actions against political invective. If the broadsides on this Facebook page constitute unlawful “harassment,” then The Daily Show, the Colbert Report, and dozens of other political web sites engage in criminal activity every day.”
Amy Kempe, spokewoman for Kilmartin, said the Attorney General’s office is still waiting for a complete report from police. “It underscores the loopholes in current statutes,” she said. “We’re trying to add in online impersonation.”
Kempe said the AG’s office will consider stand alone legislation for online impersonation this year instead of bundling it with other provisions.
Rep. Scott Guthrie said he is considering bringing federal charges.
It doesn’t appear as if the Republicans involved in the cyber-smear campaign against Rep. Scott Guthrie have committed a crime when they made a fake Facebook page to lampoon the Coventry Democrat. (Here’s the applicable state law) But it doesn’t seem like they took much effort to ensure the public would know that their gag was in fact a farce.
That’s maybe worse than cyber-harassment. It’s cyber-deception. According to the Providence Journal Attorney General Peter Kilmartin “has tried – and failed – to convince the General Assembly to pass legislation creating a new category of crime for ‘online impersonation.'” According to this TIME post, such activity is against the law in nine states.
Worth noting, though, that Rhode Island holds our public school students to a higher standard than our public officials. Here’s the applicable section from RIDE’s 2012 cyber-bullying policy:
Forms of cyber‐bullying may include but are not limited to: a. The creation of a web page or blog in which the creator assumes the identity of another person; b. The knowing impersonation of another person as the author of posted content or messages; or c. The distribution by electronic means of a communication to more than one person or the posting of materials on an electronic medium that may be accessed by one or more persons, if the creation, impersonation, or distribution results in any of the conditions enumerated in clauses (a) to (e) of the definition of bullying.
So, to recap: not criminal but for reference we expect better conduct from children. And for those who will confuse this as a First Amendment issue, this isn’t the issue:
This is:
The Rhode Island GOP’s new Getting to 25 agenda will likely lead them nowhere with voters. By clinging to their antiquated world views, they have isolated themselves from Rhode Island’s cultural mainstream, which has moved to a place they don’t understand.
The Getting to 25 press release spells it out in plain language. According to House Minority Leader Brian Newberry, “…on the list of good things, we rank at the bottom…” Leaving aside our unenviable unemployment rate, which all Rhode Islanders want to see improve, Mr. Newberry’s definition of “good things” shows how badly disconnected he and his party have become.
According to the RI GOP, good things consist entirely of a pro-business environment (laden as that catchphrase is with anti-environmental, anti-union connotations), low taxes and low taxes. Yes, they list “tax climate” and “per capita tax burden” as separate items.
Meanwhile, the rest of Rhode Island has a very different definition of good things, and it’s almost entirely cultural in nature. Rhode Island, especially the Providence metro area, excels in many cultural factors that young, mobile people find especially compelling.
Modern economic development across the country focuses on attracting and retaining young talent, and young talent cares very little about low taxes. A 2011 Freakonomics review of a Brookings study listed “…affordable housing, a low cost of living, a transportation and bicycle infrastructure, an arts culture, and of course, the prospect of being around other young people” as critical aspects of cities that attract young people. Other factors include ethnic and racial diversity and the cultural dynamic that it drives like the number and diversity of restaurants. Awareness of and action on environmental and social justice issues also ranks high. Finally, young people often seek a place where they can make a positive impact on their community.
Rhode Island ranks well in all these categories, as this story today from the notoriously GOP and anti-everything Providence Business News points out. (I presume…the story is behind their paywall, so I’ll have to take the headline at face value.) I and most people in my social circle know many, many people who consciously chose to move to Providence for just these reasons. In fact, many people in my social circle ARE these people. I wonder how many such people minority leader Newberry knows?
Perhaps no single thing brings together the positive impact of the now-and-future Rhode Island like the wildly successful Wintertime Farmers Market at Hope Artiste Village. (The project manager for that enormous real estate development, by the way, is a transplant now hooked on Rhode Island and a budding community leader.)
