A couple of weeks ago, I caught some of Chris Porter's routine on Last Comic Standing, and although I'm aware of the danger inherent in taking comedians too seriously, I thought his comments concerning religion to be illustrative of a common (and commonly lazy) approach thereto.
Porter stated that he left the Catholic Church when he realized that fewer people were receiving Communion in the species of wine during flu season. "You gotta believe!" he declared, citing as real believers religious fanatics who dance around with poisonous snakes on their shoulders. "If I had the flu, I'd be glomming that s***."
The point that seems to have been lost on the comedian — to the extent that he wasn't ignoring it for comedy's sake — is that Catholics don't believe that the Blood of Christ is a panacea for physical ills, a sort of magic potion. We also don't deny (as far as I know)* that germs can be passed along with the cup. On the other hand, we do believe that Christ is fully present in either form of the Eucharist.
In ways much more subtle than this, it seems to me that much of the modern hang-up with religion has to do with a lack of clarity about what it means to "really believe." The tendency is to imagine some claim that is observably impossible, or just improbable, and to insist that true believers would declare the observation false. When the person taking the religious side of the discussion points out that his religion doesn't, actually, ask him to make any such declaration, because his system of belief seeks to incorporate observable reality, the response often implies a lack of credulity. How convenient that the believer would claim to believe only that which cannot be easily disproven!
The questions that our culture so often skips are of the "and still" variety: Can Catholics believe that they can get the flu by sharing a Communal cup and still believe that the Eucharist will heal them? Can non-Catholics not believe in the actual presence of the Lord in Holy Communion and still have faith in Christ? Can non-Christians not believe in the divinity of Jesus and still believe in God? As if playing a theological version of that old board game, Chutes and Ladders, the modern atheist or agnostic finds an easy slide from disbelief that God tells us what make of car to buy through the actions of snakes to disbelief that God exists at all.
* On the other hand, I recall seeing a TV news report in which the health expert stated that wiping the cup with a blessed cloth wouldn't prevent the transmittal of germs, and I wondered whether he had read any studies to back that up. I'm willing to believe that he's correct, but shouldn't a man of science have data?
I don't know whether it'll be a comfort to Kathryn Lopez, but I don't think Republicans will have to put up with Lincoln Chafee as a Senator in their party for the entirety of Bush's term. One possible occurrence would be if Chafee put his "symbolic protest" over his constituents' interest in preserving at least the one lone representative whom they have in the majority party:
Republican Sen. Lincoln Chafee said he would consider switching parties if President Bush is re-elected."I'm not ruling it out," Chafee told The Providence Journal.
Chafee, known for moderate views that often run counter to the Bush administration, also said he cast a write-in vote for Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, in Tuesday's election. He said it was a "symbolic protest."
There are folks who'll suggest that, whatever Chafee is, he's a breath of fresh air in that he allows himself be guided by principle rather than politics. I'm not sure that's the case; Chafee's probably increasingly suspicious that he can't hold his seat through the next election as a Republican, whether the ax falls in the primaries or the general election. A party switch, which isn't obviously to the Democrats' benefit politicswise, may be the only way for him to save his job.
And as I've long been saying, a Chafee with a D. after his name would allow me to fulfill my moral obligation to vote against him in '06 while still enabling me voting Republican.
Marc Comtois has posted thoughtful explanations of his intended votes. Firstly, I have to say that I'm glad to be in a different district. Marc's choice for U.S. Congress is incumbent Democrat Jim Langevin or Republican challenger Chuck Barton. In a state that no national Republican strategist counts on for numbers, I simply couldn't pull the lever for Barton, and here's why:
On social issues, Barton differs from most conservative Republicans."I am very moderately pro-choice," he said. "My belief is that (abortion) is a very difficult, personal issue that the government should stay out of." And Barton, an Episcopalian, said that he would "probably" not vote for Bush's proposed constitutional amendment that marriage be exclusively between a man and a woman. "I'm not going to fall in line with all national Republican stances," he said.
