center for freedom and prosperity

September 12, 2016

Gaspee gasps for breath in attempt to attack Tanzi

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

In Bob Plain’s recent post, Stenhouse attacks Tanzi and Fogarty with mailers, we learned that the CEO of Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity is using his tax-exempt, social welfare organization, The Gaspee Project, to send out literature warning House District 34 voters against the dangers of voting for Democratic Representative Teresa Tanzi. As there is no Republican candidate on the ballot in November, the anti-Tanzi lit-piece calls on people to vote instead for Democratic primary opponent Ewa Dwierzynski.

I suppose, with some effort, I can find a way to understand the strategy of a Republican – er, sorry, multi-partisan – organization attacking a progressive incumbent who represents a more affluent region of South County by supporting her more conservative, Democratic Primary opponent. However, the tactic, like so much of what Stenhouse does within the ALEC-inspired, hyper-capitalist, houses of money-worship over which he ministers, is ham handed. Take, for example, the mailer’s graphic image color scheme. It meant to inspire fear and uses a color pallette faintly reminiscent of the poster for Wes Craven’s original A Nightmare on Elm Street. Except, instead of distressed, hand- stenciled lettering for the copy, the ominous and empty cliches are typed using drop-shadowed, Trebuchet font. And, instead of finding a photograph of Representative Tanzi depicting her as nefarious, or even as maladroit, the gray-scale shot of Tanzi is her smiling General Assembly website picture, Photoshopped to look like a missing person from an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. What is more, is that the call to action – “Vote for Ewa Dwierzinski” – is in an ectoplasm shade of green, floating over the tarmac-colored background and standing out as if she is the terrifying perpetrator who allegedly caused Teresa to disappear.

However, I am grudgingly willing to overlook form, if function is excellent. If the design is not inspiring, then perhaps the content is.

Is it?

No.

The entirety of the thread of propaganda hinges on how Tanzi’s vote for tolls on trucks will somehow raise prices on groceries for your family. How? Because rigged system! No facts. No statistics. No data. No surprise here. In fact, by substituting dysphemisms for debate and saying Tanzi supports a “rigged system,” and is a part of a “corrupt special interest majority,” Stenhouse insults the electorate. The social welfare organization implies that voters are unable to follow the debate through to the end, concluding for themselves whether or not a market-driven solution for repairing roads, paid for by the special interest group most responsible for the damage done to public thoroughfares, constitutes a “rigged system” and being a part of a “Corrupt special interest majority.”

What is ironic, is that Teresa Tanzi is among a handful of Rhode Island lawmakers who prioritizes pragmatism over politics and people over profits. She puts her own agenda dead last, preferring to weigh the pros and cons of issues and voting what the outcome of her debate concludes to do the most good, while resulting in the least harm. What Mike Stenhouse calls defying the will of the people and businesses, and harming economic growth, many Rhode Islanders see as refreshingly good governing.

Representative Tanzi has survived and thrived as a progressive Democrat in a chamber led by Democrats of a more Reaganesque variety. In spite of her left-leaning convictions, Tanzi has managed to earn the respect of House Leadership even after abstaining from voting for Nicholas Mattiello when he sought the Speakership following Gordon Fox’s resignation preceding his indictment. While others who abstained faced committee reassignment or primary opponents sponsored by leadership, Tanzi was assigned a seat on House Finance.

Furthermore, her record of key sponsorship does not remotely reflect supporting a “rigged system.” House Bill No. 7080: “Permits the town of Narragansett to establish a tangible business property tax exemption for local small business owners in an amount not to exceed thirty-five thousand dollars ($35,000).” So, she supports local small businesses. House Bill No. 7152: “Allows for property tax and motor vehicle tax exemption for veterans and their spouses.” So, she supports veterans and their families. Possibly the most telling bill of which she was key sponsor, however, was House Bill No. 6066 SUB B entitled “An Act Relating to Reporting and Accountability – Taxation – Rhode Island Economic Development Tax incentives Evaluation Act of 2013. This comprehensive structure, requiring thorough oversight of corporate tax incentives for Rhode Island economic development (I assume most of you have heard about 38 Studios?), is the opposite of corruption. So, Mr. Stenhouse, if you please, just sit down and eat your cake.

