Let's get Kool and appreciate what we have here in RI

 Driving to my favorite coffee shop this morning, I was listening to WRNI. Scott McKay was giving his Monday Morning commentary.

I got to thinking that with all the economic uncertainty we face here in RI and the nation which we ordinary citizens have little or no chance of changing in the immediate future, maybe Scott has a point. It is summer and time to kick back and appreciate what we do have

Click on the links above and listen to the GOOD NEWS for a Change. Meanwhile like Jonathan Livingston here, enjoy the Beach, the Sand and the Sea.

And watch where you step

The Positive and the Negative -- Angus Davis vs Ed Achorn

 The Barrington Times carries a very timely and positive message in this week's edition. It is especially refreshing in these times of cynicism about the Rhode Island economy and politics. The Times introduces us to Angus Davis, a successful serial technology entrepreneur, who left the state fourteen years ago, to make his fortune by designing a voice recognition system which he eventually sold to Microsoft.. Mr. Davis has quietly moved back to Rhode Island and started a new venture in 2009 in the Jewelry District in Providence. Today, his venture, is described in the article, His latest startup rewards loyal customers with every ‘Swipe’.

 from the Barrington Times 5/4/2011:

Stuart Kiely (left), Swipely’s marketing director, goes over some figures with company founder Angus Davis at the Providence office last week.

 Davis' project and his past success are a sign that things are not all bad here and that there is a base for the high tech web-oriented research and development firms such a Swipe and even, 34 Studio, here in Rhode Island. But as Davis points out in companion piece in the Barrington Times, that  "Goal: closing the achievement gap" in the State's educational system is a critical and pressing issue. While others are complaining about the current system Davis has been an activist promoting change and asking hard questions.
  
On the other hand, the Projo Columnist Ed Achorn appears to be out with a personal vendetta against Lincoln Chafee. In his latest column, May 4th, Edward Achorn: Chafee’s anti-jobs agenda would speed R.I.’s decline,  he starts off with a straight forward observation about the level of the state's debt and what it means for the average Rhode Islander. Up to that point Achorn is adding to our knowledge and  information. He is helping, as he should be as a columnist, to educate the public about a problem albeit from a particular a point of view.

However, not all that far into the article he unleashes his personal attack on the Governor as the cause for all of the problems facing the state. This is not the first time Achorn has done this. In the process, he paints a sick view of the state and he certainly has nothing positive to contribute to debate that is now going on as ways to solve the state's long term financial and fiscal problems. He fails to recognize that 1. Rhode Island has a weak Governorship with most of the political power concentrated in the State Assembly. 2. The Governor only proposes the budget, it is the Assembly that disposes the budget.

Achorn's blame game is misplaced. It should be directed toward the Assembly and not as all blame - but with positive options - to the Governor's proposals. Instead he is being lazy and grabbed onto all the suggests of the opponents to the Governor's plan which he uses as his ammunition against Lincoln Chafee as a person.

He does so without subjecting these opinions to any critical analysis. For example, he suggests that the Governor accept the offer to"employ Ken Block and his computer technology to track down fraud." On the surface this sounds good, a free service to the people of Rhode Island. But it would be more honest to point out that Mr. Block was a candidate for Governor who lost the election to Mr. Chafee, and that. Mr. Block did not offer the service at the time he was running. If the offer were accepted today, how could his conclusion be trusted now that he is a declared partisan in the political debate and has much to gain from how he writes his conclusions. This is a point Mr Achorn fails to mention.

Mr. Davis offers positive hope and commitment to changing Rhode Island for the future both in terms of the personal invest of his entrepreneurial expertise and resources in a new company but also in his activism to bring about change in educational system. Mr. Davis is focusing on the future and even challenges the Barrington school system by pointing out the charter school serving minority community are showing progress that may out strip Barrington's status as one of the State's top performing school systems.

Achorn sees the lose of "Rhode Island’s non-Hispanic white population plummeted by 54,748, or 6.4 percent, between 2000 and 2010, says the U.S. Census Bureau" as proof of the State's decline.

Mr. Davis see something else a problem as bigger than Rhode Island. If only we re-frame the questions, he sees it as two issues:

“One is an international problem. We think of communities in Rhode Island like Bristol or Barrington or East Greenwich as being tops in school systems. But if you take our most advantaged kids and stack them up against other countries, we’re at a real disadvantage,” he said. “Other countries are out-educating us and that will ultimately threaten our way of life in America, which is driven by our competitive advantage of our economy.”

"Secondly, he said, the current public schools system is not designed to allow underprivileged, impoverished students to prosper, which Mr. Davis sees at nothing less than a civil rights issue".

.On the other hand, Mr. Achorn has given us a negative image of the future. His solution is committed to rolling back the clock to the Republican  past.when the special privileges and patronage all went to the rich white Yankee mill owners instead of the workers. . It is interesting that given this Republican bias, when Achorn says ....

"But here, we have a governor, elected by only 36 percent of the voters, who seems to be wrapped in a cocoon of wealth and indifference. Impervious to the bitter realities that most Rhode Islanders confront, he is eager to do only what the government unions that got him elected tell him to do."

 that he is essentially accusing Chafee as being an out of touch Yankee who does not care for his class interests.
 
