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A look at the lousy situation Rhode Island is in, how we got here,
and how we might be able to get out.
Featuring
Budget Demystification!
Fiscal Derring-Do!
Economic Jiggery-Pokery!
Now at bookstores near you, or buy it with the button above ($14,
or $18 with shipping and sales tax).
Contact information below if you'd
like to schedule a book-related event, like a possibly entertaining talk on the
book's subjects, featuring the famous mystery graph.
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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter and a weekly column appearing in ten
of Rhode Island's finer newspapers. The goal is to look at local,
state and federal policy issues
that affect life here in the Ocean State, concentrating on action, not
intentions or talk.
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Available Back Issues:
- Aug 09 (38) - How your government's
economic policies have worked against you. What a fake nineteenth
century nun can teach us about the tea party protests.
- Jun 09 (37) - Statistics of
optimism, the real cost of your government. Judith Reilly on
renewable tax credits. Review of Akerlof and Shiller on behavioral
economics.
- Apr 09 (36) - Cap and trade, the
truth behind the card check controversy, review of Governor's tax
policy workgroup final report.
- Feb 09 (35) - The many varieties of
market failures, and what classic economics has to say about them,
review of Nixonland by Rick Perlstein.
- Dec 08 (34) - Can "Housing First"
end homelessness? The perils of TIF. Review of You Can't Be
President by John MacArthur.
- Oct 08 (33) - Wage stagnation,
financial innovation and deregulation: creating the financial
crisis, the political rhetoric of the Medicaid waiver.
- Jul 08 (32) - Where has the money
gone? Could suburban sprawl be part of our fiscal problem? Review
of Bad Money by Kevin Phillips, news trivia or trivial
news.
- Apr 08 (31) - Understanding
homelessness in RI, by Eric Hirsch, market segmentation and the
housing market, the economics of irrationality.
- Feb 08 (30) - IRS migration data,
and what it says about RI, a close look at "entitlements", historic
credit taxonomy, an investment banking sub-primer.
- Dec 07 (29) - A look at the state's
underinsured, economic geography with IRS data.
- Oct 07 (28) - Choosing the most
expensive ways to fight crime, bait and switch tax cuts, review
of Against Prediction, about the perils of using statistics
to fight crime.
- Aug 07 (27) - Sub-prime mortgages
fall heaviest on some neighborhoods, biotech patents in decline, no photo
IDs for voting, review of Al Gore's Against Reason
- Jun 07 (26) - Education
funding, budget secrecy, book review of Boomsday and the Social
Security Trustees' Report
- May 07 (25) - Municipal finance: could citizen
mobility cause high property taxes?
What some Depression-era economists had to say on investment, and why
it's relevant today, again.
- Mar 07 (24) - The state budget
disaster and how we got here. Structural deficit, health care,
borrowing, unfunded liabilities, the works.
- Jan 07 (23) - The impact of real
estate speculation on housing prices, reshaping the electoral college.
Book review of Blocking the Courthouse Door on tort "reform."
- Dec 06 (22) - State deficit: What's
so responsible about this? DOT bonding madness, Quonset, again,
Massachusetts budget comparison.
- Oct 06 (21) - Book review: Out of
Iraq by Geo. McGovern and William Polk, New rules about supervisors
undercut unions, New Hampshire comparisons, and November referenda guide.
- Aug 06 (20) - Measuring teacher
quality, anti-planning referenda and the conspiracy to promote them,
affordable housing in the suburbs, union elections v. card checks.
- Jun 06 (19) - Education report, Do
tax cut really shrink government?, Casinos and constitutions, State historic tax
credit: who uses it.
- May 06 (18) - Distribution
analysis of property taxes by town, critique of RIEDC statistics,
how to reform health care, and how not to.
- Mar 06 (17) - Critique of commonly
used statistics: RI/MA rich people disparity, median income, etc.
Our economic dependence on high health care spending. Review of
Crashing the Gate
- Feb 06 (16) - Unnecessary
accounting changes mean disaster ahead for state and towns, reforming
property tax assessment, random state budget notes.
- Jan 06 (15) - Educational equity,
estimating the amount of real estate speculation in Rhode Island,
interview with Thom Deller, Providence's chief planner.
- Nov 05 (14) - The distribution of
affordable houses and people who need them, a look at RI's affordable
housing laws.
- Sep 05 (13) - A solution to pension
strife, review of J.K. Galbraith biography and why we should care.
- Jul 05 (12) - Kelo v. New London:
Eminent Domain, and what's between the lines in New London.