Stenhouse’s tactic is weak and predictable. It fails to provoke thoughtful voting. It fails, even, to be clever. And, as one who has a modicum of experience with political wetwork, it is poorly timed. If, in fact, the purpose is to help Tanzi’s primary opponent, it should have been sent weeks ago. Never go negative late. If a campaign is going negative, it has to go negative early or it looks desperate.

Most voters do not read the fine print. They do not know that a Republican, corporate interest backed, 501c(4), social welfare organization is responsible for the last-minute, hit-piece. They do not know that this type of electioneering is borderline section 527 status group activity. The fact that this actively dissuades debate of the actual issues, while limiting factual information, invites the argument that the Gaspee Project is not promoting the social welfare of the targeted recipients of the mailer. Rather, it is promoting the welfare of the unnamed donors and corporations who fund it. The candle in this shadow-money, social ill-fare, sender of political nasty-grams, is that it is conducted so poorly, it will probably do little or nothing to affect the race in Rhode Island House District 34. What it does do, however, is further expose just how feckless Mike Stenhouse and his think-tank / campaign action group really are.

June 3, 2015June 3, 2015

School voucher bill wording lifted from ALEC model legislation

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Before the ink was dry on the highlights of the conference Transforming and Democratizing Public Education: An Activist Summit, Rhode Islanders concerned about the survival of public education were confronted with a threat from the General Assembly.

Senate bill 607, benignly titled THE BRIGHT TODAY SCHOLARSHIP AND OPEN ENROLLMENT EDUCATION ACT, was heard in the Senate Education Committee on May 20, and the companion bill (H 5790) was heard in the House Finance Committee on May 27. This egregious bill would provide state education tax dollars to any family in Rhode Island that believes their child would benefit from any other school than the one designated by their residence—any other public school in or out of their district, a private school, religious school, online virtual school, or home school. The scholarship that the family could obtain would have a cap of $6,000 (except for special needs students), but would be awarded according to a sliding scale of family income.

All families deserve fully funded and resourced neighborhood public schools with well-prepared and experienced teachers who make teaching their career. Families who choose to do so certainly have the option to send their children to private schools, religious schools, or to home school their children. But the overwhelming number of children attend public schools. Public schooling, though beset with many problems, is the foundation of a just and civil society. Public schools are overseen by local school boards, whose actions and decisions are accountable to the public. It is antithetical to our shared values to have public money siphoned off to private schools, particularly if the schools are religious in nature. Providing “scholarships” for students to attend non-public schools will wreak havoc on the public system, particularly at a time when public schools are already under assault from the neoliberal, free-market approach to schooling, with the expansion of charter schools, incessant standardized testing, and evaluating and sanctioning students, teachers, and schools by test scores on invalid standardized tests such as the PARCC.

The bill includes “scholarships” for students to participate in virtual, online schools, which have had an abysmal record in other states. This bill also includes “scholarships” for students with special needs. These students are entitled to a free and appropriate PUBLIC education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Unfortunately, under-resourced public schools have not always provided the full range of supports that these students need and deserve. Sending them to private schools that likely do not have the resources to meet the plethora of diverse needs of students with learning challenges will make this situation worse.

This bill is being heavily supported and promoted by the RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity. This group has made a number of rosy claims about the bill’s benefits not only to families but also to taxpayers and to public schools. I have read some of their reports and did not see any evidence that they have been peer-reviewed or critiqued by qualified authorities. The impetus stems from the Milton Friedman ideology of free-market/privatization reforms that have been devastating to education in other countries. Further, a few minutes of Googling turns up the undeniable fact that parts of this bill have been lifted almost word for word from “model bills” from the playbook of the American Legislative Exchange Council, also known as ALEC.