The farmers market has been so successful that it expanded this year to use both sides of converted mill. It also opened a Wednesday evening session. The number of both vendors and customers has continued to grow over the years as has the range of foods, products and services available there. It is, in a word, packed.
The point is that RI GOP, in their insistence that all is catastrophe, fails to see that a large portion of the state’s population feels otherwise. Until they can connect with dynamic core of modern Rhode Island, they will continue to languish at the polls.
Well, that didn’t take long.
Apparently, the Republican candidates for governor who promised to stay away from WPRO’s talk shows only were going to keep that pledge as long as John DePetro was off the air; making as principled a stand as they dared during the holiday season when few voters are paying attention. Now that the news has turned back to politics with parole offices and the start of the General Assembly’s 2014 session, and DePetro is back on the air… well… Let’s remember what they promised:
Clearly, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung gave himself far more leeway by only promising to stay off DePetro’s show. Former Moderate Party leader Ken Block issued a firm statement expressing his refusal to appear on WPRO until such time as DePetro ceased to be unemployed.
But that was when the boycott was Big News, DePetro was on indefinite vacation, and everyone was about to shut down for Christmas and New Year’s. Block ended his boycott after 3 weeks and six days. Fung waited the extra day, and then appeared on DePetro’s show (although, maybe you could argue that Fung has so far kept his promise never to appear on “John DiPetro’s” show).
For the Republicans, strategically, joining the boycott never made sense. WPRO is perhaps the beating heart of conservatism in Rhode Island (or at least the rebel yell). If you are trying to win a primary of conservatives, refusing to gain access to that audience is a bad move. Which is why Fung’s restriction of his boycott to merely DePetro’s show was smarter than Block’s decision. For one thing, the boycott has been portrayed as union-driven. Fung walked a fine line between being seen to bend to union interests (a big no-no in a Republican primary) or failing to condemn outright misogyny (something you don’t want to do in a Rhode Island general election). Unfortunately, when it comes down to it, Fung appears to have no qualms about the misogyny.
Now, in my cynical nature, I’d say that plenty of political observers will tell you it’s bad form to break a campaign promise before the election has happened. Usually, politicians like to wait until after elections, when they can talk about mitigating factors like “the facts on the ground” and other such inanity. Frankly, I don’t foresee this having much of an effect on the Republican race. Both candidates broke their promises, both candidates made the promise, and thus they really can’t hit each other with it.
But I think it’s a poor sign of things to come that both Republicans chose to begin the election year by refusing to commit to a principle stand they were perfectly willing to make four weeks before. Both these men are going to make statements to effect that we can’t trust the politicians of the Democratic Party to be in the governor’s office, and the lack of accountability that our political class displays. But both these men have just demonstrated that they’re perfectly willing to break a promise when it suits them. And that’s bad, because the whole purpose of a promise is that you won’t break it when it benefits you. As for accountability, well, it’s a value only when it’s other people being held accountable.
The question now is whether Democratic politicians, who are continuing to join the boycott, will continue to stand for their principles.
P.S. I don’t often say this, but if you’re interested in learning more about the Republican primary for governor, Andrew Morse over the Current-Anchor(?) has pretty good transcripts of their talks with the Cranston Republican City Committee, starting with Fung.
On any given day the editorial page of the Providence Journal is likely running a letter, commentary piece, opinion piece or editorial denying the very real facts regarding the extremely strong science underlying the scientific consensus on climate change. The consensus is clear:
…the Earth’s climate system is unequivocally warming, and it is extremely likely (at least 95% probability) that humans are causing most of it through activities that increase concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as deforestation and burning fossil fuels.
Meanwhile, Anchor Rising, the conservative answer to RI Future, run by frequent Bob Plain TV sparring partner Justin Katz, went gaga over the story of “a global warming expedition to the Antarctic getting frozen in place by pack ice” because a boat stuck in the ice somehow proves global warming isn’t real.