In contrast, Langevin is on the National Advisory Board of Democrats for Life. In the state government, Rs are needed just to derive any benefit from the friction of a two-party system — not so at the federal level.
Marc also goes through the spending bills on the ballot, and I have to admit that he's done his homework better than I have. Still, I consider my vote little more than a protest gesture, and moreover, I think if we're going to get Rhode Island government under control, people are going to have to learn that we can't allow our representatives to spend on everything but the basics and then go back to the till crying about how essential the basics are. To be honest, it strikes me as a con.
We need money for roads? Put up toll booths so people can see their income draining. Let people truly face the prospect of having to go forty miles out of their way because there's no money left to fix a bridge. Funding requests on my ballot get NOs down the line. Rhode Island is so deep in the blue that there will be plenty of opportunities to vote for infrastructure investments before we've managed to bring some parity (and sanity) to the statehouse.
Much pondering has finally piled up behind my inertial walls, and I've decided to go ahead and start a group blog for Rhode Island conservatives (actually, anybody who agrees that Rhode Island is too partisan and/or has to begin toning down its liberalism). The blog is currently in production, and I've already got one other writer signed on.
The plan is to offer broadly relevant commentary, but from a Rhode Island perspective. Each blogger will be able to choose his or her own content (within reason), but for my part, the local emphasis may give me a context in which to scratch my multimedia itch and to explore arts and tradition in my neck of the woods. (Not to worry, though — Dust in the Light shouldn't suffer in its own, unique mission.) Once things start rolling, I'll make some effort to promote it, and hopefully it'll eventually manage to provide not only a social/political benefit for Rhode Island, but also a financial/professional benefit for the writers.
The first order of business is to name the thing, and for this, I'm open to suggestions. As one (not very strict) guide, I plan to use the State Seal, which is the word "hope" over an anchor and some wave-like squiggles, as a focal point of the design. Currently on the table: Out of the Blue, Alternative Hope, RI Alternative, AltRI, Hope's Anchor, Anchoring Hope, Anchoring RI. Anything catch your eye or spark a different idea?
Finally, any Rhode Islanders who are interested in writing for the blog should feel free email me (use the link in the left-hand column). I'll want some samples; if you've already got a blog, send along a link. A brief description of your views, location, and occupation would be helpful, too.
ADDENDUM:
Well, wouldn't you know it. There's already a blog called Out of the Blue — and it's based in Rhode Island! (The blog is actually a rediscovery; I think I've even interacted with its writer over on Michael Williams's blog. But it must have slipped my mind.) Guess I'll scratch that title off the list.
Oh well. But congrats to Larry for his recent marriage, though!
ADDENDUM II:
I find myself partial to "Raising Hope," which seems appropriate on many levels.
For anybody interested, I thought I'd note that the important Cranston, Rhode Island, mayoral primary that I mentioned the other day ended with an even better result than I'd hoped:
Now, there were some problems at the polling places, but the margin of victory, 75% Laffey to 25% Reilly, is just too big for Laffey's victory to be totally attributable to polling place gaffes and fraud. I certainly hope that the people of Rhode Island made a statement this primary season.
For Rhode Island, it isn't unduly optimistic to suggest that better times are coming.
Anybody who's taken an empathetic interest in American history will hear something familiar in William Tooher's recent letter to the Providence Journal:
Last December, I registered two used Vespa motor scooters and paid a total of $469 in sales tax [to the state of Rhode Island]. Six months later I traded in the bikes for one larger one, for an out-of-pocket expense of $684. When I went to turn in one plate and transfer the other to the new bike, I was taxed on the full cost of the new bike -- which was $5,100, so I paid an additional $357 in sales tax. No credit for the two trade-ins!Then, a scant two weeks later, I traded the new Vespa for a larger but less expensive bike. I traded even and figured there would be no sales tax. Oh, silly me. I was charged another $325 in sales tax for a trade that had cost me nothing out of pocket. Bottom line: I paid a total of $1,151 in sales tax for a bike that didn't cost me a dime!