Certainly since the Democrats overthrew of the Yankee establishment, the pendulum has swung too far in favor of labor; and the patronage has gone to the Democrats and the Unions. See the following self-serving justification for Democrat patronage, Dominick J. Ruggerio: Stephen Iannazzi is good news for R.I. taxpayers.

This imbalance needs to be corrected but not by a return to a long gone past. It needs innovative ideas that look to a realistic future, a serious and constructive debate and compromise, commitment to a goal and shared vision, a plan committed to the goals, consistency and honesty in the implementation and execution of the plan, an objective and transparent evaluation of the results of the plan, and finally, a realistic factual based modification of the plan as needed to achieve the agreed upon goals. This requires cooperation between all the branches of government and a proactive program to re-establish trust with the public that there is leadership committed to solving the real structural problems we face. Right now there is very little trust in any of the so-called leaders , elected or self appointed.. 

None of these ideas are evident in Mr. Achorn's solution. His solution is a new Governor. His solution is.to get rid of Lincoln Chafee. Mr. Achorn seems to feel that wasting the next three years obstructing any positive actions to address the State's real problems is the better solution. Reminds me of what we have seen coming out of the Washington Republicans. Maybe he is drinking the same tea. 

Mr. Davis may be a model for the type of leaders we need more of in this state. We need visionaries and not quitters. Mister Davis is the future and where I am placing my money for the future. As for Mr. Achorn, I hope he enjoys his retirement in Florida after he decides it is time to take his own advice. "Move out."

The antidote to apathy

In connection with the battle going on here in Rhode Island, the following advice being given about the same problem of public apathy in Canada might be helpful in understanding how we got to where we are. In a way this is a positive message for the Tea Party and a warning to the traditional power structure on the right and the left.

This is from a recent TEDx conference in Toronto filmed in October 2010. 

Hope you enjoy and learn something

Dave Meslin: The antidote to apathy

Let us know what you think! Or go to TED and leave a comment.
http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-04-12

Rhode Island Fiscal Crisis -- When the chickens come home to roost

There has been quite a lot of shouting, finger pointing, denial and general childishness lately in Rhode Island by special interest groups complaining about the troubles in the Rhode Island economy and state government finances. While deeply felt, I assume, it is very selfish, self centered and wasteful. In today's Providence Journal there is a story about recent meetings (hearings??? or shoutings???) at the Rhode Island State House to discuss Governor Chafee's sale tax reform program. One of our readers has commented on what he/she sees as the real problem.

Here is a guest comment by Ethnographer in response to a story, Lawmakers seek sales-tax alternatives, in the Providence Journal  

With the Fox in the hen house, what do you think we can expect? Maybe the same old, same old stop gap squandering of state assets -- the one time sale of the state's gambling license maybe? This is the caged thinking of chickens laying eggs to get fed and denying that they are really McNuggets in waiting.

The problem is systemic and long term. What we need is leadership and strategic thinking. We need leadership with vision. We need a system-wide review and change in the tax structure. We need a long term plan to get us down to a sustainable debt level. One area that can be corrected is the sales tax which the Governor has proposed. But that is just the beginning.

Unfunded mandates need to be addressed. The chickens in the GA are happy to pay their owners with promises in the form of mandates (eggs) but lack the will to pay for (hatch) them, preferring to pass that responsibility on to the local governments. Maybe that's what we are smelling.

Let's do a complete review of these mandates -- Why do we have them? Who benefits? Do we really need them? and Can we really afford them?

The income tax structure needs to be reviewed. If RI is to be the low wage, low cost state in New England, then the wealthy who benefit from that will have to pay more of their share of costs to government for supporting this low wage environment. You can't have low wages and expect the income tax breaks to the wealthy to make up the difference, can you?

Public worker compensation definitely needs to be reviewed and reformed. But cutting for the sake of cutting is STUPID. What we need is a system that recruits talent and rewards productivity and quality. Instead, we have seniority, cronyism, and the kind of influence we are witnessing in the GA staff raises.

User fees and registration fees should at least recover the full cost of administering the services that the fee is designed to provide. For example, how much does it really cost to register and maintain a real estate deed, or to record and maintain the record of ownership title for a new or used car? Who should pay for these?

The relationships between state and federal matching funds should be looked at more closely. Are we running after short term federal funds but committing local tax payers to long term maintenance and carrying costs?

 

It is time for the chickens in the hen house to stick their heads out of their cages, and take a look at the real world in which the rest of us live. They need to start thinking outside of the cage, start thinking outside of the box.

What one person and a dog can do for their neighbors

  From the South County Patch

Maggie's Pet Pantry - A Food Bank For Pets

Since January Maggie's Pet Pantry has welcomed dozens of South County residents who need assistance feeding their cats, dogs, and other companion animals.

By Cynthia E. FIeld | Email the author | 2:06pm

The list keeps growing and growing….