- Jun 05 (11) - Teacher salaries,
Veterinarian salaries and the
minimum wage. Book review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Apr 05 (10) - Choosing a crisis: Tax fairness and school
funding, suggestions for reform. Book review: business location and
tax incentives.
- Feb 05 (9) - State and teacher
pension costs kept artificially high. Miscellaneous tax suggestions for balancing the state budget.
- Dec 04 (8) - Welfare applications and the iconography of welfare
department logos. The reality of the Social Security trust fund.
- Oct 04 (7) - RIPTA and DOT, who's really in crisis?
- Aug 04 (6) - MTBE and well pollution, Mathematical problems with property taxes
- May 04 (5) - A look at food-safety issues: mad cows, genetic engineering, disappearing farmland.
- Mar 04 (4) - FY05 RI State Budget Critique.
- Feb 04 (3) - A close look at the Blue Cross of RI annual statement.
- Oct 03 (2) - Taxing matters, a historical overview of tax burdens in Rhode Island
- Oct 03 Appendix - Methodology notes and sources for October issue
- Apr 03 (1) - FY04 RI State Budget critique
Issues are issued in paper. They are archived irregularly here.
Subscription information:
Contact:
For those of you who can read english and understand it, the following
is an email address you are welcome to use. If you are a web bot, we hope
you can't understand it, and that's the point of writing it this way.
editor at
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Archive:
Deep archive
About
The Rhode Island Policy Reporter is an independent news source that
specializes in the technical issues of public policy that matter so
much to all our lives, but that also tend not to be reported very
well or even at all. The publication is owned and operated by Tom
Sgouros, who has written all the text you'll find on this site,
except for the articles with actual bylines.
Responsibility:
 Tom Sgouros
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Thu, 17 Sep 2009
Wayland Square, Wakefield and Westerly
Update: Due to logistical concerns, the Other Tiger
event has been postponed to October 23.
This coming week I'll be appearing at some area
bookstores to talk about state government, our economy, and the pickle
we're in, and maybe sign some copies of my book. Please come join me
at:
- Books on the Square in Providence on Tuesday September 15, at
7pm
- Myopic Books in Wakefield on Thursday September 17 at 7pm
- Other Tiger bookstore in Westerly on Friday the 18th at 5pm
21:27 - 17 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
Wed, 16 Sep 2009
Income inequality in America
Emmanual Saez has updated his article,
"Striking
it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United
States".
Here's his rendition of what's been happening to incomes at the top
end. One interesting thing is the extent to which the benefits of the
past few years have accrued not to the top 10%, but to the top 1%.
The tapayers in the 5th through 10th percentiles haven't done so well
at all.
10:12 - 16 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
Mon, 14 Sep 2009
Health care for illegal immigrants?
Many may get it after all. From
Mexico. (via)
08:09 - 14 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
Fri, 11 Sep 2009
September 11
From here:
It still rankles -- a lot -- that Osama bin Laden is still
out there. When the attacks happened, and in the days and weeks that
followed, lots of notions flew through my mind, most of them wild and
fanciful or flat-out insane. But it genuinely never occurred to me to
that the main architect of the attacks would still be at large eight
years later.
Once again, what matters is not what politicians say, but what
government does.
15:27 - 11 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
Fri, 04 Sep 2009
Come clean up!
Each year the Ocean Conservancy
holds its International Coastal Cleanup on the third Saturday in
September. Tens of thousands of volunteers will spend that morning
picking up trash along the shore. In Rhode Island, there are dozens
of cleanups around the Bay and some inland, too (there's one at
Lincoln Woods). There's probably one near you. Last year volunteers
picked up 8,354 plastic bags, 14,490 food containers, and 47,905
cigarette butts and I'm afraid there's plenty more out there.. This
year, the conservancy is highlighting the risks to wildlife of
discarded fishing line, which we find in great profusion (2,718 pieces
picked up last year).
Call the Audubon Society at 949-5454 to find a location where you can
help. Since it's the 21st century and we may as well make the most of
it, you can also go online at signuptocleanup.org where you'll find a
cool Google maps application that will let you find the cleanup
nearest you, or the most scenic. If you're near Wickford, come help
me clean up the harbor -- I'm "captain" there. Please RSVP at the
phone number or web site, so we know how many people to expect.
13:08 - 04 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
Thu, 03 Sep 2009
High speed rail: a boondoggle?
Or is the real boondoggle something else entirely.
Read here.
17:19 - 03 Sep 2009 [/y9/se]
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