For those who are unaware of ALEC, this insidious group promotes the collusion of legislators and corporate moguls to write model legislation to be stealthily introduced into state houses across the country. This goes against the most fundamental rights of Americans to live in a country of the people, by the people, and for the people. Please see this great clip from an Atlanta, GA TV station that exposes how ALEC operates:

As evidence of ALEC’s influence on the wording of this bill, please check this link. If you scroll down the list of “Bills Affecting Americans’ Rights to a Public Education,” you will see two bills that are represented in the language of the RI bills. The first is 2D16 The Parental Choice Scholarship Program Act Part 1 Exposed. The second is 2D21 The Special Needs Scholarship Program Act Exposed. The yellow highlights that you will see are in the original from ALEC Exposed, provided by the Center for Media and Democracy.

During the Senate Hearing, Senator Sheehan clearly stated the reason that I believe proves that this bill needs to die in committee: This bill is for the purpose of the privatization of public schools, he said.

February 19, 2015February 20, 2015

Rhode Island is ALEC-free

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Rhode Island is now an ALEC-free zone.

When the year 2014 expired on December 31, so did Warwick Senator William Walaska’s membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council, a once-controversial right-wing bill mill that partnered corporate interests with state lawmakers to draft conservative model legislation to be shopped to Statehouses across the country.

Walaska, a Democrat, was the last local legislator who was an ALEC member – and the only one to renew membership since 2012. His lapsed membership means that the Rhode Island State House will not receive any copies of ALEC’s monthly magazine.

“We do not get their literature any more since we have no members any longer,” said House spokesman Larry Berman.

ALEC had existed in the background of state politics all over the country for decades. But the Koch-aligned group became a toxic in 2012 when its model Stand Your Ground Law exonerated George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin.

At the same time, ALEC was quietly enjoying significant influence in the Rhode Island General Assembly. Former Woonsocket Rep. Jon Brien, a Democrat and member of Speaker Gordon Fox’s leadership team, was named to ALEC’s national board of directors and more than 20 percent of the state legislature were members – at the taxpayers expense. Organized labor took issue as local legislators started quickly denouncing their affiliation. At the height of ALEC’s influence in Rhode Island, 24 local legislators, half of whom were Democrats, were members. By 2013, there were only six ALEC members in the General Assembly (though on p. 39 ALEC lists 12 members in 2013).

In June, New York Times columnist Joe Nocera said Woonsocket suffered from an ALEC mindset and in July CVS, based in Woonsocket, dropped its membership in ALEC, which at the time was the last corporate ALEC member in Rhode Island. Brien was was defeated in his bid for reelection that fall.

Nationally ALEC membership dropped 5.6 percent from 2011 to 2013, according to internal ALEC information leaked by first released by The Guardian (p.37). Jay Riestenberg, a researcher for Common Cause, said ALEC has likely picked up some new legislators in 2014 because of a “historic number of Republican state legislators in office.”

Corporate sponsorship has dropped dramatically though, with more than 100 leaving since 2011 and financial support down 19 percent in 2013. But while the ALEC organism has been diminished, its DNA is still being effective, even here in Rhode Island.

Riestenberg said some of the corporate money that has been divested from ALEC has matriculated to the State Policy Network and cited Microsoft, Facebook and Kraft as examples. The State Policy Network, or SPN, is funded by corporations and Koch-aligned special interests to push conservative ideology at the state level. PR Watch has pushed a campaign linking SPN and ALEC saying it is a right wing think tank pushing the ALEC agenda in the states.

stenhouse — Mike Stenhouse, “CEO” SPN-aligned Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Riestenberg identified the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity as the SPN affiliate in Rhode Island, as has this blog. In an email to me, RICFP “CEO” Mike Stenhouse confirms a connection between SPN and ALEC.

“The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity and ALEC, as part of their respective missions, each seek to advance market-based policy ideas that have a track-record of success in other states,” he said. “ALEC is also a close national partner of SPN, the national association of which our Center is a member. SPN has been very helpful over the years in helping our Center put together strategic operating plans, in getting us pointed in the right direction in our formative years, in making us aware of certain RFP grant opportunities, and by continuing to sponsor participation in highly valuable public policy and organizational development regional and national workshops.”

December 1, 2014December 2, 2014

Racial injustice vs. property rights: Ferguson, RhodeMapRI and the American Dream

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

There are two political gatherings today in Rhode Island that may have more in common with each other than it seems on the surface.

