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This is your RISC-Y Business email for July 12, 2010 |
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As a very warm campaign summer starts, RISC notes that the state Legislature missed critical opportunities this past year to save Rhode Island from plunging into deeper fiscal mismanagement, by failing to do more to shore up struggling local businesses and enacting lukewarm pension reforms that will do little to ease the burden communities are facing for personnel compensation and pension fund debts.
In the midst of the heat wave came a bit of campaign heat in the State Treasurer’s race as Gina Raimondo first attempted to swat away ethical concerns over the revelation that her venture capital management firm, Point Judith Capital Partners, is managing a $5 million investment for the State Pension Fund. Since she is seeking an office which manages the state’s investments, primarily the State Pension Fund, conflict of interest questions have naturally emerged.
RISC, Donna Perry: Campaign Heat Wave, July 12, 2010 |
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Click here for an invitation to the RISC Annual Summer Meeting on August 7th! |
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TO TRACK KEY VOTES OF YOUR LEGISLATORS, SEE THE RISC WEBSITE |
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Today's News! |
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Rhode Island Statewide Coalition is on FaceBook and myRISC.com
RISC Business Network is on FaceBook , Twitter, LinkedIn, and myRISC.com |
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RBN pro-business, pro-jobs candidates to be announced
July 20th
THE RACES ARE ON!
SENATE AND HOUSE SEATS ARE SEEING CHALLENGES IN ALMOST EVERY DISTRICT! THIS IS AN HISTORIC MOMENT FOR RI, AND RBN 2010 IS AN HISTORIC IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS ARRIVED!!!
We've reached the $100,000 mark in funding and campaign pledges, but we need EVEN MORE PLEDGES to elect a slate of pro-business, pro-jobs candidates!
THIS IS AN AMAZING OPPORTUNITY TO CLEAN UP RI AND GET SOME FRESH BLOOD FLOWING IN THE STATE LEGISLATURE! ARE YOU IN?
WE MAY NOT HAVE SUCH AN OPPORTUNITY AGAIN!
TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW:
RBN2010.COM IS GOING TO CHANGE THE R.I. GENERAL ASSEMBLY!!
FIND OUT MORE!
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Debt commission leaders paint gloomy picture
BOSTON – The heads of President Barack Obama's national debt commission painted a gloomy picture Sunday as the United States struggles to get its spending under control.
Republican Alan Simpson and Democrat Erskine Bowles told a meeting of the National Governors Association that everything needs to be considered — including curtailing popular tax breaks, such as the home mortgage deduction, and instituting a financial trigger mechanism for gaining Medicare coverage.
The nation's total federal debt next year is expected to exceed $14 trillion — about $47,000 for every U.S. resident.
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Donna Perry: Campaign Heat Wave
As the mercury soared last week, making Rhode Island feel more like the tropics than southern New England, the lyrics of the 1980’s Bananarama mega-hit came rushing back. Yes, it sure felt like “cruel, cruel summer” and no question “this heat has got right out of hand” certainly rang true by that record-breaking Tuesday evening. Weather patterns can take over that make it feel like the tropics but that doesn’t mean we have to manage our finances like a banana (or Bananarama) republic. As a very warm campaign summer starts, RISC notes that the state Legislature missed critical opportunities this past year to save Rhode Island from plunging into deeper fiscal mismanagement, by failing to do more to shore up struggling local businesses and enacting lukewarm pension reforms that will do little to ease the burden communities are facing for personnel compensation and pension fund debts.
In the midst of the heat wave came a bit of campaign heat in the State Treasurer’s race as Gina Raimondo first attempted to swat away ethical concerns over the revelation that her venture capital management firm, Point Judith Capital Partners, is managing a $5 million investment for the State Pension Fund. Since she is seeking an office which manages the state’s investments, primarily the State Pension Fund, conflict of interest questions have naturally emerged. Beyond that, Ms. Raimondo then issued a campaign announcement that she will be launching a series of “money school” events around the state to emphasize the importance of personal financial education and discussed the growing interest in financial literacy programs in other states, especially targeted to young females or low-income families. Hard to argue with the merits of expanding personal financial education among those groups or the general public. But perhaps Ms. Raimondo would like to offer the first session to large numbers of the General Assembly for reasons already noted? Maybe the average Rhode Islander would be inspired to better attend to their own fiscal affairs if they saw greater fiscal responsibility on display in their elected representatives and senators. Furthermore, if Ms. Raimondo wants to engage the public in financial literacy and better personal financial management, she may want to review her opponent’s well-crafted calls to reform the state pension system top to bottom, including his calls to convert from defined benefits to defined contributions in 401-k style plans. Kerry King has comprehensively laid out the magnitude of the growing pension debt problem , decades in the making, which now threatens to devour most all other spending needs in individual cities and towns if not reversed. King and other reform-oriented voices have rightly asserted that we cannot continue with a state-subsidized retirement system which ends up paying out to the retiree much more than they paid in, producing municipal worker millionaires over the life of the benefit, but bankrupting the taxpayer and business sector struggling to pay for it all.
