Re: The Confused, Non-End of this General Assembly Session

I concur with Monique about the Speaker of the General Assembly House Bill Murphy's suggestion that the legislature is a full-time occupation, but it was a different line of his that caught my eye when I read that article:

"We said in January that the budget was going to be the issue this year and it was," Murphy said early Saturday morning. "I think once we got that over with Wednesday night, Thursday morning, people have had a long month, the Fourth of July is next week, we need a couple weeks to cool off."

"Cool off"? Somehow I can't help but wonder if — during a year of tea parties and coalescing opposition groups and local taxpayer organizations — the objective wouldn't be more accurately characterized as permitting the attention of difficult constituents to drift off: to let the summer doldrums settle in, vacations to drain the ground troops (so to speak), and a few weeks of hiatus to change the topics on folks' minds.

Scenes from Today's Iran Demostration at the RI Statehouse

Tea Parties and the Attitude of the RI Revolution

Appearing on the Matt Allen Show, last night, Marc discussed the tea party with Matt and described the "resigned determination" of we who keep banging our head against the wall of Rhode-apathy and the corruption that it enables. Stream by clicking here, or download it.

Covering the Tea Party

Will Ricci filled the gap on his Facebook page, but it didn't occur to me, yesterday, to try to get pictures of all of the speakers at the Gaspee Tea Party, as I focused instead on the people in the crowd and the message that they're sending via their hand-made signs. (MikeinRI has photos up, as well.)

That's really the story of these rallies, which is why it's objectionable that an unplanned visit from the governor toward the end of the rally became the photo for the Providence Journal's front page coverage, a fact made only more egregious by the Nixonian double-victory-sign pose that the editors chose. Contrast that with the Rhode Island section front page coverage of East Providence teachers' union protests. When a loose affiliation of angry taxpayers gathers, the governor becomes the face; when a group of organized union members gather (wearing identical t-shirts), they're presented as a "teachers and their supporters." (The online version, which is consistently more slanted, couldn't even spare the pixels for a picture for Steve Peoples's story, although there's one of the teachers.)

That said, Peoples's actual reportage is good, including this interesting tidbit:

Capitol Police Sgt. Joseph Habershaw said that the group — calling itself the "Gaspee Tea Party" — was the largest protest under the dome since the credit union crisis of the early 1990s.

There's also this concerning indication that, if we really want to encourage our legislators to take the only approach that will get Rhode Island out of its hole (namely, cutting taxes and reducing regulation and mandates), the phone of House Finance Committee chairman Steve Costantino ought to be ringing today:

"I think we've done pretty good on spending. I think we've dropped spending the last three years," he said. (State-only spending in the current budget dropped 3.7 percent in the current fiscal year, but increased 5.6 percent the year before.)

Costantino refused to discuss continuing negotiations on next year's budget plan, expected to be released by the House Finance Committee early next week.

Will there be any tax increases?

"I can't answer that," Costantino said of the budget that must fill a $590-million hole. "I'm in the process of negotiating a balanced budget."

Sounds to me like they've got a tax increase in the works, and if "few lawmakers paid attention to the outdoor event" (because miraculously, they happened to have a contracted session, yesterday), perhaps ringing phones will get their attention.

Or maybe they really do not care what the regular folks of Rhode Island want and need.

ADDENDUM:

At least as of 8:22 a.m. — when Andrew commented to this post — Projo.com has had a picture and video associated with its story on the Gaspee Tea Party, so that complaint no longer applies. My opinion that the Web site turns up the bias a bit from the print edition is a long-standing impression, so it still stands.

Gaspee Tea Party

As ought to have been expected, the crowd is a bit smaller today than it was for the initial tea party — about, truth to tell — what I expected last time, probably a little south of 1,000, although I offer the usual disclaimers about being terrible with on-site estimating:

Some pictures of signage:

Helen Glover just estimated the crowd at about 1,000 or more, making the point that others will try to talk it down and ignore the fact that taxpayers don't have paid organizers in the mold of unions and other special interests.

5:17 p.m.

I'd say the crowd is probably over 1,000, at this point, which much exceeds what I'd expected, given the fact that this is sort of a second bite at the apple and is focused entirely on state-level issues. Speaker Aram Garabedian just declared that the biggest union in RI is the group of taxpayers.

Arlene Violet is making a great statement about endemic corruption and elected representatives' giving away tax money to preferred friends and preferred interests.

5:33 p.m.

A surprise visit from Governor Don Carcieri. "Are you ready to pay more taxes? [Crowd: No!] Good, because I'm not either." He mentioned that he just got back from Washington, where he's trying to get more funding for our children.

Ummm... I think the point is that we don't want more government money.

5:51 p.m.

Commenter Hank Bradley suggests that 1,000 people is more than double what the pictures suggest. Well, that's why I post them, because I'm not claiming any competence at crowd estimation. 1,000 may be a bit high, but 500 is considerably low. Given the shape of the crowd (spilling up the stairs, for instance), it's difficult to capture in a picture. I'd still be happy with the turnout even if it's 700-800.

6:07 p.m.

I'm currently in line to go through the metal detector to storm the statehouse. Gotta see the humor...

6:19 p.m.

I will say that if you ever have to wait in a protest line, being in front of John DePetro and his bullhorn is a humorous place to be.

\

I'm hearing that the legislators all left for the day. And why not? It's not as if there's anything for them to do these days.

6:28 p.m.

Still coming...

6:31 p.m.

... and coming...

And I hear the cry of "no more taxes" echoing through the building. Would that it were legislators.

6:34 p.m.

And coming...

6:38 p.m.

The most patient people at the rally...

6:45 p.m.

I've only been the statehouse a couple of times, and I've never looked at the ceiling. Now that I have, I have to say that taxes are not the true injustice; sexism is. Notice that all of the abstract principles are represented as women. Perhaps if there was gender equity in the paintings, legislators would more faithfully adhere to the principles.

But I see that the world that the General Assembly ordered has arrived:

And now on to Ri-Ra.

6:53 p.m.

Before I close the computer down, though, here are two pictures that Andrew took of Governor Carcieri:

Gaspee Tea Party

The second RI Tea Party, the Gaspee Tea Party, will be held from 4-6 today in front of the State house and will focus on local issues. Here is the list of speakers (PDF). Here is list of House and Senate bills that the RI Tea Party organizers suggest voting AGAINST:

H5282 BY Guthrie, Pacheco, Williams, Sullivan, Almeida, ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO TAXATION - ALTERNATIVE FLAT TAX (would set the alternative minimum tax rate at 7 percent.)

H5624 BY DaSilva, McCauley, Carnevale, Driver, ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO TAXATION -- PERSONAL INCOME TAX (would freeze the alternative flat tax rate at seven percent for tax years 2009 and 2010).

H5469 BY Guthrie, Pacheco, Sullivan, Williams, Walsh, ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO TAXATION -- ALTERNATIVE FLAT TAX (would end the Rhode Island flat tax alternative for the 2008 tax year).

H6163 BY Pacheco, Guthrie, Ferri, ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO TAXATION (would repeal the alternative flat tax rate for state taxpayers and would provide a tax credit for small businesses that add new employees).

S115 BY Metts, Pichardo, Crowley, Jabour, Miller, ENTITLED, AN ACT RELATING TO TAXATION - PERSONAL INCOME TAX (would repeal the alternative flat tax rate).

The various speakers at the event will also advocate for various measures.

Rhode Islanders join citizens in other states like Montana, Georgia, MIchigan, Wyoming, North and South Carolina and Texas, who continue to stand up and speak for fiscal sanity in our government.

After a Difficult Violent Roundtable, Part 3

As I intimated yesterday, conservatives' appropriate fear of populist movements connects with our conviction that the nexus of power and desire ought to be checked. (One can be fearful even of that which is necessary, of course.) During Friday night's all–Anchor Rising Violent Roundtable on the Matt Allen Show, Marc and Matt kicked off a related conversation in which the latter took the position that structures allowing more direct democracy — such as public referenda — ought to proliferate.