In Providence, there is a “march against police violence” in solidarity with the on-going Ferguson protests at Burnside Park, 7pm. In North Kingstown, there is an “informational meeting” about the ongoing RhodeMapRI flap at the Carriage Inn, also 7pm.

These two events will look much different. The march is at the center of urban Rhode Island and the meeting is on the outskirts of the suburbs. The march takes place on public property while the meeting is being hosted by the private sector. The march starts at the same park where Occupy Providence protested. The meeting is at a new upscale restaurant; salad = $9, steak = priced to market. The march will be multiracial while the meeting will be mostly white people. At face value, they will even be voicing very different messages: the march will focus on racial injustice while the meeting will focus on property rights.

But a deeper look at their concerns shows they are both dancing around the same issue. In Rhode Island life is nice in the suburbs, and some people want to preserve that. Life is not as nice in our cities, and some people want to change that. It’s absolutely not a coincidence that the area where people are looking for change are predominantly populated by Black and Brown people while the areas where people are looking to keep things the same are predominantly populated by White people.

The marchers want police to wear body cameras in hopes it will make law enforcement more accountable when tragedy occurs. But the people opposed to RhodeMapRI are vociferously opposed to any and all new government expenditures. The anti-RhodeMapRI activists feel strongly that affordable housing programs are bad, and that neighborhood planning is best left to market forces. Ferguson activists believe the invisible hand is largely responsible for the continued racial divide in Rhode Island and more, not fewer, public sector tools are needed to remedy this.

“We are fed up with economic injustice and inequality,” reads a Facebook invite about the march. “We are fed up with institutionalized systems of racial oppression. We are fed up with a system that serves the ruling class instead of the people.”

“All citizens of our state should be made aware of this most insidious plan which will deconstruct our American Dream right here in Rhode Island if allowed to be adopted!” reads a Facebook invite about the meeting.

Both events are about the American Dream. The Ferguson activists want more access to it. The anti-RhodeMapRI activists want to keep it for themselves.

May 30, 2014May 30, 2014

Don’t cut sales tax based on flawed economic model

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

A few months ago, I wrote about the intellectual bankruptcy of the economic model called STAMP, for State Tax Analysis Modeling Program, created by the Beacon Hill Institute (BHI), and beloved of the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Apple Pie (CFAP). The good folks at the CFAP have been heavily promoting some of the results of this model, that predict that Rhode Island will enjoy a tremendous economic boom if only we would eliminate our sales tax.

As I detailed in that article, the RI STAMP model is flawed not only by a host of questionable assumptions, but also the laughable attempt to obscure those assumptions under an absurdly over-complicated presentation of the relevant equations. Really, there is no reason to do what they do except as a conceptual bulwark against reporters who are easily cowed by that sort of thing.

Now comes the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) to say the same thing as me. In an epic takedown (summary here, report here), they cite STAMP’s many assumptions that either cannot be justified by the research literature or are completely contradicted by that literature or by experience. They further point out that the STAMP model accounts for almost no possible economic benefit of public spending, such as, say, educated children or good roads. The STAMP model also contains little help in estimating the actual rates of change due to new tax policies, allowing them to

“… mask the fact that some tax plans they believe would be economically beneficial are guaranteed to shrink the economy in the short-term.”

ITEP concludes that from this alone,

“STAMP analyses are of no use in informing the debate over what will be necessary to balance the state’s budget in the wake of a major tax change.”

There is plenty more, such as STAMP’s implicit assumption of full employment (!) and the assumption that households spend money in more or less similar ways to governments. (How many police officers did you employ last year?)

I am gratified by the validation of my review of this model, but really, the damning evidence is right in BHI’s own footnotes. That’s where, just to pick one example, the STAMP designers tell us they assume that all rich people — you know, the ones who have expensive houses and extensive business and social ties to their community — are more likely to move to another state for financial reasons than poor people, who frequently own nothing and have no such ties.

Of course that’s not how it reads. The actual text talks about elasticities and the sensitivity of participation rates, but that’s what it means, once you wade through the verbiage.

In an email responding to the ITEP analysis, Justin Katz, of the CFAP, said they think the appropriate response is to average their results with model results they like less.