For me, today’s piece in the Providence Journal was the last straw. Steve Goreham, in a piece entitled “Freezing in an era of global warming?” states the following nonsense in the face of all credible science,
The greenhouse effect is a natural effect, and man made influences are small.
It should be noted that Goreham is “executive director of the Climate Science Coalition of America” a right-wing Libertarian think tank and subsidiary of the Heartland Institute, which honed its craft in science denialism by questioning the links between cigarette smoke and cancer.
For an example of the kind of “science” the Heartland Institute promotes, one needs to look no further than last May’s “I still believe in global warming. Do you?” campaign in which pictures of Charles Manson, Fidel Castro and Unabomber Ted Kaczynski were pictured along side the above quote. In a press release the Institute lied, “Scientific, political, and public support for the theory of man-made global warming is collapsing. Most scientists and 60 percent of the general public (in the U.S.) do not believe man-made global warming is a problem… The people who still believe in man-made global warming are mostly on the radical fringe of society. This is why the most prominent advocates of global warming aren’t scientists. They are murderers, tyrants, and madmen.”
So much for reasoned debate.
Steve Goreham wants you to think, as head of a group that calls itself the “Climate Science Coalition of America” that he is himself an expert scientist in this field. He’s got a degree in electrical engineering and an MBA. Trusting him on climate science is like trusting an astrophysicist to do brain surgery. Sure he’s got seemingly impressive credentials, but not in the relevant field.
Chris Mooney went after the elusive reason people don’t believe in science and facts in a Mother Jones piece a couple of years ago. In the “The Science of Why We Don’t Believe Science” Mooney explained that we humans are prone to a number of cognitive biases, and these biases seem to be working overtime on the ProJo editorial page and at Anchor Rising.
In general, we are all beholden to “motivated reasoning” the tendency to come to conclusions before the facts are in, and then search for facts that support our conclusions. Mooney notes the point made by University of Virginia psychologist Jonathan Haidt, that we “may think we’re being scientists, but we’re actually being lawyers.” We are not investigating problems with the tools of science, we are arguing our cases with the rhetoric of lawyers.
Yale Law School professor Dan Kahan has shown, through a large amount of research, that “people rejected the validity of a scientific source because its conclusion contradicted their deeply held views—and thus the relative risks inherent in each scenario.” In other words, if you agree with the findings of a scientist, you will accept his credentials. If you disagree, you will call that scientist’s credentials into questions. That’s why someone who doesn’t believe in evolution will deny the reality of the fossil record. No number of “missing links” and fossilized remains will convince evolution deniers.
Facts are irrelevant.
What does this all mean to Rhode Island? As the “Ocean State” we face truly catastrophic climate change consequences. As Greg Gerritt said here on RI Future, “The sea is coming. The issue is not how long can we hold it back for the benefit of home owners, it is how do we adapt to rising sea levels and the slow disintegration of our economy as the climate creates disaster after disaster.”
The forces in Rhode Island that deny the facts of science change will not change their tune until the idea is reframed. Mooney provides a possible road map in the last paragraph of his piece:
Conservatives are more likely to embrace climate science if it comes to them via a business or religious leader, who can set the issue in the context of different values than those from which environmentalists or scientists often argue. Doing so is, effectively, to signal a détente in what Kahan has called a “culture war of fact.” In other words, paradoxically, you don’t lead with the facts in order to convince. You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.
Then again, 200 evangelical leader wrote a letter to congress last year “urging for climate change legislation to be passed on religious grounds” and Representative Michele Bachman responded by calling climate change “all voodoo, nonsense, hokum.” Pope Francis seems inclined to support the science, but conservative Catholics seem as unfazed by this as they are by his economic pronouncements.
Ultimately it is up to our political leaders here in Rhode Island to start taking this issue seriously, and it is our responsibility as citizens to hold them to this path. We talk about our responsibility to future generations, but unless we are willing to seriously come to grips with the reality of Climate Change, we will have failed them.
In an almost direct rebuke to critics, including Rhode Island’s own Bishop Thomas Tobin, leader of the Providence Diocese, Pope Francis, in his first extensive interview since being elected to the head of the Roman Catholic Church, has said,
We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time.