Perhaps it's merely an ideological echo in my head, but in Tooher's anecdote, I hear a whisper from the early days of the American Revolution. It's one of those stories that, if not allowed to slip out of the public's awareness, results in demands for change when there are too many to ignore.
Part of the problem, in Rhode Island, has been the difficulty of change. Nobody's quite sure who to blame for the problems. And when the public's gaze begins to focus, it blurs once again with stories about why the recipients of all that undeserved revenue need it, or at least why it's reasonable to give it to them. Even reasonable gifts add up.
As it happens, today provides an opportunity to begin resolving the matter without recourse to coups. As Edward Achorn describes the sides and the stakes:
Recognizing that they could not readily beat him in a general election, given his popularity, [public unions] are trying to steal today's Republican primary [in Cranston], by running a puppet named Garry Reilly against Mr. Laffey. ...Some of that money and organizational power has bought glossy fliers and busy phone banks that attack Mayor Laffey for having hiked taxes. That seems remarkably hypocritical, given that taxes had to be hiked to stem Cranston's financial meltdown -- brought on by giveaways negotiated by Mr. Laffey's more "cooperative" predecessors!
On the other side, informed taxpayers fear the worst. I know of some who are planning to move out of Cranston if Mr. Laffey is erased.
But the aggressiveness of this attempt to crush one politician, and scare others into slavish compliance, suggests that the state's public-employee unions are themselves deeply fearful. They know the stakes are high: If the citizens of Rhode Island begin to wake up and realize why they are paying such high taxes, the special interests' easy entrée into the taxpayers' wallets may be a thing of the past. And their iron grip on Ocean State politics could be broken.
If you live in Cranston: Go Vote! Polls close at 9:00 p.m.
ADDENDUM:
For some background (including video) see here.
Because it seems typical of a certain mindset, a letter to the Providence Journal from Walter Bosse of Cumberland, Rhode Island, demands response:
We need to create jobs for the unemployed, but no more than that. The nationwide marketing plan discussed by Governor Carcieri for Quonset would create many more jobs than we have unemployed. The top jobs for new companies are filled by people who already work for the company and would be moved in. The remaining jobs might be filled by the unemployed. Where would the people come from to fill jobs above what are available here? They would have to move here, also.
Without guessing at Mr. Bosse's general political approach, one can say that his suggestion echoes the socialist's conceit that these things can be micromanaged. They can't be; moreover, in a state of stasis, problems are more difficult to handle, and economic mobility ceases to exist.
Let's think this through. Suppose Rhode Island companies need more workers than there are available in the state: what do they have to do? Well, they either have to lure workers away from other companies, or they have to attract workers from elsewhere, entailing either a move or a commute. In all cases, they have to make themselves more attractive to potential employees; pay and benefits increase across the board.
As for housing and population density, the value of housing will increase. In an environment primed for growth, that will require companies to make further efforts to attract and keep employees. Increased tax receipts from both companies and the wealthier citizenry can be directed toward improvement of public land and rethinking of convoluted transportation systems. And if the two sides of the issue come together such that companies can't afford the rate that the market demands they pay for workers, perhaps industries that pay less will have to move elsewhere or find ways to be more efficient.
I've simplified the picture, of course; it's probably beyond human ability to fully comprehend. But just as it is exponentially more difficult to move a car without allowing its own forward motion, so with the economy. Without a doubt, the various forces at play will require adept steering (i.e., management), but in a way that is probably related to the socialist's conceit, asking fellow citizens to accept the squalid stagnation of the status quo to maintain a preferred density is the liberal's selfishness.