The problem with developing a taste for simple majority rule is that the masses know what they want, but not necessarily how to go about getting it or, even less, how to balance competing needs and interests. This isn't to take the line that the dirty common folk lack the intelligence to comprehend cause and effect and the possibility of unintended consequences; the salient factor filters through the mechanics of a movement. However well a given voter comprehends how his own interests might be balanced and what compromises would be tolerable in achieving them, by the time political action builds to critical mass, his interests and negotiable thresholds must be overlaid with thousands of variations.

If a movement is to avoid a fizzle from noise, it must be led. Only in sharp, very specific outrages will large groups of people congeal with minimal guidance to answer a question of public policy. In most cases, a handful of leaders with the time and motivation must sort out the series of binaries by which more subtle decisions are reached — "yes" to this policy, "no" to that one, "yes" to this request, "no" to that demand. When the democracy remains representative, those leaders may be held accountable for the results, even as their daily popularity rises and falls over each answer. When those leaders are as voices in the crowd — shouting out suggestions to which the populist cry returns a "hear, hear" — their accountability dissipates, as does the feasibility of subtlety. It becomes guidance by explosion, not by instruction. A herding of votes.

When it comes to the practical operation of a society, democracy is best enacted in escalating tiers — elections followed by referenda followed by revolution — but always with a philosophical tendency to worry about anarchic expressions of power. A population enthralled with its democratic override is at risk of wielding it too lightly, toward ends that are never adequately articulated until the knots cinch tight.

Grassroots Against the Socialist Revolution

Former CIA official Herbert Meyer has an excellent article about the Left's strategy and methods for radically transforming the United States of America, touching on some broad themes in current events:

At the core of democracy is the rule of law, and we have already lost it. The liberals lecture us incessantly that everything is "relative," but that's not true; some things are absolutes. You cannot claim to be faithful to your spouse because you never cheat on her -- except when you're in London on business. And you cannot claim to have the rule of law if the government can set aside the rule of law when it decides that "special circumstances" have arisen that warrant illegality. When the President and his aides handed ownership of Chrysler Corp. to the United Auto Workers union, they tried to avoid sending that beleaguered company into bankruptcy by muscling its bondholders into accepting less money for their assets than the law entitled them to collect. These contracts, and the law under which they were signed, were mere obstacles to a thuggish President bent on paying off his political supporters.

It's going to get much worse, fast. President Obama has told us time and again that among his criteria for choosing Federal judges will be "empathy." Empathy is a wonderful quality in any human being, but a judge's job is to rule according to the law. Once our courts are presided over by judges who will reach verdicts based on how they feel about an issue -- such as abortion or the right of citizens to bear arms -- the law will be whatever the judges wish it to be; the rule of law will become an empty phrase rather than the architecture of our civilization.

We have lost our free-market economy as quickly as we have lost the rule of law. Money is to an economy what blood is to a body; life and death resides within the organ that controls its flow. The government already owns our country's leading banks, which means the government now controls our economy. (And in all fairness to President Obama, it was the Bush administration that started us down this ghastly road.) One indicator of the Obama administration's real objective: When some banks that had taken federal money attempted to repay their loans, the Treasury Department refused to accept repayment and step aside. This shows the government's goal isn't to prop up the banks, but rather to control them.

Here, too, things are going to get much worse, fast. The government now owns General Motors Corp., is reaching for control of insurance companies, and has launched plans to take over our country's healthcare industry. It even wants authority to set the salaries of executives in industries that, at least for now, aren't being subsidized or underwritten by the government.

Put all this together, and what we have in our country today isn't a democracy and it isn't a free-market economy. Reader, what we have now is a revolution.

And his solution should resonated especially well among Rhode Islanders:

We need to launch a counter-offensive, so to speak, and the place to start is at the local level. Working with our county and state political parties when we can -- or working around them when we must -- our objective will be to elect as many people as we can to public office who understand what a democracy is and how the free market works. This will include city council members, county commissioners, school board members, judges, sheriffs and even members of the local parks commission. With the strength and political momentum their elections will provide, we can surge to the state level and then -- before it's too late -- take back the power in Washington DC.

Although centralization of resources and legislation has been a creeping corrosive for quite some time, power is still pretty widely distributed in the American system of governance. Most of us do not wish to wield even local power, but as Meyer goes on to suggest, the alternative to engaging with our intact civic system will be much more burdensome — perhaps even "horrific."

Rising in the Phoenix

The Phoenix's David Scharfenberg took the recent Tea Parties as indicative of something and looked into how the right side of Rhode Island--both overtly partisan like the RI GOP and RIRA and non-partisan, grassroots organizations like OSPRI & RISC--are working toward changing the political landscape in the Ocean State. Oh, and some blogger gets a mention, too.

"The important thing right now," said Justin Katz, Anchor's blogger-in-chief, "is to build that structure so when people say, 'I've had enough,' there's somewhere to go."

GOP leaders say one of their chief frustrations is that the public pins the state's fiscal woes on the Republican governor when authority is actually centered in the Democratic-dominated legislature.

But if the blame game is paramount in tough times, suggests Jennifer Lawless, associate professor of political science and public policy at Brown University, the Republican Party's weakness could actually turn into a strength.

"Ironically, the best bet for the Repub-lican Party might be a complete Democratic sweep of statewide office," she said, "because then there's no one else to blame."

A Full Court Press, in Local Terms

Well, it's some sort of milestone, I suppose, to be denounced by name in a mailing to the email list of Tiverton Youth Soccer (with which my children are not currently involved):

Hi all,

It is that time of the year again.... time for me to urge each of you to attend Tiverton's Financial Town Meeting. I know, I know, sheesh Deb we don't like to go to those. They are long and confusing and lots of folks just get angry and yell.

You are right about all that, but here's the thing - I can think of lots of other things I could be doing on a Sat. morning at 9am, but I do not want to wake up on Sunday morning and hear that because enough reasonable people weren't at that meeting, a group of extreme, self-seeking residents slashed the town budget by $2 million dollars. It almost happened last year!! It would have been devastating to town services - a closed fire station, no trash pick up, etc. The schools would have had to eliminate anything not considered basic by the state - band, sports, maybe close a school. You all know the things that will go. The TCC contingent on the budget committee already tried for a $1 million dollar cut to the schools and over $250,000 to the fire department. They produced graph and charts and yelled and cut off any that would try and counter the incorrect, skewed or misleading "facts." Luckily, more reasonable and responsible voices on the committee prevailed. But, now read the letters in the Sakonnet Times from TCC members Justin Katz, Jeff Caron and Tom Parker (available on-line) filled with anger and innuendo and rumors which will stir the pot and get their cut-cut-cut base to the FTM.

I am NOT for higher taxes, but I am for maintaining services. That is what a community does - share the costs of preserving services. The proposed municipal operating increase is .5% over last year, the school increase is 1.48% over last year. These are reasonable and prudent and all have worked hard to keep taxes down while maintaining the services we all want (or at least I want). PLEASE, PLEASE try to have at least one member from your family (or 2 or 3) at the financial town meeting so we don't wake up on Sunday to find out that our town has been drastically changed. It is only a few hours but will impact the entire town for the rest of the year and beyond. Please call or forward this message to at least 10 others and let's spread the word. Thanks.

Deb

Oh, yes. Deb would never use anger (unless calling people self-seeking [sic] extremists with double exclamation points counts) or rumors to rile her base audience to the FTM. Yeah, villainizing neighbors to community groups — as opposed to letters to the editor and such — might be a little aggressive, but in order to be offended, one must imagine that we right-wing agitators are merely people trying to do what we believe to be right, not only for ourselves, but for the town, as well, and that clearly cannot be the case in Deb's aw-shucks world. Never mind that TCC's position (which may be different than a given member's) is to "hold the line" by approving the budget as it stands, without any surprise increases.

I do wonder, though, whether Deb's ever taken the opportunity of a group mailing to warn that the ever-growing remuneration of public-sector unions would squeeze out those "services we all want." If it's the Deb whom I believe it to be, she took quite the opposite view with the recent teachers' contract. So add that to the list of reasons for a community to exist: to provide services to the town, and to ensure disproportionate pay and benefits for union members.

Meanwhile, our old friend Richard Joslin once again appears to have hijacked (or attempted to hijack) TCC's mailing list:

If you do not want this email, please just delete it.