Note that just about a week ago Bishop Tobin said, in an interview in the Rhode island Catholic, the diocesan newspaper Tobin controls,
I’m a little bit disappointed in Pope Francis that he hasn’t, at least that I’m aware of, said much about unborn children, about abortion, and many people have noticed that. I think it would be very helpful if Pope Francis would address more directly the evil of abortion and to encourage those who are involved in the pro-life movement.
In covering the story the New York Times directly contrasted the Pope’s words with the Bishop’s, placing the Bishop clearly in the “church’s theological or political right wing.” The Pope insists that he was never a “right-winger” saying,
My authoritarian and quick manner of making decisions led me to have serious problems and to be accused of being ultraconservative. I lived a time of great interior crisis when I was in Cordova. To be sure, I have never been like Blessed Imelda [a goody-goody], but I have never been a right-winger. It was my authoritarian way of making decisions that created problems.
In Rhode Island the Tea Party, conservative Republicans and DINOs have a distinctly Catholic flavor and many, including the odious radio show host John DePetro, the barely literate Travis Rawley and the frankly embarrassing Representative Doreen Costa attempt to use their Catholic faith a weapon with which to promote their divisive and mean-spirited political agenda, inspired in part by Bishop Tobin’s longstanding support culminating in his recent and public alignment with the Republican Party.
I suspect that under the present Pope “ultraconservative” “right-wingers” will find it more and more difficult to justify their compassionless views in theological terms, and will be forced to confront issues such as economic inequality, poverty, gun violence, immigration and even abortion and LGBTQ rights through the lens of a church that forswears the evils of unbridled capitalism and Randian Objectivism and embraces nonjudgmental compassion and peace.
This is a Pope who speaks of a church that “is poor and for the poor” and who says “one cannot speak of poverty if one does not experience poverty, with a direct connection to the places in which there is poverty.” These are powerful words that even a godless, progressive, secular humanist atheist like myself can respond to favorably.
Bishop Tobin is taking some heat in the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) for his recent criticisms of Pope Francis. In a longish question and answer piece for Rhode Island Catholic, Tobin said,
The other thing I want to say though, is that I’m a little bit disappointed in Pope Francis that he hasn’t, at least that I’m aware of, said much about unborn children, about abortion, and many people have noticed that. I think it would be very helpful if Pope Francis would address more directly the evil of abortion and to encourage those who are involved in the pro-life movement. It’s one thing for him to reach out and embrace and kiss little children and infants as he has on many occasions. It strikes me that it would also be wonderful if in a spiritual way he would reach out and embrace and kiss unborn children.
This lead NCR reporter Michael Sean Winters to declare Tobin “very brave or very reckless.” Winters writes,
What I could not have imagined is that a bishop would voice such a criticism, not think better about it, and let the thing be published in his own diocesan newspaper.
Tobin, says Winters, “remains stuck in the tired and boring culture wars.”
Certainly the Pope’s reiteration of his view that even Godless atheists who follow their conscience may see salvation flies in the face of Tobin’s consistent equating of atheism with a lack of morality. Suddenly Tobin’s Tea Party Republicanism brand of Catholicism is on the outs in the Catholic hierarchy, revealing him as an irrelevant cultural reactionary.
Winters puts it better when he says:
What the pope has not done is speak in such a way that he is easily turned into a divisive figure in the culture wars, his message exploited for political purposes, the Creed he proclaims reduced first to ethics, then to legalisms, and finally to a political program. He is challenging us all when he speaks about human dignity. The fact that Bishop Tobin does not see this speaks to his own limitations, not to the Holy Father’s.
Senator Lindsey Graham recently said that without immigration reform the Republican Party would be in a “demographic death spiral.” Unfortunately for the Republican Party, even if the House of Representatives manages to pass a similar immigration bill as the Senate did, Republicans are unlikely to win over Hispanics, particularly young Hispanics who make up the future of the Latino vote and are the largest segment of the voter-eligible Latino population.