If it happens that Rhode Island begins to change in character, then the "country feel" will become a premium for which citizens who can will have to pay, in some form, or to look elsewhere to find. And should they decide to do the latter, they'll get a much better price for their land, perhaps enabling an upgrade in lifestyle when they move somewhere that fewer people wish to be.
Earlier this month (ages ago, in blog time), Charles Hill brought up the issue of "affordable housing." I've held on to the URL for so long because housing is a major issue in Rhode Island. As every informed citizen of the state knows, we are heading for an affordable housing crisis ("!"). As valid as the applicable numbers and conclusions may be, Charles's first commenter, the Proprietor, raises one of those unspoken angles that issues tend to have under their skirts:
The main thing to realize is that this has *nothing* to do with providing affordable housing. It is a way to bust zoning in exclusive communities so there is a more fertile field for developers to build housing.
Although I shudder to suggest it, in response to the New Jersian commenter, it may be that Rhode Island's system is a bit more corrupt. According to various conversations that I've had, affordable housing rules have been leveraged in attempts to bust the zoning rules even in some of the poorer, most "affordable" towns in the state. It has become a pervasive part of the culture, here, that people must grab all that they can, and that the government is an appropriate method through which to do so... on the sly and with altruistic-sounding rhetoric for cover.
Whatever the political struggles for finding the land, however, it's undeniable that Rhode Island has a problem. And Charles may point the way toward a solution:
At my income level, I couldn't possibly hope to live in a place like Lincolnshire. In a society with some measure of rationality, I would be urged to do one of the following: either improve that income, or go live somewhere I can afford. The town can't legally keep me out — probably wouldn't dream of keeping me out — but there's no justification for forcing a property owner in that town to sell to me, or to rent to me, at a price far below what he wants and can get.
There are two words in the phrase "affordable housing," and thus two sides of the equation. If, for example, Rhode Island could match the average annual wages of its neighbors, Connecticut and Massachusetts (PDF), the affordable housing crisis would disappear overnight. Prices that are exorbitant to the poor are reasonable to the less poor.
This represents a complex subject matter, to be sure. Holding population and available housing steady while everybody's income rose, for example, would surely cause housing costs to rise accordingly. Furthermore, any solution aimed at raising income levels would require a degree of subtlety and a long view often lacking in our government. One typically short-sighted solution is to increase the minimum wage, and Rhode Island's top-five minimum wage (31% greater than the federal minimum wage that most states follow) hasn't managed to increase our average income even above the country's mean line.
It probably isn't a stretch to suggest that the minimum wage is one factor among many keeping businesses out of our state and constraining the types of jobs that are created. Another Providence Journal piece about affordable housing reports:
Of the 20 occupations projected to add the most jobs between 2000 and 2010, only four -- registered nurses, computer support specialists, secondary school teachers and elementary school teachers -- pay enough for a median wage earner to afford a two-bedroom apartment at the state average rent.
A quick look at the list of the fifty fastest-growing occupations in the state reveals that almost all of them are location-specific. In other words, they increase only inasmuch as there is enough money in Rhode Island to make it worth doing more business here. In such cases, a region is the source of revenue, but not necessarily the destination, and with the exception of tourism and higher education, the money in Rhode Island increasingly tends either to circulate within the limited local market or to flow out of state. Emblematically, the two fastest-growing occupations are registered nurses and retail salespeople.
The latter — retail — tells a particularly worrying story when it is considered that the list of declining industries is almost entirely made up of varying forms of manufacturing. Companies are willing to sell in Rhode Island, but not to build here. Returning to the minimum wage, it's one thing to pay 2,481 retail clerks $6.75 an hour when the only other option is to let the state's retail market go untapped. It's another thing to place any other point of the company's operational chain in a state that demands low-level positions to pay $1.6 more per hour than in most states across the nation. Hiring 2,481 workers at that level in Rhode Island (assuming 40-hours and paid vacations) would cost the company an additional $8,256,768 per year.