“…[T]he Center has long maintained that it is an opportunity for policymakers that they have such divergent models. As we recommended in our recent brief, the General Assembly should take advantage of the two projections as a high-end and a low-end and implement the elimination or reduction of the sales tax with plans to adjust down or up as the monthly results become apparent.”

This, of course, is not the way it’s done. When the clown honks his little horn and says the sky at noon is inky black, the proper response is laughter, not to average his views with yours.

There are two ways people analyze mathematical models. One way involves detailed examination of the assumptions used to generate it. The STAMP model fails this test in spectacular fashion, according to me, and now according to ITEP. The other way is to validate the model against past events. That is, a model good at predicting the future should be good at predicting things that have already happened. If a model can predict 2014 results from 2013 data then it makes sense to use it to predict what will happen in 2015.

We have cut taxes several times in the past 20 years. There were the Almond income tax cuts of 1997-2002, the capital gains cuts passed in 2001, the flat tax passed in 2006, and several smaller cuts. When the CFAP can show us that their STAMP model would have accurately predicted what actually did happen — and that the same model predicts what they say about future tax changes — only then will it be useful to listen to their results. Until then, nothing but laughter from me, and hopefully everyone else they honk their little horn at.

February 4, 2014

Economists agree: Little reason to trust stink tank’s economic modeling

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Tom Sgouros and Jason Becker are both well-respected critical thinkers in Rhode Island politics, though they don’t often have opportunity to agree – for example, Sgouros has been critical of the new state education aid funding formula that Becker helped devise.

But it turns out the two have found common ground when it comes to the Center for Freedom and Prosperity. Both agree the science, as it were, associated with the right wing think tank’s plan to eliminate the sales tax is built on rosy predictions and politically-charged assumptions.

Last week Sgouros wrote two posts on the right wing think tank’s specious use of economics in their proposal to shrink state government by reducing the sales tax (here and here). This inspired Becker to take a closer look at the modeling used for its report. After doing so, he tweeted, among many others:

@JustinKatzRI @bobplain basically you can’t model labor market outcomes in something that requires market clearing when market isn’t clear

— Jason Becker (@jasonpbecker) February 2, 2014

and

@JustinKatzRI @bobplain here’s what needs to be far more clear— this is about starve the beast politics not economy.

— Jason Becker (@jasonpbecker) February 2, 2014

Additionally, he tweeted these questions and concerns:

Becker also tweeted this report compiled by an University of Arizona economist (you can check her credentials here) disparaging the same economic modeling tool that the RI right wing think tank used to push its preferred policy here as the Goldwater Institute was using in Arizona.

In it, she wrote, “They should know that models can only be used for modest changes from existing economic conditions and that results from modest changes cannot be used to predict what would happen with large, never before seen, changes in policies.”

November 15, 2013

RI’s ‘stink tank’: the Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Something stinks in Rhode Island, and according to StinkTanks.org, that smell is the Ocean State Center for Freedom and Prosperity.

A new report which follows Koch brother and other corporate spending through the State Policy Network to its state-based advocacy groups says the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, “claims to be focused on issues important to the people of Rhode Island, it actually pushes an agenda dictated by its national right-wing funders and partners.”

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity, like all SPN-affiliated groups, says it’s a non-partisan group. The group and its staff advocate on behalf of out-of-state corporate interests and often against the working class people of Rhode Island.

Justin Katz, the group’s research director, told me, “This shows that our work is having an effect, but it’s pretty clear that it was produced by outside organizations with no real understanding of what’s going on in Rhode Island.”

RI Future contributor Russ Conway gets a shout out in the report, who debunks the group’s biased research on education in this post. He wrote, “What I found though was nothing but a rehash of the standard right -wing talking points framed as “so sensible and obvious” that they needed no explanation.”

The report indicates the Center received $122,000 from the SPN in 2011 and $25,000 from the JM Foundation in 2012.

You can check out the full report here:

RI – Who Is Behind The Rhode Island Center for Freedom

November 14, 2013November 14, 2013

ALEC, SPN are batting .600 in Rhode Island

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Rhode Island may be down to just five card-carrying ALEC members left in the legislature, but the Ocean State is still doing an exemplary job of implementing ALEC’s agenda.