Once more, the TCC is lying to you. No one is planning to increase the School Budget; we support the Budget Committee on the schools. No one is trying to steal votes at the FTM. That is a paranoid fantasy Parker, Nelson and your TCC leadership are trying to "sell" you. . I for one am sick of David Nelson's lies, and you should be too. There has been an 8 month campaign to destroy our public school system by cynical people like Mr. Parker, who is claiming falsely this week that people will try to add $500K to the School Budget. And by Mr Coulter who has authored two legal suits- one attacking volunteer counters at the Town Meeting, and one destructive lawsuit which will accomplish nothing but spending your money on lawyers to defend the Town. Do you want you political "heroes" to attack the Town with lawsuits? All we are asking is for all voters to attend the FTM and vote for the Budget already approved by the Budget Committee, Town Council and School Committee. Please attend.

You cannot vote to reduce teacher's salaries or benefits at the FTM, you cannot vote to change the public pension structure at the FTM. You cannot change minimum manning of the Fire and EMTs at the FTM. Just about no one wants a ladder truck we cannot afford.

But keep on believing the lies of Parker, Coulter and Nelson. The TCC is proving to be a rogue right-wing bunch of idiots. It is an embarrassment.

This is being sent to you because (twice) three weeks ago Mr. Nelson intercepted emails I sent to supporters of the budget approved by the Budget Committee and TIV Town Council and sent my it to all TCC members. He urged you all to go to a non-public meeting to be held about the budget. Only one sad person tried to come, and as it was a private meeting he was turned away. You deserve to know the nasty tactics your TCC leadership practices.

Richard Joslin

Yup. No anger, there, from the man who decries a "right-wing bunch of idiots"! No paranoia from the guy complaining about Dave's "interception" of an email in which he (Joslin) — whom I'm pretty sure I've spotted attempting to spy on TCC meetings — asked all residents to attend a meeting that he hosted and encouraged recipients to forward the invitation.

Joslin never explains for whom he intends to speak with his "we," but perhaps his extensive network of informants are the reason he's so confident that "no one" is planning to increase any budgets at the financial town meeting. "Just about no one" wants a ladder truck, and yet enough residents petitioned for one to get it on the FTM docket.

At least Mr. Joslin realizes that unions are an issue, though. Unfortunately, in the cluelessness typical of those comfortable with the same-old governance of Rhode Island and its municipalities, he looks right past the effect that taxpayer pressure can have during negotiations. He has no concept of the importance of the leverage that officials can derive from downward pressure from voters.

And pressure is all we have. The unions may give some slack for this year, but their contracts are typically for three. Thus, at next year's FTM, any increase given away by negotiators will be declared untouchable. The current budget provides for no increase. That means that we're seeing a budget unaffected by the unions — and it still represents more than a three percent increase! (Unaffected, of course, except for the retroactive raise that the teachers just got and that carries through to this contract as the new baseline. In the absense of a contract, by the way, I imagine, contra Joslin, that line item is in fact available for modification.)

It's time to change the conversation and to stop falling for the soothing tones of people who turn their smiles to snarls with a disconcerting ease, depending on whether they're addressing the opposition or those whom they'd like to lull back to sleep while they make decisions — folks like Yer Pal Deb, Richard the Level-Headed, and Mike Burk, the FTM "moderator" who happens to have been one of the most aggressively anti-TCC partisans to emerge over the past year.

Participate, Because Somebody Else Will

Herewith, the text of my speech at the Tiverton Citizens for Change Taxpayer Forum on Monday night. (Audio, with some extemporaneous differences: stream, download [5min 29sec])

Let's be honest. For most of us, this whole civic participation thing is a chore. It's a responsibility. We stay informed; we vote; and really that should be enough. One reason we have elected representatives is to free up the rest of us to be productive, keep the economy going, and pursue happiness.

And yet the previous speakers who called for increased participation — to the extent of committing ourselves to campaigns and elective office — are absolutely right. We may have no desire to make a career, or even a sabbatical, out of public service, we may have no thirst for political power, but that is precisely why we are needed. Simply put, if we don't step forward, somebody else will. Somebody who doesn't see government as a chore.

As an indication of what I'm talking about, I'm going to read a few lines from the infamous fire-truck petition:

This proposal is being sought because the item was not considered by the Tiverton Budget Committee in the docket for this year and because numerous members of the Tiverton Budget Committee have advocated a maximum increase in the annual tax levy not to exceed one percent or zero, because the Tiverton Budget Committee is recommending a slashed school operational budget in order to achieve their desired goal ... and because these same Budget Committee members are squandering the limited ability to utilize tax revenues under the State mandated cap of 4.75% to improve the community as a whole.

There's no statement of dire need to buy such equipment despite the horrible economy. No research about the likely changes in property insurance. No examples of lives that would recently have been saved. The authors of this petition didn't even bother to note properties that might have been preserved in the past. According to news reports, they didn't even consult the fire chief!

Their primary motivation, in other words, is to out-maneuver people they don't like on the Budget Committee, and secondly, to claim as much of your income as possible. Their design is to take money from every taxpayer in Tiverton and allocate it to the priorities of a few people with the time and motivation to manipulate procedure.

Some of these people either benefit directly from town government or are close to people who do. Others of them, well, who knows? Maybe they've got their eyes on the State House and maybe, in their long-term aspirations, on Congress. Maybe they just like the feeling of a little local prominence. Or maybe it's more like a high school popularity thing.

I want to stress, here, that I'm not talking about everybody in local government, whether I agree with them or not. But this is certainly a segment — a vocal and active contingent that must be countered. And the reason it must be countered is that if somebody is in government for personal gain, whether of the wallet or of the ego, or even if he or she just thought it'd be a nice way to get involved in the community, then that person is going to be more susceptible to special interests.

For example, throughout the recent teachers' contract discussions, we heard again and again, from the union as well as people on the other side of the negotiating table, that the money was "in the budget." The people of Tiverton — the argument went — wanted that money to go to the teachers' union. And now, here we stand, with all of the town's major contracts up for negotiation during a down economy, and the school committee chairman told the Budget Committee that he's got no bargaining leverage. The Town Council President claims it's easier to have too much money in the budget for labor and to put some back in the general fund if negotiations go well.

What these representatives should be advocating is to force the unions to negotiate against a taxpayer-mandated cut. Instead, there's been a push, which we'll probably see again at the financial town meeting, to postpone budget decisions until after the unions are all settled up. The Committee and the Council want to negotiate with an admittedly weak hand rather than to be able to say to the unions, "The money is not in the budget. At least you have your jobs."

You probably already know the argument that we'll hear if the FTM occurs after the fact. "These contracts are signed. There's nothing we can do. Except raise taxes. Oh, and by the way, we're going to need more money to staff, equip, and fuel our new fire truck."

Folks, we do have to start small, and that means simply attending the financial town meeting. But we also have to build, because these people, these problems, already permeate our system at every layer of government. TCC is available to provide some structure — and some moral support — at the town level, and the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition is growing at the state level for the same purpose, but there really is no substitute for participation.

We've reached the point in Tiverton and in Rhode Island that participation is no longer a civic duty or chore. It's a matter of self defense.

TCC Taxpayer Forum Audio

The following speeches were given at the Tiverton Citizens for Change taxpayer forum on Monday, April 27.