As I said, this problem has only complex solutions, but it poses questions that people in all states must ask themselves. What are our priorities? Where do we have to compromise our desire to give everybody everything so that we don't make it impossible for more than a minority to get anything? Rhode Island, for one, can no longer afford its distrust of the free market and disbelief in the power and importance of individual responsibility. It certainly can no longer afford to let the recipients of public funds insulate themselves from financial realities as everybody else experiences them.
Here's where the various issues begin to come together. In Rhode Island:
David Sweeney, a retired lawyer with 30 years of experience negotiating teachers' contracts, has responded to a piece by retired teacher James Hosey, in which Mr. Hosey lamented that teachers' employment packages fall far short of the deals offered to — get this — CEOs. Putting aside the ludicrous comparison of, essentially, the educational workforce with the top, top class of the business world, Mr. Sweeney writes:
I don't know where Mr. Hosey worked, but every Rhode Island contract I know of contained "step increases" over 10 or 12 years. Teachers received an increase in pay for each credit earned toward an advanced degree, in courses paid for by the school districts. The workday consisted of less than seven hours, of which no more than four hours were spent in actually teaching. The work year was, and is, 180 days, and anything over that required additional compensation. Paid sick leave increased every year, and, amazingly, sick days taken by teachers also increased every year. Retirement, as taken by Mr. Hosey, was a combination of age and years worked, which permitted teachers to retire in their 50s and early 60s. ...Former teachers who enter the real work world from the warm womb of the education industry are consistently shocked by the work demands of employers who must compete to survive. Unfortunately, these same people are teaching our children that everyone is "entitled" to all the benefits of a comfortable life, from annual pay increases to lifetime health care, without regard to individual talent or effort.
Hosey's home district, Cumberland, apparently has a relatively weak union, by Rhode Island standards. Consider these items from the personal experience that Hosey offers as "a point-by-point refutation" of a July 24 piece by Donald Hawthorne:
-- I was a teacher for 30 years; in that time, I never came close to a 12-percent raise.-- There were no automatic increases in pay; our union had to fight tooth-and-nail for each contract as September approached, and the school committee relied upon Superior Court to order us back to work without one.
-- I never saw a longevity bonus.
One might note that the plea that the union had to "fight tooth-and-nail" for raises sidesteps Hawthorne's point, which had to do with the "just for showing up" nature of the raises that teachers do get every year, whatever show the union puts on. Marc Comtois, who is now the parent of a child in the Warwick, Rhode Island, school system, breaks down the numbers in table format.
As Marc explains, at least in Warwick, the annual raises scheduled within a given contract are deceptive, because each "step" — with advancement occurring each year, without regard to merit — increases annually. So, for example, while a first-time teacher for the 2000–2001 school year was scheduled to go from $30,348 to $33,467 (a very healthy 10% raise) for the next year, that teacher actually went to $34,722 (14.4%), because Step 2 increased. Marc also notes that, unlike Hosey's employer, his town does offer longevity bonuses, in addition to other merit-based increases.
More stunning, however, is Marc's side-by-side comparison of teachers' salaries with private-sector salaries. The disparity is huge, of itself, but compared with the national average, a visual representation makes for an extremely disheartening image for a semi-employed private-sector Rhode Islander such as myself. Note that, for the following graph, I dug up the 2002 data for the private sector (PDF) and the 2002–2003 data for teachers (USA and RI), which actually presents an improvement from Marc's previous-year data.