A new report that links the American Legislative Exchange Council with the State Policy Network (which funds the RI Center for the Freedom and Prosperity) cites five examples of how the “SPN Pushes ALEC’s Corporate-Sponsored Legislation.”(page 7 here)

Rhode Island is a national leader in three of the five policy proposals cited by the report, specifically: “Privatizing Public Education”, “Privatizing Public Pension Systems” and “Disenfranchising People of Color, the Elderly, and Students” (aka voter ID).

Here’s the full list from the report:

Attacking Workers’ Rights: ALEC’s “Right to Work Act ” seeks to limit the rights of workers to unionize in the private sector and undermine the power of unions to negotiate and protect workers. SPN member state think tanks have published articles and reports supporting “right to work” legislation in at least Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, Delaware, Oregon, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Maine, New Mexico, and Pennsylvania. Michigan’s operation, the Mackinac Center , was recently singled out by SPN for its efforts to push “Right to Work” into law in Michigan despite its long state record of support for workers’ rights to organize and collectively bargain. Who was there to tout this legislative victory that came over the objections of thousands and thousands of Michigan workers? Betsy and Dick DeVos , the extreme right-wing millionaires pushing an array of divisive and destructive legislative issues to suit their narrow personal views.

SPN think tanks join ALEC in pushing a broad agenda to undermine other worker protection, including tearing down collective bargaining, prohibiting paid union activity in the form of “release time,” and ending the ability to deduct union dues from paychecks for private and public employees (so-called “paycheck protection”).

Privatizing Public Education: SPN think tanks join ALEC in pushing a broad education agenda to privatize public schools, including pushing for-profit online schools, for-profit and other charter schools, using taxpayer dollars for vouchers to for-profit schools, and even so-called “parent triggers” to allow a group of parents to close a public school for current and future students, and

turn the school into a charter school or require a voucher system that takes away from traditional public schools.

Privatizing Public Pension Systems: SPN think tanks join ALEC in pushing to privatize public employee pension systems that workers have negotiated for, making them 401(k)-style defined contribution type accounts rather than defined benefit plans. Such changes provide less retirement security for workers who have devoted their lives to public service and negotiated for such benefits to protect themselves and their families from poverty as they age. Additionally, 401(k) systems tend to include the diminution of benefits through corporations taking fees out of the pensioners’ funds, creating a lengthy revenue stream for the corporations that administer those plans, which often involves substantial income for the corporation relative to the work involved.

Rolling Back Environmental Initiatives: ALEC’s “State Withdrawal from Regional Climate Initiatives “ would allow states to pull out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or the Western Climate Initiative, cap-and-trade programs to cut greenhouse gases and carbon-dioxide emissions. It also uses language that denies the documented climate changes that are underway. SPN state think tanks have published articles and reports supporting states’ withdrawals from these regional initiatives in at least Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee, Delaware, Oregon, New Jersey, Montana, Virginia, and Connecticut.

Disenfranchising People of Color, the Elderly, and Students: ALEC’s restrictive “Voter ID Act ” makes it more difficult for American citizens to vote. It would change identification rules so that citizens who have been registered to vote for decades must show only specific kinds of ID in order to vote. This bill disenfranchises college students and many low-income, minority, and elderly Americans who do not have driver’s licenses but have typically used other forms of ID and proof of residency in the district. SPN state think tanks have published articles and reports supporting voter ID bills in several states, including Arkansas, Washington state, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.

And here’s the full report:

SPN National Report | StinkTanks.org

May 15, 2013

Bill sponsor Malik more unbiased than WPRO news

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Here’s an interesting instance of media bias: a WPRO preview story on a proposal to eliminate the state sales tax was less balanced than an op/ed in the Fall River Herald News written by the bill’s sponsor, Jan Malik.

The WPRO report uses an interview between conservative talk show host Matt Allen, a supporter of the proposal, and Mike Stenhouse, the leader of the corporate-backed think tank that initially suggested the idea to explain the legislation. There was no counter perspective in the WPRO, even though no economists support the idea.