• TCC President David Nelson: stream, download (4min 30sec)
• TCC and Tiverton Budget Committee member Thomas Parker: stream, download (13min 39sec)
• Rhode Island Statewide Coalition Executive Director Harry Staley: stream, download (19min 39sec)
• TCC member and Tiverton Budget Committee Chairman Jeff Caron: stream, download (17min)
• East Providence Taxpayers Association spokesman Bill Murphy: stream, download (27min 4sec)
• Anchor Rising's me: stream, download (5min 29sec)
• TCC member Joe Souza: stream, download (35sec)

Operation Clean Government Panel Audio (Continued 3)

Picking up from the end of the previous string of audio, the following audio is as described on Anchor Rising's live blogging of Operation Clean Government's spring forum:

• WPRO's Dan Yorke asks how leaders can accomplish a major change in Rhode Island: stream, download (57sec)
• URI economics professor Leonard Lardaro suggests that we have to look toward the future in our decisions and that "everybody's indirect motto is 'everything's negotiable'": stream, download (1min 32sec)
• First audience question goes to the man who shouted out angrily at General Treasurer Frank Caprio, who predicts a Governor Caprio and winds up asking why Rhode Islanders vote so badly: stream, download (2min 38sec)
• Representative Elizabeth Dennigan (D., East Providence, Pawtucket) suggests that voters should "be discerning" and vote based on issues, not personality: stream, download (27sec)
• John Hazen White, Jr., President and CEO of Taco, Inc., expresses the opinion that people should vote for politicians who don't see it as a career: stream, download (19sec)
• Buddy from Johnston asks Dennigan to stop legislative grants ("rub and tug"), and she replies, "It's not an equitable system, and it's not dispersed equallly, so it shouldn't be dispersed at all": stream, download (1min 49sec)
• Caprio answers a call for a pitch from government to business by saying that the government should exist to serve businesses, period; "Over taxation; over regulation; every time a business deals with government, it's confrontational":stream, download (1min 29sec)
• An audience questioner asks, as a landlord, where tenants are going to come from, and she and Yorke have an interesting discussion on citizen activism: stream, download (5min 23sec)
• Another questioner decries government cronyism: stream, download (1min 57sec)
• Terry Gorman of Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement asks why the state can't pass E-Verify: stream, download (1min 29sec)
• Dennigan is "glad to see that the Obama administration is working on a system that will secure our borders": stream, download (41sec)
• Caprio says, "Pass E-Verify; we're a country of laws; enforce the law": stream, download (13sec)
• Department of Administration director Gary Sasse notes that the state currently uses E-Verify and businesses should be able to, and Yorke notes the difference in citizen enthusiasm between illegal immigration (high) and government inefficiency (low): stream, download (2min 56sec)
• Caprio turns the question toward state aid and minimum manning mandates: stream, download (39sec)
• Harry Staley of Rhode Island Statewide Coalition takes the audience mic expresses the concern of suburbanites that regionalization and consolidation will only direct money to the maw of Providence, and Yorke suggests that RISC make this its issue: stream, download (2min 38sec)
• An audience questioner promotes ending the straight ticket ballot option, and Dennigan says she "strongly supports" it, as do others on the panel: stream, download (1min 13sec)
• An audience member offers her diagnosis of Rhode Island's problem: "Rhode Island is a victim of rape": stream, download (32sec)
• Another audience members says Rhode Islanders don't know what to believe and are too trusting of their leaders and asks how to develop a relationship with their representatives; Caprio: "Run against them or get in their face with a lot of people": stream, download (2min 29sec)
• Yorke talks about wrapping up: stream, download (24sec)
• An audience question about searching for a new Economic Development director; Sasse answers: stream, download (1min 17sec)
• Governor's wife Sue Carcieri mentions the problem of monopartisanism and raises voter ID: stream, download (1min 32sec)
• Caprio notes his ranking on Anchor Rising's top 10 right-of-center list for RI and, after some prompting from Yorke, declares definitively that he is not considering switching parties: stream, download (1min 17sec)
• A college student expresses fear about not finding a job in Rhode Island and asks whether the people leaving the state like him or are more established people packing up and going; general agreement of "both," including from Lardaro: stream, download (1min 16sec)
• Former OCG director Bruce Lang speaks of reducing the size of government, implementing term limits for legislators, and the power of public employee unions ("run the legislature"): stream, download (1min 20sec)
• Dennigan notes that 55% of the state budget is social services but refuses to answer whether unions and social service advocates should dominate government expenditures, instead giving an example of somebody who relies on social services: stream, download (1min 54sec)
• Yorke recalls the question about having state government "get out of a business" or two: stream, download (27sec)
• An audience member talks about cutting taxes and being more targeted in government solutions and citizen activism: stream, download (1min 23sec)
• Another audience member recaps and raises the straight ticket issue again: stream, download (51sec)
• Representative Rod Driver (D., Charlestown, Exeter, Richmond) decries prevailing wage requirements and other state mandates on cities and towns: stream, download (41sec)
• The panel members state that which they learned during the morning's event: stream, download (1min 32sec)
• Governor Don Carcieri offers a closing summation, saying that government is not the proper channel for charity and social justice: stream, download (6min 38sec)
• Yorke offers his own closing summation: stream, download (2min 42sec)

Operation Clean Government Panel Audio (Continued 2)

The following audio continues where the related post left off, in keeping with Anchor Rising's live blogging of Operation Clean Government's spring forum:

• WPRO's Dan Yorke asked where the side that's supposed to counterbalance special interests has been, to some confusion over whether he means elected representatives or voters, with short responses from General Treasurer Frank Caprio: stream, download (29sec)
• Representative Elizabeth Dennigan (D., East Providence, Pawtucket) says the public has to do its homework, seeming to imply that citizens ought to analyze portions of the budget; "help us out": stream, download (1min 7sec)
• Yorke specifies the question to ask why the General Assembly leadership isn't in the room; "Do you think they give a damn?"; audience, "No!": stream, download (57sec)
• Dennigan attempts to compliment her leadership, but slipped up to say, "I'll give them kudos for letting me be here"; 30 seconds of audience turbulence, including one shout of "there's the diagnosis"; Yorke pursued, and Dennigan responded awkwardly: stream, download (1min 29sec)
• Yorke questions whether anybody is in the room from labor, alludes to labor YouTube videos, compliments Bob Walsh, calls labor's point of view "legitimate," and lists the various issues that politicians must be able to address: stream, download (2min 49sec)
• Yorke prods Caprio on how he would battle the General Assembly and test labor if governor; when he said, "You dig in with the General Assembly," an irate audience member stood up and started shouting, "You're grandfathered in"; Caprio clarified that "you dig in against them": stream, download (3min 52sec)
• Having turned the question toward the "one thing" that a governor has to insist upon to turn the state around, Yorke points to Department of Administration head Gary Sasse begins on cutting taxes: stream, download (32sec)
• Prompted to provide her philosophy on taxation, Dennigan says, "No new taxes; why can't we decrease them?": stream, download (1min 1sec)
• URI economics professor Leonard Lardaro jumps in to say that "the people of this state have to demand results": stream, download (1min 35sec)
• Yorke asks what business(es) the state government ought to get out of: stream, download (2min 14sec)
• John Hazen White, Jr., President and CEO of Taco, Inc., replies "government"; Yorke asks if he's "advocating for chaos": stream, download (1min 2sec)
• Sasse cites pension reforms, management rights, and tenure reform as areas that need to be accomplished more efficiently; he enumerates that government should be in education, infrastructure, and "realistic safety nets"; "everything else is irrelevant"; "We haven't discussed what we can afford. That's why we've become an entitlement society, because we never assess what we can afford.": stream, download (5min 16sec)
• Dennigan responds that we need "pension reform" and begins to ramble: stream, download (1min 33sec)
• Sasse raises provinciality, which becomes a sort of take-away for the morning: stream, download (58sec)
• Caprio says that we don't need "government layers on top of government layers": stream, download (1min 17sec)

Operation Clean Government Panel Audio (Continued)

As some have already noted in Anchor Rising's play-by-play, some significant and interesting things were said at Operation Clean Government's spring forum. Last night, I posted audio of Governor Carcieri's unscheduled speech; thereafter, the panel took the stage:

• OCG President Arthur "Chuck" Barton introduces the panel, points out some significant people in the audience, and gives brief opening remarks: stream, download (2min, 9sec)
• WPRO talk show host Dan Yorke kicks off the discussion, asking the panelists to give their diagnosis of Rhode Island's illness: stream, download (3min, 53sec)
• Dan directs the question to RI General Treasurer Frank Caprio, who gives a solutioning speech (state must be "user friendly" to business), leading Dan to drive the conversation to the question: stream, download (4min, 10sec)
• John Hazen White, Jr., President & CEO of Taco, Inc., repeats the governor's take, "We are creating a much bigger tax burden; at the same time depleting the tax payers": stream, download (41sec)
• Unfortunately, an attempt to locate a beeping noise (which turned out not to be my equipment), rendered the short response of Director of Administration Gary Sasse, as well as the beginning of Rep. Dennigan's response, inaudible.
• Representative Elizabeth Dennigan (D., East Providence, Pawtucket) points the finger at efficiency and transparency, saying "I can tell you as a long-time member of the finance committee that we don't know how we are spending millions": stream, download (29sec)
• University of Rhode Island Economics Professor Leonard Lardaro blames an endemic approach of Rhode Islanders, specifically that "Too many people in this state have a very exogenous view of the world; things just happen; they don't really associate actions now with outcomes later": stream, download (2min 32sec)
• Yorke redirects the question redirects the question to define Rhode Islanders: stream, download (3min 20sec)
• Caprio mentioned the sacrifice of our parents and noted an inclination to help each other, to which Yorke responded that he's describing Americans: stream, download (2min 33sec)
• Hazen White lauds ingenuity, creativity, etc: stream, download (1min 31sec)
• Yorke specifies that he's looking more for the philosophical in order to resolve RI's status as "submerged": stream, download (50sec)
• Dennigan says that we should stop "complaining and encouraging our young students to leave and go somewhere else" and market the state: stream, download (1min 58sec)
• Yorke suggests that Rhode Islanders must and can be honest about themselves; "The doctor doesn't say, in his mind, you're dying of cancer, but you know what? You're a good egg.": stream, download (1min 34sec)
• Lardaro says that Rhode Islanders are "deeply caring" but are "consumption oriented" and are "way too trusting of our leaders"; "Tone always seems to supersede accuracy": stream, download (1min 33sec)
• Sasse expands that "what happened is we became an entitle-mentality state" based on political decisions, which fostered "an inferiority complex": stream, download (1min 42sec)
• Yorke asks Dennigan whether Rhode Islanders have courage; the crowd says, "no"; Dennigan points to the people in the room as an example of courage: stream, download (33sec)
• Yorke defines the question as having the grit to change our lifestyle, making it healthier; "Would Rhode Islanders rather die than do the things that the doctor has prescribed?"; audience member: "They don't believe it": stream, download (1min 9sec)
• Hazen White says there's "a tremendous lack of courage and maybe an uninformed path" and that he was "dumbfounded" that the Democrats expanded their power in the last election; and another thing, "we've got a union problem": stream, download (1min 56sec)
• To laughs from the crowd, Caprio shifts to call it "a special interest problem" in that there's no opposing force for the taxpayer against them: stream, download (1min 8sec)

Today's Panel... and Others

Having not attended many events like this, I can only take a general sense for comparison, but I thought today's panel courtesy Operation Clean Government was particularly good and, incidentally, provided further evidence of a growing intention to be heard among Rhode Island's regular citizens. Some of that may have been an effect of the tone that Dan Yorke set as moderator, but in context of broader observations, well, it leaves room to hope.

As the event came to a close, Andrew suggested to me that a similar event for the younger set would be worth organizing and participating in, and I agreed. The prospect brought to mind a possibility that has emerged every now and then, over the past few years, of a panel that crosses ideological lines, hosted, for example, by College Republicans and College Democrats and involving Matt Jerzyk and me. Sadly, I don't believe the current leadership (especially attitudinal leadership) among our counterparts on the left to be as prone to dialogue as I've always thought Matt to be — even as we strenuously disagreed.

Our increasing prominence and the bubbling expansion of a right-of-center reform movement may be playing a role in that shift.

But to return to the subject at hand: There were some very compelling moments throughout the panel discussion, as well as some newsworthy statements. I'll be rolling out the audio as I'm able over the next couple of days.

To begin with Governor Carcieri's opening remarks: stream, download (18min 21sec).

"We've got to control the spending, so we can sustain what we have, and the other piece of the equation is we've got to get competitive from a tax standpoint."

"We've got to shift the focus to creating a vibrant economic base in this state that's privately structured so that we're generating the jobs."

"Now is the time that we've got to ratchet up the game."

Operation Clean Government Breakfast & Panel

Just checking in from Operation Clean Government's event at the Quonset Club. A little shy of 200 people are here, many of them familiar faces, but not all. My initial thought is that there are a number of people from different segments of local activism. Local Tiverton folks, RISC folks, politicians, activists, and so on. OCG seems to cut across the categories.

Hopefully I'll be more insightful after I've had some breakfast...

10:06 a.m.

The governor is giving a surprise speech, mainly focusing on pensions as the next stop. Some pictures thus far:

Governor Carcieri works his way into the room:


Carcieri at the podium:


Dan Yorke arrives & Senator Leonidas Raptakis walks the room:


Treasurer Frank Caprio moves table to table:


Len Lardaro at the panelists' table:


Sen. Raptakis chats with somebody and RISC's Jim Beale chats with RIILE's Terry Gorman:

10:10 a.m.

Governor: "It's time to ratchet up the game to a higher level so that the people who are going to make the votes at the end of the day understand." Referenced OCG, RISC, the tea party.

10:13 a.m.

OCG's Chuck Barton is pointing out people of importance in the audience, legislators, RISC folks, some business people, former OCG leaders. Also Colleen Conley of tea party fame.

10:19 a.m.

Dan Yorke has taken the podium. "My goal is to see if anybody will say something new... not repeat the same old crap."

He also expressed hope that the presence of Jim Baron and Ed Fitzpatrick will ensure coverage beyond his radio show.

Ahem.

OCG's Chuck Barton opens the panel:


Dan Yorke takes the podium:


The panel assembled:

10:24 a.m.

Dan presents the question as providing a diagnosis. "Quickly, because if I go to the doc, I want to know if I'm going to live or die."

Treasurer Frank Caprio is trying to give a solution-type speech, and Dan keeps trying to drive him back to the question.

Dan "This is just a little group to practice on if you're going to run for governor."

"Everybody on this panel is a great citizen, but they've got to answer the question."

10:32 a.m.

John Hazen-White: Higher taxes, fewer payers.

Gary Sasse: Tax structure

Elizabeth Dennigan: Lack of efficiency and transparency.

Leonard Lardaro: Costs beyond taxes. "Do a dynamic or temporal analysis." Addressing the governor directly. "Can't afford to raise taxes."

10:33 a.m.

Yorke: "A lot of smart things are being said, but nobody's answered the question." In advertising, the message is the most important thing. "What is the product of Rhode Island; who are Rhode Islanders? You have to know the patient."

"Can we have a philosophical discussion among the audience and the panel about who we are? What is the Rhode Island disease."

10:36 a.m.

Caprio: "We're the product of families that sacrificed for us to get where we are today. Are people willing to have shared sacrifice to get our government in order?"

Yorke: "Are Rhode Islanders of a mindset to know what quality of life is and to make it a goal?"

Caprio: I think Rhode Islanders are different. [Catholic and other community-engrained religious groups.] "That's who we are."

10:40 a.m.

Hazen-White: "[RI] is a very unique place from the standpoint that it's so small." Tremendous opportunities; tremendous problems. Tremendous ingenuity; tremendous people. "Perhaps the greatest available workplace of any place I've ever been."

Huh? Based on what.

10:43 a.m.

Dennigan: "Something that really annoys me" is RI's talking about all the problems. "If we're always complaining and encouraging our young students to leave and go somewhere else... there's no state that doesn't have problems with ethics... [one film producer} said to me, 'I just love Rhode Island'" --- referring to the geographic diversity.

Gimme a break.

Dan: "Obviously, there are wonderful things about living in Rhode Island." His point is that people who live in Rhode Island can be honest about the problems in Rhode Island.

10:45 a.m.

"The doctor doesn't say, 'You've got cancer, but you know what: you're a good egg.'"

Lardaro: It's a consumption-oriented, immediate state that's too trusting in its leaders. "Tone always seems to overweigh accuracy."

Sasse: What happened? "We became an entitlement-oriented state."

Yorke: "Why?"

Sasse: "Those were political decisions." Unrest from the crowd. "People voted that way. People were not informed."

10:48 a.m.

Sasse: Rhode Islanders have an inferiority complex, founded in the principle that government owes you something.

Yorke to Dennigan: "Do we have courage amongst the people of Rhode Island."

Crowd: No!