As Marc gives reason to realize, with his comparison of Rhode Island with its two contiguous states, Massachusetts and Connecticut, this chart isn't anywhere near the whole story. Rhode Island's tax burden and cost of living are high, relative to the rest of the country. As a percentage of income, Rhode Islanders pay 1.4% more in total state, federal, and local taxes than the nation as a whole. As for cost of living, I looked at one tangible expense, annual homeowner costs, for which Rhode Islanders pay 10.75% more than the nation as a whole. (Unfortunately, the latest data that I could find for housing was for 2000, and house prices have skyrocketed since then, doubling or more in some areas.) Here's a very rough picture of all of the above information lumped together:
The colored wedges, in total, represent the average Rhode Island private sector income (wages = $33,240). The white wedge is the actual-dollar amount of money that the average RI teacher has left over after taxes and housing above and beyond what the average private sector Rhode Islander has left over ($21,868 – $8,376 = $13,492).* In short, from this rough, limited picture, it looks as if the average Rhode Island teacher could almost afford to pay one additional family's housing costs, including mortgage, for the entire year and still have Rhode Island's average remainder left over. Here's the comparable pie graph for the nation as a whole.
And even that isn't the whole story. Rhode Island teachers get fantastic benefits, including absolutely free healthcare, on top of the career perk of a 180-day work year. (I don't know what the private sector's average work year is, but I'd be surprised if it weren't at least 220 days.) No wonder our retired teacher, Mr. Hosey, proclaims:
I would put my own head in a noose before I would ever again work in a non-union environment.
Unfortunately, as valuable and noble as the teaching profession may be, public union workers' employment packages have to find their funds somewhere, and in Rhode Island, that means hanging the rest of us.
* For the average teacher's remainder, I did remember to calculate and subtract the relatively higher tax slice, although I treated it as a flat tax.
It begins to get frustratingly old — irrelevantly old for readers from elsewhere — but I think Rhode Islanders with any sort of platform at all are morally obligated to continue demanding governmental change. In this respect, the Providence Journal's editorial board continues to do what the American press was practically invented to do:
Rhode Island must face reality. It confronts a frightening downward spiral: higher taxes inflicted on the few who remain in Rhode Island, with educated children forced to move out to find jobs, and job creators steering clear in self-defense.The new RIPEC study is far from the first warning Rhode Island has received. In June, the magazine Bloomberg Wealth Manager rated the Ocean State the worst in the nation -- of 50 states and the District of Columbia -- in punishing wealth. That advertises to those who might otherwise bring wealth (and jobs) to the Ocean State that they should avoid what the magazine called "tax-hell Rhode Island."
Meanwhile, the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy rated Rhode Island fourth from the bottom in creating a climate in which free enterprise can flourish.
It is time for the Ocean State's leaders to respond to this problem by positioning the state so that it can aggressively compete with its neighbors for jobs. Those leaders must stop focusing on rewarding special interests and start worrying about the general interest -- and the taxpayers who keep the whole structure of government going.
In all likelihood, the politicians will not mend their ways until the voters drive them in that direction. The longer it takes, the worse off Rhode Island will be.
I've colored my town red on the map at the top of this post, which I found on Rhode Island's official tourism Web site. Newcomer rabble rouser that I am, I've pondered the necessary procedure to get the town to secede from the state. But running to Massachusetts presents its own considerations; I like Rhode Island; I believe that one ought to work to fix a place rather than abandon it; and the state can only improve from its current political condition.
Still, I hope I don't have to sell the house and move for less voluntary reasons than voting with my family's feet before my fellow citizens wake up from their Democrat daydreams.
(Note: I don't know whether the press was actually invented for this purpose, but it sounds good, doesn't it?)
In March, Rhode Islander Donald Hawthorne did some comparative math between increases in state aid to our educational establishment and a moderate family budget. Let's just say that I wouldn't be inclined to complain, much less proclaim a crisis, if my employer told me that budgetary considerations required that my promised $15,000 annual raise would have to be reduced to $14,250.
Last week, Mr. Hawthorne listed some of the benefits of being a public employee in Rhode Island, for reader comparison to their own deals:
The unions say they represent working people. Test that claim with this nonfiction test. If you are a working person or retired working person, has your work environment included:Annual salary increases up to 12 percent?
Automatic increases simply for showing up, not based on merit?
Additional longevity bonuses, just for showing up?