Although 55% of Latinos report that immigration is the most important issue facing the Hispanic community, once immigration reform is passed, Latino voters will have to choose their candidates based on other issues and given where they fall on the vast array of social and economic policy issues, Latinos are unlikely to vote for the current Republican lineup anytime soon.
Let’s look at where Latinos stand on the issues. We’ll start with social issues since that is often the place where Republicans claim they will resonate with Latino voters. Indeed, Latinos are more religious than the population at large and are more likely to be members of socially conservative denominations (approximately 68% identify themselves as Roman Catholics and 15% say they are evangelical Protestants). However, even given this fact, the numbers don’t look good for Republicans:
However, Latinos overwhelmingly say that it is not these “moral” issues that they care about. In 2011, 75% of Latinos polled said that politicians should be focusing on economic issues such as jobs, taxes, and the minimum wage. So let’s look at where they stand on the size of government and economic issues. Again, the picture is not good for Republicans.
Although 43% of Latinos say they would be more open to voting for a Republican if “they take a leadership role” in passing immigration reform, only 14% of Latinos say they identify with the Republican Party. Given where the Latino electorate appears to fall on other salient issues, this number is unlikely to change anytime soon, even if immigration reform manages to get through the political labyrinth of Congress.
The debate continues here in Rhode Island. How do we repair our sluggish economy and begin the process of putting our citizens back to work? How do we collectively regain the vibrant economy which at one time was the pride of New England? There is no shortage of ideas, strategies and recommendations coming from elected officials, community leaders, and so called “non-partisan think tanks”.
Recently an organization by the name of The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity released what they call a “prosperity agenda” made up of 12 recommendations the report highlights what this particular organization feels are key policy adjustments which will benefit our State and help to turn our economy around.
The Center is funded, in part, by the State Policy Network, which gave it $122,000 in 2011, according to The American Prospect and has several ties to ALEC, the shadowy right-wing bill mill that quickly became very unpopular in Rhode Island politics last year. SPN is closely associated with ALEC. A recent article in The Nation described SPN-funded groups as being:
“…media-savvy organizations—which frequently employ former journalists to churn out position papers, news articles, investigations and social media content with a hard-right slant—bolster the pro-corporate lobbying efforts of the American Legislative Exchange Council. Like ALEC, State Policy Network groups provide an ideological veil for big businesses seeking to advance radical deregulatory policy goals.”
Funded by big business, groups like The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity are lobbying private sector workers to turn on their public sector counterparts. The unstated goal is to frame public servants as the enemy to a thriving economy. As such, the Center’s policy recommendations deserve a closer look and over the next couple days I will examine some of them here.
Behind all the websites, policy studies, press events and acronyms lies a common theme: take; take away bargaining rights, take away retirement security, take away good affordable healthcare, take away work place rules (in place to protect workers), take away jobs, take away decent wages, take away the voice of the worker. Is this the way forward for our state? When did decent wages, affordable healthcare and a secure retirement become a “cost item we simply can no longer afford?”
Mike McDonald
President Local 528, Council 94, AFSCME
Congrats, Lil’ Rhodey! Remaining true to the uniqueness of this state that I have found so endearing, Rhode Island made history BEFORE voting on same-sex marriage.
The Rhode Island Senate Republican caucus announced its support for a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage, becoming the first legislative caucus in the nation to unanimously back marriage equality.
The President of HRC referred to this as a “game changer,” noting that issues of equality are gaining bipartisan support as time marches on.
Rhode Island has a higher percentage of LGBT adults than all but two states that have legalized same-sex marriage, according to a 2012 Gallup survey. At 4.5%, the state ranked No. 5, overall, but above the national average of 3.5%.
However, this will not only change the lives of LGBT constituents; this is bound to improve the quality of life for children of LGBT couples, and have a vast “ripple effect”
A common rhetorical technique within the Tea Party right is to wrap their personal opinions in those of the Founders, lending an air of gravitas and implying that those revolutionaries would, in modern days, hold opinions identical to their own.
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.