Dennigan: Blah, blah, blah.

10:53 a.m.

Yorke listed a pretty rigorous health regime and asked if Rhode Islanders would rather die.

Crowd: "They don't believe they're going to die."

Hazen-White: "There is a tremendous lack of courage." "If you keep doing what you always did, you're going to keep getting what you always got." He was "dumbfounded" that Democrats increased their share of state government. Voters... it isn't their guy; it isn't their gal. And another thing: "We got a union problem."

Crowd: Cheers.

Hazen-White: "And damn it, unless and until that whole thing is dealt with --- doesn't mean it needs to be squashed."

Caprio: "We have a special interest problem." "It's like a football game... If the other team doesn't show up, the other team isn't going to go home; they're going to score touch downs."

Yorke: Where was the other side?

The audience seems to think that he means the working people of Rhode Island. Dan's rightly pointing to our elected representatives.

Dennigan: "We need more of the public doing their homework."

10:55 a.m.

Yorke's observing that none of the legislative leaders are in the room.

Yorke: "Do you think they give a damn?"

Crowd: No!

Dennigan: Thanked the leadership for letting her be here.

Crowd: What???? Shouts; anger.

Bad, bad answer.

10:57 a.m.

Breaking news: The legislative leaders advised Dennigan to participate in this event.

Yorke is mentioning that nobody from labor is in the room. ("Usually they hide with YouTube cameras.")

Yorke: Bob Walsh is the only one who will come to the fight with his legitimate point of view.

10:59 a.m.

Yorke: "The general assembly runs the show." "The sick people of RI have let the general assembly run wild." To Caprio: How are you going to change that.

Audience member: "You're grandfathered in."

Caprio: "You dig in against the General Assembly." Lay out a plan, and if they don't want to go there: "If after the first year, if the legislature doesn't want to solve the problem, it's up to the leaders to get people elected who will solve the problem." I [he] can pull those resources together.

11:03 a.m.

Yorke's trying to elicit the one thing that the governor needs to bring things into line.

Lardaro: "The people of this state have to demand results."

Yorke: "Do they know what result they want?"

11:07 a.m.

Yorke: "Is it possible that Rhode Islanders instinctively know that they don't want a nanny state?"

Audience member: Define that.

Yorke: "I have to define that?" ... We have to get out of a certain number of businesses in this state. Those who don't listen to his show don't seem to understand that he's talking about government actions --- whole categories of them. Poses the question to the panel, what businesses do we have to get out of?

Hazen-White: Government. [Too many people work for the government.]

Sasse: Need efficiency. Pension reforms. Management rights. Tenure. ("I have people working in my departments who really don't deserve tenure.") Three things government should do are education, infrastructure, and realistic safety nets to move unfortunately people up the ladder, with emphasis on realistic.

11:13 a.m.

Yorke has redirected to what we have to get out of.

Sasse: "They're tough choices." A checklist, such as state libraries. "We haven't discussed what we can afford. That's why we've become an entitlement society, because we never assess what we can afford."

11:16 a.m.

These pictures are a little out of order (I took them earlier), but I think they catch good moments.

Several times, the discussion dipped into a Yorke v. Caprio battle:


Several times throughout the event, depending upon what she'd just said, Rep. Dennigan looked as if she felt physically ill. Here she is after admitting that the legislative leaders had allowed her to participate. (Right click and choose "view image," or equivalent, for a larger image.)

11:18 a.m.

Sasse: There are too many cities and towns.

Yorke: "Are you saying that we need to get out of the business of provinciality?"

Me, I disagree. I like the variety. Push more responsibilities to the towns. Reduce the repetition at the top.

11:20 a.m.

Q&A period. Many hands go up.

11:22 a.m.

The first questioner thinks Caprio is "grandfathered into being our next govenor." "Do the right thing." The question: Why don't Rhode Islanders vote for the right people? Yorke changed to, "What's the right kind of person to elect?"

Dennigan: Voters have to be discerning.

Hazen-White: "Being a public servant should not be a career."

Question 2: To Dennigan: "Why don't you stop the grants that are going out to everybody?" [Rub and tug.]

Dennigan: We need more information.

After prompting from Dan, Dennigan: It's not an equitable system, and it's not dispersed equitably, so it shouldn't be dispersed at all.

Question 3: One or two good reasons that companies should move to RI.

Caprio: "We're here to serve you, period." Shouldn't be overregulation, overtaxation, headaches. "Every time business deal with government, it's confrontational."

Question 4: As a landlord, I want to know where are the people who are going to come into Rhode Island to live. A lot of people can't afford to live here, and those who can are on system-supported incomes, and then the government regulates my property.

Dennigan: We need to keep the property taxes down, as a result of looking at our spending.

Questioner: I'm fed up with the little guy being tax.

Yorke: What are you going to do with your anger?

She goes to the statehouse. Has brought people together. Went to the tea party. "I don't want to run for office until it's cleaned up."

Dan brought it back to the "who we are." "You don't want to enter the lion's den until it's cleaned up for you." "We have mad-as-hell people" who won't put themselves on the line to fix problems. "We'll only put our toes in the water in our comfort zone to fix the system."

11:34 a.m.

Next questioner: Cut taxes. Diagnosis: for years, the people who run this state have been running the state as their own companies... friends, families, business associates, and so on.

Terry Gorman of RIILE: I have a solution for the whole thing. "Why can't the state of Rhode Island pass E-Verify?"

Dennigan: Kicked it back to the feds.

Caprio: "Pass e-Verify. We're a country of laws, and we should enforce the laws."

11:41 a.m.

RISC's Harry Staley: Regionalization will cause certain people to object to sending suburban money to Providence. He thinks that regionalization ought to be RISC's driving issue.

Another question for Dennigan; actually not a question, but a promotion of elimination of straight ticket.

Caprio answered: Eliminate the straight ticket.

Another question/statement answering the diagnosis question: "Rhode Island is a victim of rape?"

Next audience member: "We don't know what we believe in, and we don't know who to believe."

11:48 a.m.

Question: Should there be a search for a new economic development director, considering that previous versions haven't resulted in good people?

Susan Carcieri: "Because we are dominated by one party (without naming names), we have a serious problem." What does the panel think about voter ID?

Caprio: Referenced Anchor Rising's ranking of him on the top 10 conservative list.

Yorke: "You could save a lot of dough in a primary with Lynch if you hopped over to the other side."

Caprio: "That's not under consideration."

A college student asked if the people who are leaving RI are graduates looking for work or rich people. General answer: both. I'm not so sure. I think the people who are leaving, but whom we want to stay, are the "productive class" in between.

Bruce Lang: The unions and social services advocates run the legislature.

Dennigan: 55% of our budget is social services.

Her answer to whether these groups should control government was that they have a lot of influence. Dan pressed for a specific answer, and she replied by bringing it to specifics about reviewing cases on their individual bases. As I paraphrased her earlier: blah, blah, blah.

11:59 a.m.

Rod Driver: "I want to throw out a specific suggestion... We need to cut back the mandates," including prevailng."

Panelists on what they learned this morning:

Hazen-White: The level of frustration and the regionalization question.

Sasse: There's a need for change, but we don't have a game plan.

Dennigan: Learned about straight-ticket.

Lardaro: People are concerned by a wider range of things than I knew about. People are getting upset about things enough to do something.

Caprio: Don't give an inch; take the spirit of this room.

Governor Carcieri: "I'm going to become a radio talk show host." "We don't know what we want; we're really confused." Government is not the proper venue for charity and social justice.

Tiverton Taxpayer Forum

For any and all who are free and wish to attend, Tiverton Citizens for Change is hosting a taxpayer forum on Monday, April 27, at 7:00 p.m. at the North Tiverton VFW. Admission is free, and there will be a raffle for balloons filled with scratch tickets of various value as well as food. Speakers will include:

Dave Nelson, TCC President
Tom Parker, TCC and Budget Committee Member
Harry Staley, Executive Director of the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition
Jeff Caron, TCC member and Budget Committee President
Bill Murphy, East Providence Taxpayers Association member
Larry Fitzmorris, Portsmouth Concerned Citizens member
... and me

Woonsocket Vote Proves Point of Tea Parties

In case you missed it, a Tea Party broke out in Woonsocket the other day (h/t).