No-layoff provisions?
Seniority valued more than expertise or organizational need?
Zero co-payments on insurance premiums?
Eleven weeks of paid time off per year?
A pension equal to 60 to 80 percent of your salary for the rest of your life, starting immediately after retirement and with as little as 28 years of service, regardless of your age?
Today, state- and local-government employees and teachers receive some combination of the above terms, paid for by working people, single parents, and retirees, many of whom earn nothing close to those terms.
Edward Achorn continues to slip encouragement to Rhode Island conservatives — actually, to anybody who opposes our corrupt one-party government. Yesterday, he noted a relatively small, but hugely symbolic, victory on the part of Governor Carcieri:
When [the doling out of power and money] was over, and the budget passed 49 to 22, House Democrats held a victory party with beer and wine. [Union boss Frank] Montanaro stopped by to celebrate yet another triumph for his special interests.But the celebrations may have been premature. As Republicans were quick to point out, the state constitution requires the "assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the general assembly" to pass certain spending in the budget. And there are 75 elected members. Forty-nine falls one vote short of two-thirds. ...
In the end, the most powerful politician in the state -- Speaker Murphy -- was reduced to stalling for time, while Democrats feverishly tried to round up a 50th vote. Meanwhile, Mr. Fox railed on the House floor, shouting at foes, as Mr. Caprio put it, "like Howard Dean times 100." When Mr. Murphy failed to scrounge 50 votes, he had the chamber approve the budget anyway and send it to the Senate -- a tactical mistake, surely, since that threw the ball into the Senate's court. ...
Whatever happens, though, Friday's budget maneuvers revealed a flaw in the machine that for decades has been running the state as a wholly owned subsidiary of the public-employee labor unions. Mr. Murphy has rebellious Democrats in his ranks. Governor Carcieri, rather than wave the white flag to more powerful forces, has made it clear that he intends to do battle.
Have I mentioned that the sun has broken through the clouds?
Rhode Island's union cartel isn't happy about certain noises being made about curbing their power. They're going after the (Republican) governor with deceptive ads:
And so a campaign of ads against the governor has been unleashed. One published recently featured unattractive pictures of Governor Carcieri and slammed him for the pension he receives as a retired corporate executive. What it didn't point out is that the taxpayers pay for public-employee benefits -- not for Governor Carcieri's private pension -- and that most of the taxpayers doing the paying do not receive benefits nearly as plush. Nor does the ad point out that property taxes are going through the roof in many communities, and that elected officials are unable to manage efficiently, in part because of giveaways in contract negotiations. ...The union leaders say their latest attack was in response to a May 10 fundraising letter by the governor. ... In a state where politicians have traditionally been too fearful to awaken powerful enemies, this talk borders on heresy.
To get rid of the thorn-in-the-side (Republican) mayor in Cranston, their strategy is a bit less rooted in the First Amendment:
The union that represents the city's crossing guards, Public Service Employees Local Union 1033 of the Laborers International Union, sent letters June 1 and June 7 asking union members to disaffiliate from the Democratic Party so they can vote against Mayor Stephen P. Laffey in the Sept. 14 primary. ...The cards were then delivered en masse to the Board of Canvassers office, at City Hall.
The board's registrar, Jaclyn Caruolo, said most of the roughly 260 cards were dropped off in bunches. The rest, she said, were filled out individually at the office and witnessed by the clerks in the office, who serve as notaries.
Democrat City Committee Chairman Michael Sepe — through his sparkling level of class — evinced the degree to which he is a union stooge:
"I think the mayor right now needs a diaper change after what the unions are doing to him," Sepe said. "What's his problem? Now that they want to get into the Republican primary, you can't be crying about that."
My first reaction to this news was to wonder what people do with their money:
It takes about $50,000 for a Rhode Island family of four to scrape by with the bare necessities.No Friday night dinner at Chuck E Cheese's. No trips to Walt Disney World, or karate lessons after school. Just rent, food, utilities, bills.