Malik’s op/ed, on the other hand, did contained balance:

The Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity has backed the bill, while URI economist Dr. Leonard Lardaro and URI business administration professor Ed Mazze found fault with the idea.

For a little perspective on these three sources of information: Mazze and Lardaro are economists and URI business professors. The Center for Freedom and Prosperity is a corporate-funded political group that gets paid to claim that anything that shrinks government is good for the economy.

So while Malik’s op/ed doesn’t offer a lot of balance, it’s worth noting that it offers more than the local talk radio outlet that bills itself as “the Station of Record.”

April 29, 2013April 29, 2013

A closer look at the Center for Freedom and Prosperity

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

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

March 4, 2013March 4, 2013

Ex-Red Sox Are Bad For Rhode Island Business

Deprecated: Function get_magic_quotes_gpc() is deprecated in /hermes/bosnacweb08/bosnacweb08bf/b1577/ipg.rifuturecom/RIFutureNew/wp-includes/formatting.php on line 4387

Here’s an economic analysis that is both true and misleading at the same time: former Boston Red Sox players are bad for non-baseball related business in Rhode Island. It’s true, I’ve analyzed it and the facts prove it.

The most famous example is Big Schill’s failed foray into video games. But who remembers the equally-short lived Roger Clemens Wood-Roasted Chicken on Bald Hill Road in Warwick? Probably only me and Liam Tierney, Dave Shaw and Brian Quattrucci. We waited in a line, consisting only of us, to be the Rocket’s first-ever fast food customers; He was supposed to be there but, as was so often the case in the early 90’s, he just didn’t show up…

Despite the preponderance of evidence, ex-Red Sox Mike Stenhouse, journeyman outfielder and career .190 hitter, thinks Rhode Island should trust his abilities as an economist. His latest analysis, in today’s ProJo, concludes that slashing almost a $1 billion in revenue would be good for the state’s struggling economy. It’s true, he’s analyzed it and the facts prove it.

Of course, Stenhouse’s pseudo-study of sales tax policy is no more valid than my examination of former Red Sox players in Rhode Island. I could have included baseball-related businesses in my study and Sam Horn’s successful hitting school in North Kingstown would have bumped the average up to .333 – that’s MVP-type numbers. And if one includes all ex-Red Sox employees, well then Saul Kaplan would make it a coin-toss – a 50 percent swing, just by crunching the numbers differently!

This is the kind of voodoo economics that Stenhouse’s conservative policy shop, the Center for Freedom and Prosperity, specializes in. It purports to offer economic analysis but it’s far more accurate to call it far right wing propaganda, specifically trafficking in policy that serves to shrink the size of government. (By the way, this is not a scoop – everyone involved in state politics knows this and any contrived outrage from the right is just all part of the kabuki theater.)

But here’s what I think is the really important part: traditional mainstream media doesn’t really have a lot of tools to present this truism to its audience, and the tool that does exist is virtually non-existent in Rhode Island. For a state that is overwhelmingly liberal, the vast majority of mainstream media op/ed voices are conservative. The Journal editorial page is highly unlikely to run a reasonable counter-opinion to this piece.

Policy shops like Stenhouse’s are designed to look like think tanks specifically so that they will be misinterpreted as such by the mainstream media. And locally it works like a charm: The Providence Journal will always label everything Ocean State Action does as being labor-backed because they are transparent about their funding, while Stenhouse will never be labeled a corporate pawn because he isn’t transparent.

This is great politics for fiscal conservatives. I’d say Stenhouse’s Center for Freedom and Prosperity has been really successful at keeping the conversation away from reasonable tax increases on the rich and focused instead on the unreasonable elimination of the sales tax.

But don’t blame Stenhouse. He’s just doing what he went into business to do: use pseudo-economics to rally support for right wing policy. Blame the ProJo op/ed page editors. They are the ones not doing their jobs, which is to inform and educate Rhode Islanders about their community. I’m not saying the newspaper of record ought to join RI Future on the far left, but it ought to be fair and balanced enough to host the occasional counter-balance to the conservative dogma it ascribes to.

In the meantime, I’m going to see if Bill Lee wants to leave his farm in Craftbury, Vermont start a think tank here in Rhode Island…