As reported by WPRI:

Woonsocket's City Council has voted against a supplemental tax bill that would have raised property taxes by eight percent.

Councilors took the vote late Monday night, following testimony from dozens of residents. Council members said arguments against the bill changed their minds; it was originally expected to pass.

The bill was meant to close the school department's $3.7 million deficit. Councilors plan to meet Wednesday to decide on their next course of action, which could include a lawsuit against the state for more funding.

After some five hours of discussion, at just about midnight, the council...vot[ed] 4-3 against the measure. In the end, it was Councilwoman Suzanne Vadenais who tipped the balance. Early in the evening, she indicated a reluctant willingness to support supplemental taxes, but by the end of the night she had changed her mind.

“It was a very difficult decision,” she said. “After listening to all the people who spoke tonight, I can't vote for this.”

Vadenais joined Councilors Stella Brien, Christopher Beauchamp and Roger G. Jalette Jr. in opposing the measure. Council President Leo T. Fontaine, William Schneck and John Ward were in favor of it.

About the Economic Knowledge of the Public...

Michael Barone writes, "Many of the sneering comments about the participants in last week’s hundreds of tea parties across the nation were premised on the idea that these people didn’t know much about public policy." (Sounds familiar). However, as Barone mentions, a Pew Research poll conducted at the end of March (you can take the related quiz here) "finds the American public reasonably well-informed about a number of basic facts pertaining to the current economic situation." Further, a new Rasmussen poll shows that 52% of Americans are worried that the government is getting too involved in the economy. This tracks closely with the results of another Rasmussen poll showing that 51% of Americans viewed the Tea Party protests favorably. That puts this slight majority at odds with the "Political Class" polled by Rasmussen:

[J]ust 13% of the political elite offered even a somewhat favorable assessment while 81% said the opposite. Among the Political Class, not a single survey respondent said they had a Very Favorable opinion of the events while 60% shared a Very Unfavorable assessment.

Most Americans trust the judgment of the public more than political leaders, view the federal government as a special interest group and believe that big business and big government work together against the interests of investors and consumers. Only seven percent (7%) share the opposite view and can be considered part of the Political Class.

On many issues, there is a bigger gap between the Political Class and Mainstream Americans than between Mainstream Republicans and Mainstream Democrats. That was true on the tea parties, but Mainstream Republicans do express a more positive view of the protests than Mainstream Democrats. Still, a majority (54%) of Mainstream Democrats had a favorable opinion of the tea parties.

See, That's the Difference Between a Popular Movement and an Establishment Structure

National Education Association of Rhode Island Executive Director Bob Walsh expresses puzzlement over Colleen Conley's being allowed to be the spokesperson for the RI Tea Party:

on Buddy's show on Ch. 6 on Sunday - he went fairly easy on her after she could not answer basic questions about the size of RI's budget or where she was proposing to cut it. She was also on the second segment of Newsmakers. ...

Do you think if my side was having an event of this scale that we'd let one of out own appear on Buddy's show, or any show, that unprepared?

I'll confess that, on any given day in the recent past, I'd have been stumped by the question, "How large is Rhode Island's budget?" What I would cut is a different matter, but the notion that somebody could be prepared to that degree on such short notice likely strikes the reformist ear funny in a way that brings out two significant points. (Note that I'm putting aside the consideration that the Tea Party's focus was national.)

The first point is that the exact total budget number, of itself, isn't but so important from either an intellectual or rhetorical standpoint. Removed from context, it's meaningless. What's $7 billion (ish)? In order to assess whether that's too much, it is more significant to know that Rhode Island consistently ranks highly on matters of taxation, that its social programs are generous, that its public-sector unions are disproportionately well compensated compared with the private sector, and above all, that the budget deficit has been stepping up every year on a march toward a billion dollars of shortfall and that legislators won't take the steps necessary to turn it around.

The second, more critical, point is that the right-of-center reform movement in Rhode Island and across the country does not consist of folks who earn their living by reciting political arguments by which they stand to gain in their careers. Ask Ms. Conley a question about stationery, and she'll likely produce a more satisfactory answer. Ask me the standard rough opening for a three-foot door, and I'll ask you whether it's a six-six or six-eight and whether we're framing off finish or rough.

It would be more comparable, however, to ask me how many months worth of work I know my current employer to have or Colleen the size of the local market for custom illustrated cards, because the state budget is part of the public-sector total from which it is Mr. Walsh's job to extract amounts for his union's members. Personally, I've got too many numbers running through my head on a given day to have the capacity to recite the subsegment totals of RI government spending. We newly active citizens must rely on such strategies as generalizing the specifics that we read, hear, or see in the news into "too much," "too restrictive," "too generous."

This new dynamic — this increasingly engaged population — may be something for which Bob Walsh and his "side" aren't prepared. They won't be able to pull us into mutually canceling disputes over numbers, because we'll have to look them up, at which point we'll be able to explain how they're spinning them. And if they argue that we don't know what we're talking about — which they're already doing — well, that's more of a felt thing, from the audience's point of view, and not having memorized talking points is not a disadvantage if the speaker seems to have grasped the underlying issue and compensates for missing esoteria with good faith and honesty.

Buddy would likely stump Bob if he asked about the header size of his front entryway, but that wouldn't disqualify Mr. Walsh from suggesting that he'd like to be able to lock the door.

The State and the Local

A quick Friday afternoon note regarding two events — one statewide and one in Tiverton — in which y'all might be (should be) interested:

• The deadline to register for Operation Clean Government's Public Affairs Forum, which includes a breakfast and a panel discussion, is tomorrow. The event itself is next Saturday morning.
• Tiverton Citizens for Change has organized a "Help Clean Up Tiverton Effort" as an example of the sort of activities that residents should take up in order to improve their towns — without having to increase taxes and in a way that builds a sense of community. We're meeting tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. at the Park and Ride across from Viti Auto Dealership on Fish Rd. (just off Rt. 24).

I'll be at both events, liveblogging the first... and perhaps the second, if it's possible to do such a thing.

So Who Won?

It would be silly to take the presumed competition seriously, but considering the Providence Business News headline Wednesday morning of "Dueling demonstrations to mark Tax Day," perhaps we'd be justified in asking who won:

Two groups with different views on how those tax dollars should and should not be used will hold demonstrations in the city today.

From 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., a group of activists plan to greet tax filers at the Corliss Street post office to protest the cost of the war in Iraq and the defense budget. The groups that will be represented include the American Friends Service Committee, Ocean State Action, Declaration of Peace Campaign Rhode Island, and the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to End War and Occupation. ...

Fiscal conservatives plan to hold their own “Tax Day Tea Party” protest in front of the Statehouse in Providence from 3 to 6 p.m. The event will coincide with hundreds of other rallies that will be held today in as many as 2,000 cities nationwide, organizers said.

Targeting People with Dark Skin So As Not to Be Racist

Sometimes, one reads statements that leave the impression that the center line of American politics is a portal from one reality — with its own intellectual and moral standards — and another. Among the (predictable) criticisms being directed toward the Providence tea party is that the vast majority of those in attendance were light skinned, and in response to a comment by Real Deal Hope, on RI Future, that it was "an issue driven rally" with an open attendance opportunity, Matt Jerzyk offers the following:

While the event was an "open invitation," the event organizers did go around the state and speak at events, groups and businesses to drive up attendance. Anyone who has ever tried to organize an event knows that turnout is driven by specific outreach. Since my criticism apparently wasn't clear enough, let me give you a specific example. Did the event organizers go to Rhode Island's largest middle-class African-American church and ask for 5 minutes to speak about their event? Or the largest middle-class Colombian group in Central Falls or middle-class Cape Verdean group in East Providence? More to my point exactly, did they go on WBRU or PODER just like they went on every other radio station or did they sit down for an interview with UNIVISION or Providence en Espanol or the Providence American?

I could be wrong about this, but as far as I know, during the few weeks in which they organized the event, the RI Tea Party folks didn't "go around the state" speaking to groups, but made media appearances. They also didn't, I don't believe, go on WHJY, Cat Country, or "every other radio station" that doesn't have a news focus. If they did either of those things, I didn't hear about it.