And they are the fortunate ones.
Roughly half of all families in Rhode Island -- 47 percent -- earn less than $50,000 a year, according to a study being released this morning by the Poverty Institute, a policy and advocacy group at Rhode Island College.
Primary among the discordant details of the article is that the story's central profile, that of April Brophy, doesn't fit the claims of the piece. Apparently, she and her husband were doing just fine on $35,000 — paying for a mortgage, two cars, "a modest savings account." Then divorce dropped her to $14,000 per year, but the state's temporary safety net was enough to get her rolling, even with only a GED foundation to start with. She still relies on state-subsidized healthcare and daycare for her children, but she's making ends meet, earning around $23,000 per year. So why do the state's social workers believe her to require almost twice as much?
The answer opens up all those sticky areas in which different worldviews lead directly to incompatible solutions. The first thing to note, looking at the Poverty Institute study that formed the basis of the article (PDF) is that the $50,000 figure neatly rounds up from just over $48,000 for a two-parent home. More importantly, the numbers are a theoretical sum of various expenses, calculated from separate estimates; they therefore do not take into account the sorts of decisions that people make to stay comfortably afloat.
For instance, the $391 per month for transportation strikes me as high. The $650 per month of medical assumes, at the least, an extremely poor benefits package at work (especially for jobs supporting that level of income). Not surprisingly, the biggest chunk is the $1,215 per month ($14,580 per year) for childcare. These few factors go a long way toward explaining how the Brophys survived before the divorce. Merely mom's staying home with the kids increases the income value of $35,000 per year to $49,580. A job that completely covers health insurance (like public school teacher in Rhode Island, ahem) adds another $7,800-plus of value.
And that is where the policy differences really begin to come into play. To isolate one factor, the high income ceiling for subsidies for childcare encourages double-income families. A family with two parents and two children can make $42,413 and still receive $9,588 from the Rhode Island taxpayer (if they pay the maximum co-payments, however that works). A family like the nuclear Brophys, making $35,000, has incentive, not for the mother (or father) to stay home and save $14,580 on daycare, but to work at least part time.
With the system as it is, the taxpayer reward for having two incomes exacerbates the job shortage and keeps wages down. It doesn't seem insignificant that the income that the Poverty Institute claims families to need is in the range of what might be thought of as the subsidized baseline. Meanwhile, encouraging parents to put their children in daycare inflates the demand for childcare providers, which raises the price. A similar (albeit more complicated) dynamic comes into play with the free or cheap healthcare that Rhode Island offers to all children whose household income is less than 250% of the national poverty level (or a little over $47,000 for a family of four).
All of these various policies are debatable at the individual level and become a mess of causes and effects, incentives and side-effects, in the broader view. Trying to solve them through ever-expanding giveaways, however, will tend make the problems worse. Unfortunately, the urge to do just that is all-pervasive — strangling Rhode Island from every angle:
Along with protecting the subsidies for struggling families, Gewirtz says the state should demand higher-paying jobs from companies that move to Rhode Island."The best way out of poverty is a good job," Gewirtz said. "A lot of times we give tax breaks to companies that promise to bring jobs, but they are often poverty-level jobs. There needs to be more accountability."
Apart from the interesting tidbit that the jobs Rhode Island attracts are in the range in which employers find the government covering much of what they would have to offer to secure workers, the extent of belief that a state can just force higher incomes is astounding. Demand higher-paying jobs. Accountability for creating the wrong types of employment. For companies that move to the state. Something tells me that the number of such companies would continue to decline.
Rhode Island, in short, is approaching calamity from two directions through its urges toward socialism. Driving away businesses while pushing the publicly funded benefits for citizens ever up the income scale will eventually create a state attempting to subsidize everybody with revenue from nobody.
ADDENDUM:
This is the first post of a new "Rhode Island" category.
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