We shall see if the “money schools” will encourage taking responsibility for one’s own retirement plan. Not a bad thought for a personal financial education class. Maybe voters should remind candidates that they could turn up the heat this fall on anyone who won’t reflect on their own level of financial literacy and their responsibility to ALL Rhode Islanders.
Donna Perry is Communications Adviser to RISC
Her Column appears each Monday in RISC-y Business |
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Wyatt facility says it’s unable to pay Central Falls
CENTRAL FALLS — The Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility has seen a significant drop in its inmate population in the past few months, a trend that forced jail officials to renege on their promise to contribute $250,000, on July 1, to the financially strapped city.
Michael V. Fair, Wyatt’s chief executive officer, said that despite the recent woes, the jail still has enough money to pay its bondholders the $4.4 million due this week. Under the terms of a $106-million loan to build and expand the facility, the jail has to make two annual payments of $4.4 million — each Jan. 15 and July 15 — through 2035.
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Providence: Budget to get a public hearing
PROVIDENCE — Residents will have a chance to weigh in on Mayor David N. Cicilline’s proposed $638-million spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1 at a public hearing before the City Council on Wednesday.
The budget represents an approximately 3.5-percent increase in spending over last year’s $616-million budget. |
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3 Costantino family members running for House seats
House Finance Chairman Steven Costantino, D-Providence, may be leaving the General Assembly in hopes of winning a new job as mayor of Rhode Island’s largest city.
But three other members of the extended Costantino family are now running for their own seats in the House. |
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Editorial: Healthy competition
A recent poll found that 72 percent of registered voters think that Rhode Island is moving in the wrong direction. It is encouraging, then, to see so much competition this year for seats in the General Assembly, which has more power over the state than the other two branches.
At last count, just nine races — two in the House and six in the Senate — had a single candidate seeking an Assembly seat. All the rest — 73 House seats and 32 Senate seats — were contested. (The deadline for filing was June 30.)
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James Cournoyer: Greece Island
House Finance Chairman and Providence mayoral candidate Steven Costantino proudly proclaimed that the General Assembly’s recent budget contained no broad-based tax increases.
Well, Woonsocket just passed a budget with a 15.3 percent increase in the local tax levy, confiscating $6.8 million more from the pockets of its already overtaxed, under-employed and unemployed taxpayers.
The city itself has much to answer for for this increase, but make no mistake: The state is culpable as well.
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Forrest Golden: Why the increases?
I am delighted that National Grid has agreed to buy wind power that Deepwater Wind plans to generate in waters off Block Island. Yet I am concerned and puzzled by the apparent agreement to build a constant yearly price increase of 3.5 percent into the price of the power, which, of course, must be ultimately paid for by National Grid’s customers.
Having reviewed the contract that the state Public Utilities Commission must also review, I do not find any justification for a fixed, pre-ordained, yearly increase for an energy source independent of commodity market variation. The cost of wind is obviously not going to increase. |
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AG Candidates Took Donations from Insurance Companies
Attorney General candidates Peter Kilmartin and Joe Fernandez have publicly denounced health insurance companies for hiking their rates, but behind the scenes they are taking donations from these same companies.
These donations raise new questions for the Democratic candidates—especially Kilmartin, who has received a total of $2,100 from health insurance companies, compared to $175 for Fernandez.
Just how serious are they about getting tough on health insurance companies? And, if elected, can they be effective advocates of ratepayers against these companies? |
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RISC
P.O. Box 567, Charlestown, RI 02813/ Phone: 401-213-6316 / Fax: 401-213-6307 Email: info@risc-ri.orgWeb: www.statewidecoalition.com
The information included herein, not otherwise identified by source or author, is the copyright of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, Inc. "RISC-y Business", and the RISC logo are trademarks of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, Inc. Copyright © 2010 Rhode Island Statewide Coalition, Inc. |