 From WPRI:  News about the major Internet hack of online costumer databases at major US retailers and warning messages from these companies being sent to their customers.

The list keeps growing and growing….

Now is the time for the press to check out why we have exemptions in the sales tax

Governor Chafee has proposed a "tax increase" in the way the sales tax is applied to attack the growing budget crisis facing Rhode Island and its 39 cities and towns. This has, as we might expect, drawn out all of the special interests in the State, as well as many of their Zoombies. These special interests are attacking the plan in order to defend their own special tax status and privileges they enjoy under the status quo. Of course that privilege, their exemption, is part of the problem. But they and the press won't admit it. It allows them to NOT pay for their fair share of the cost of government overhead services that they now enjoy for free.

A Typical Example??


In a lead article of the Providence Journal, "Chafee's proposed tax hikes add up for this Cranston family"  for example, we are given a list of added costs that a "typical" (whatever that means) middle class family these tax might mean. It assumes that they family did not have, and will not make choices about how they spend their money after the tax become applicable.

For example: Newspaper Subscriptions  $312  taxes $18.72.  The costs of the papers have been going up while the quality has been going down for quite some time. The outlets for public information have expanded significantly since the days when the newspaper was the only source of public information. So why do we still have an exemption for them today?

The imbalance of reporting in all media or "Why are newspapers excluded from the sales tax today anyway"

The article does not explain why these items were excluded in the first place. If we were to research each of these we might find that special interests lobbied the General Assembly at one time or another to get this special privilege. Once these privileges became law, everyone assumed it was a RIGHT. Nobody is going to question the right and the conditions that may have made it reasonable at the time it was passed into law.

 Those hidden exemption are subsidies

The general public is paying a hidden exemption to the sellers of those products and services  and to the buyers of those products and services .

The sales tax is called regressive by Liberals because it taxes the poor on the goods they buy while excluding the wealth for the services they buy. It is also made even more regressive by the special exemptions which, while intended to relieve some of the pain on the poor actually provide a higher dollar value relief to the wealth who purchase higher priced good in the same class. Take food for example:

A sales tax on a pound of bologna for example on sale for $1.50/lb would yield at a 2% sales tax an addition cost of $.03 cents for a pound that a poorer family might buy, while a pound of roast beef on sale at $5.00/lb would yield $.10 pound that a wealthier family might buy.   

The sales tax is called unfair by those small business sellers who have to charge a sales tax on the products and services they sell and by the buyers who buy those products. It imposes an administrative burden on the seller and gives an unfair advantage to their larger competitors who can spread the overhead cost over their  pricing of  larger volume and breath of their products. It also encourages those who can afford to drive to shop out of state for goods that are taxed at lower rate. This is seen every summer in the business from RI that goes to Massachusetts during Massachusetts' tax holiday sales.

Leveling the Playing Field

If all goods and services are taxed at a rate arrived at fairly AND removes the waste in the current tax system, then the tax payers would be better served.

First, because the tax cheats would be prosecuted or sued for their waste to the system ( lost revenue from the under the table deals), and  the tax avoiders would have a more difficult time finding true advantages in going out of state for minimal savings (price competition).

Second, removing the incentive to seek special exemption would  remove it as a political strategy (anti-competitive business practices) and the politicians in the General Assemble would have to publicly explain and justify why they are seeking such legislation and supporting such exemption (waste of public corruption).

Third, and Most important, is that spreading the total state debt and tax burden over the whole retail economy should result in a higher dollar return to the government for its services (distributing of government costs more fairly) and a lower competitive tax position for the state's tax payers relative to the two major competitors, Massachusetts and Connecticut (improving RI's competitive position in the region).

The Yes/BUT Media favors the Status-quo

While the newspapers are supposed to be balanced in their reporting, we can see in the discussion in the editorial pages and in the stories on the front pages that they are not. The full story is not being total, nor analyzed. Since the local TV media basically follows the newspaper story lines "how it is all unfair". This  makes the story line more believable to the public, even though its is incomplete and biased. Meanwhile, the other story line that the alleged cause for crisis blames the public worker and teacher unions and puts forth attacking these special interests is the solution to the problem.

Highlighting the Problem Does work


Don't get me wrong, the public workers and teachers union deserve the heat they are getting. They are being unfair to defend contracts that are unsustainable and unrealistic in the 21st century global economy. They are .being unfair to their members and the public who support them. Today's Projo also carried this story
 Providence union agrees to concessions. This shows that some  union leaders are beginning to see their responsibilities for the problem and are willing to take responsibility to become part of the solution.

But they are only one part of the special interests in the the General Assembly. The politician in the General Assemble are catering to many others as well. The Press should be looking at these special interests as well
 The press should  look into these special interests today as well as into the broader context of public tax policy.

As it is the Press is cutting the amount of hard news, rather than promoting their Yes/BUT PR propaganda.on limited space of the editorial pages and in the news sections. Instead, lets see some hard news about how these special interest tax exemption can about and why they should be continued.

The Yes/BUT have begun to raise their heads from their little tax shelters warrens. Now is the time for the press to check out these tax rabbit warrens and see what they are hiding in there.