Here’s a list of the 19 cities and towns that are considering raising taxes in next year’s budget, according to a great article by Dan McGowan, of GoLocal: Bristol, Charlestown, Cumberland, East Greenwich, Hopkinton, Jamestown, Little Compton, Middletown, Narragansett, New Shoreham, Newport, North Kingstown, North Smithfield, Portsmouth, Richmond, Smithfield, Tiverton, Westerly and Woonsocket.
He quotes conservative mayor Dan McKee of Cumberland as putting the blame squarely on the shoulders of former Gov. Don Carcieri: “The former Governor claimed he needed to cut funding to teach cities and towns a lesson,” McKee told McGowan. “His assumptions were not grounded in fact.”
At least if URI professors would have gotten their raises, tuition hikes would pay for something. With salaries now effectively frozen, tuition increases will pay only for the state to not fund state schools. It’s all part of a growing trend to make the University of Rhode Island into the University in Rhode Island.
Almost three months to the day, the Catholic church is closing a day shelter that Occupy Providence won in negotiations with the city in exchange for ending its encampment in Burnside Park. Occupy Providence agreed to leave the park if the city ran a day shelter for the homeless for at least three months.
The question now is whether Gov. Chafee will appeal the Jason Pleau decision to the US Supreme Court. He has 90 days to decide. In the meantime, “it is wrong for the federal government to impose on our state a policy that Rhode Island eliminated more than a century and a half ago,” said Steve Brown of the RI ACLU. “The ACLU and other groups opposed to the death penalty will continue to urge that the federal government drop any plans to proceed with a death penalty case against Pleau, who has already agreed to serve a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.”
Ted Nesi reports that Anthony Gemma will soon be holding a press conference to introduce new staffers … still no word on whether or not Gemma knows what a press conference is or how one is supposed to work.
Don’t tell the local media this, or our shared cultural understanding of this state, but the mafia in Rhode Island is no longer all that influential.
Meanwhile corporate America made a record $824 billion last year as pretty much the rest of the country floundered further into debt.
Congrats to Susan Lusi, the interim superintendent who was just named the permanent head of the Providence school system.
“The former Governor claimed he needed to cut funding to teach cities and towns a lesson,” McKee told McGowan. “His assumptions were not grounded in fact.”
The only assumption he made that was wrong is that the cities and towns would actually make the cuts needed to live within their means. Instead they search for more revenue sources and raise taxes. As far as teaching anyone a lesson? I guess the cities and towns failed the test.
I like Dan McKee, I live in Cumberland and he’s a fairly moderate Democrat. But here, he’s playing the partisan card as well as anyone. To blame Carcieri for the cuts is silly. Want proof? Where’s Chafee’s 1% tax increase?
If the Governor has such power to enact whatever he wants, as the far left will have us believe that Carcieri was able to do, then why don’t we have Chafee’s 1% sales tax increase? Can’t really answer that one, eh?
No, Carcieri recommended it but it was Gordon Fox and Steven Constantino and Teresa Paiva Weed, all heroes of the far left that passed this. If you want to point the blame finger, that’s the place to start.
It’s a harsh reality, but it is the truth.
Dan McKee, Teresa Paiva-Weed, Gordon Fox and Steve Constantino are not the far left or heroes to the left. That’s simply not true. Furthermore, Carcieri himself will tell you that leaders have to stand behind their own initiatives, and cuts to cities and towns was his initiative.
I’m not giving Carcieri a pass on this initiative but Patrick is right, he had a lot of support so maybe it was just the right thing to do. You on the other hand want to give the cities and towns a pass for not doing enough to live within their means. How many consecutive property tax increases were there before the cuts in aid? Too many! So apparently state aid was just feeding the beast. One of the issues that surfaced in Central Falls and Woonsocket was that they were living off state and federal money while suppressing their tax increases. Now that they’ve been cut off (almost), they’re either in bankruptcy or drowning under huge deficits. Carceiri was a businessman and true to form, when revenues are down he made cuts. Chafee and McKee are politicians and true to form, when revenues are down they raise taxes. Everyone wants to blame Carcieri but he lived up to his billing as a businessman because that’s what they do. He has nothing to apologize for as the cities and towns chose their own course.
And I don’t even like the guy.
Doesn’t it reflect poorly on a businessman when his business implodes after he spent eight years running it?
Isn’t that comment cute. What exactly imploded? The state is still here and the budget was balanced. Where is the implosion you speak of?
This is all Governor William Jones’s fault for repealing the rum tax in 1815. In today’s dollars, the revenue generated would be over $40 million! Damn Federalist Party – Rhode Island never had a chance!
Yes, who can blame Republican governors for the immediate aftermath of their own failed policies? Who can even remember all that way back?
What failed policies? Can you be more specific? The guy wasn’t very likeable but what policies were a failure?
Here we’re talking about the policy of cuts in state aid to cities and towns, poorly timed at best and at worst an unmitigated disaster with cities and town now teetering on bankruptcy. We’ve discussed elsewhere the policy of tax cuts for the wealthiest as a vehicle for job creation, also a clear failure from the lofty goals of the rhetoric.
Carcieri’s responsibility was to state government in a financial crisis. He made cuts to state jobs and aid to cities and towns. How else does he reign in the budget? As for the tax cuts, everyone wanted to give Obama’s stimulus plan more time after only two years but no one here wants to afford the Carcieri’s plan the same courtesy. Even Gordon Fox said as much.
That strikes me as like balancing the household budget by eliminating the money allocated to feeding the kids. Problem solved, right?
Too soon? Okay. On what date are the state’s problems no longer due to Carcieri? Or is that just it – he sabotaged the state economy for all time and it will never again be able to reach its original glowing potential?
And on a separate but similar issue, on what date can we declare that the Obama stimulus didn’t work? We’ve already blown past all of the administration’s originally projected recovery time periods. I’m still being told by progressives that it’s too soon to tell - so how many decades should I put it down for? 1? 2?
“On what date are the state’s problems no longer due to Carcieri?”
Well, if those policies weren’t still law I might be inclined to say he’s off the hook. And, yes, as pointed out above the GA deserves their share of the blame.
“…on what date can we declare that the Obama stimulus didn’t work?”
No objection from me there. Declare away. Granted, we probably disagree on why the stimulus didn’t work. Not to mention that the stimulus began under the Bush administration (another thing some would like us to forget).