That's ancillary to the point, which is the astonishing racial reductivism of Matt's suggestion. We on the right — particularly of the issue-driven, grassroots segment — target our message based on exhibited interests. When time is limited, we'll approach audiences that have exhibited receptivity to similar ideas and seek to work through media of general interest for the region. The assumption is that people exhibit their interests in accord with their individual beliefs and understanding, not on the basis of their skin or heritage.

To the left, tint is primary. In order to ensure that pictures of a crowd have color, they'll approach racially populated churches about government fiscal policy. They'll research ethnic enclaves in order to check off a hit-list of identity groups. By "racial inclusiveness," they clearly intend to divide and allocate people according to their race and then get representatives in a group photograph to promote their ideological cause. They mean to herd people into categories in order to more easily direct and manipulate them.

Matt may be correct that the hard-sell leftist effort to promote identity politics makes such a strategy politically savvy, in the current context, but I don't find it especially moral. And if I had skin of a darker hue, I'd be much more self-conscious about my physical appearance at a liberal rally than a conservative one, and I'd resent the effort to make me feel that I couldn't attend an event concerned with taxation without considering whether my fellow taxpayers were palpably conscious of my race.

As I walked around that crowd on Wednesday, I saw people. Contrary to the spin, some of them had darker skin than others, but I was paying more attention to signs and t-shirts.

Pics from the Crowd

A reader sent me the following pictures today. (My mother likes the last one.)

Don't Let Them Convince You That It Was Something That It Wasn't

This is a topic that I intend to consider from a couple of angles for some posts tomorrow, but it's worth making the general suggestion that attempts by various folks to define yesterday's tea party in Providence as something that it wasn't, or in a light that doesn't really apply, suggests that they just don't understand what's going on among right-of-center grassroots movements and the right side of the blogosphere. It could be that a basic difference in priorities, interests, and style precludes their understanding.

Consider the professional/mainstream media inclination to highlight a partisan aspect to the rallies — actually, to embellish for the purpose of highlighting it. Last night, as I waited in studio to go on the air with Matt Allen, WPRO reporter Steve Klamkin opened the door to discuss the tea party and was adamant that it was a "Republican event." The response that I gave on air to Matt was that the correlation is only a detracting factor — making it truly a "partisan" event — if the motivation for attendance was partisan regardless of the message. This was the opposite.

But this morning, Mr. Klamkin's report highlighted one speaker: Representative Joe Trillo, who said a few extemporaneous words after signing a no-tax pledge. Consider that: A reporter who wishes to see the event as a partisan event made a point of portraying it that way — not only picking a speaker who is known to be Republican, for one reason or another, but singling out one who is, by the nature of his office, a Republican figure.

The Providence Journal did something similar by using a picture of Republican candidate Dan Reilly for its front-page story of the event. It certainly isn't a denigration of either Mr. Reilly or Rep. Trillo to suggest that a picture of Colleen Conley, Bill Felkner, or Helen Glover would have been more appropriate as the signature image.

More than half of the other speakers are not explicitly partisan and would have conveyed a better sense of what the bubbling unrest is about: It's about people forming a popular movement, and that should be a much more frightening prospect to entrenched powers than the inevitable fact that politicians will find their way to microphones.

Why the Best Sign from Yesterday was the Best

Here are a few of the ideas encapsulated by the best sign from yesterday desperately needing some public discussion.

1. What exactly is it that happened, in 1776, when a new nation "conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal" was born? (OK, so I threw a bit of 1863 in there too). Did something truly exceptional occur in the founding of the United States of America, or were the ideas of democracy and limited government just historical quirks made possible by favorable geography, access to natural resources and good luck?

2. 1984 is George Orwell's classic warning of the possibility of a totalitarian future. The events of 1776 occurred, obviously, long before the publication of 1984 (in 1949, to be exact) and before totalitarian ideas had gained traction in human affairs, as carrying out 1984-like repression requires the modern bureaucratic state that didn't exist as of 1776. The question is: is it reasonable to believe that the modern state, which we know can be a powerful force for taking things in the wrong direction, can also be a force for strengthening the ideals of 1776?

3. And is it even agreed upon that people have an actual choice at all? The Marxists (Orwell's target in 1984) tell us that the progress of history is dictated by material forces, that our forms of government move inevitably through different stages (although the stages seem to change, when the predictions of "scientific socialism" don't quite work out). Even more cynical schools of thought hold that regular people don’t have the capacity to make the choices to navigate the modern world and that they are better off having their lives managed by a technocratic elite -- though government may need to maintain the appearance of democracy for psychological reasons.

Are the cynics right? Have the ideals of 1776 in the minds of too many become a remnant of a pre-modern past that must be abandoned in order to get on the right side of history and modernity? Or are we the people willing and ready to re-choose those ideals today?

Talkin' Rally With Mr. Allen

What else would Matt and I have discussed during last night's Matt Allen show, other than the tea party? For thoughts on what to make of it and what to do next: stream by clicking here, or download it.

Roundup: Tax Day Tea Party, Providence, RI

Upwards of 3,000 Rhode Islanders who've already had enough of Change made their presence known at the Tax Day Tea Party in Providence, RI. For those from elsewhere, that is an absolutely huge crowd backing this particular range of issues in this particular state, in which some commentators were predicting attendance in the hundreds.

We'll be updating this post as we're able. Anybody who has links that they think should be added to this list should feel free to email them to any Anchor Rising contributor.

Photos

Anchor Rising: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10
Ocean State Republican: 1, 2
Assigned Reading
Bienvenue
Ocean State Policy blog: 1
Providence Journal
John DePetro

Speeches

Justin Katz (Anchor Rising): Text and audio
John DePetro (WPRO): Streaming audio
(If any other speakers send their text to an Anchor Rising contributor, we'll publish them as Engaged Citizen posts.)

Video

Providence Journal
Brown Daily Herald

Audio

Matt Allen and Justin discuss the implications and the next steps

Coverage

Providence Business News
Providence Journal
Anchor Rising: Post-facto Republicanization
Pawtucket Times

Providence, RI, Tax Day Tea Party Speech

Stream, Download

This is one of those times in history when a society must make a decision. Social commentators of the near future will say one of two things about us: If we fail to be heard, then these tea parties, these expressions of outrage across the nation, are the final lunge of a fading culture, riddled with the errors of an unenlightened past. Or, if we can rein in our government, these demonstrations represent the reawakening of the American spirit, reasserting the principles of the United States.

Our country is defined by its principles. There is no picture of the typical American. We aren't a race. We aren't a religion. We aren't a tribe or a sect or a straight line of lineage. The typical American is a person in motion. With a swagger. Sometimes a smirk. Often a smile. But always, there's a set jaw and a confident stride toward the future — toward growth and improvement and a better life for all who'll but seek it.

Future historians will either tell the tale of a nation that tipped the scales toward the final decline of Western civilization, or they will celebrate the character of a people who saved the world once again. Because it was right, and because it was who they were. Who we are.

We are called, most critically, not to stand against an external enemy — although that exists — but against a corruption of spirit. There is a cancer running through our culture that wants ease instead of opportunity, that takes a life of stability to be a higher goal than a life of achievement. Powerful interests will punish those who strive and excel because they want to be the ones providing everybody else's comfort — defining everybody else's well-being.

We here today do not savor work, but freedom. If we aren't free to err and struggle, we aren't free to succeed. If we aren't free to build organizations and businesses and lives according to our beliefs and our goals, and based on our own experiences, then we just aren't free. There is no stability without risk, and freedom is the only defense against stagnation.

The forces of stagnation have waged a decades-long campaign to advance their cause incrementally. Little by little. While they hold sway in the halls of power they inject their principles of big government and nanny-state dictation into the body politic, and then, when the poison reveals itself in painful consequences, they recede into the shadows and await their next chance.

When a welfare and social policy regime results in a desperate underclass, these forces point to a bogeyman of bigotry. Conveniently, it's always to be found among their political opposition. When quasi-governmental lenders back unsecure investments and build an edifice of financial straw, would-be magicians of the political sphere spread our great-grandchildren's earnings around in order to establish the principle that government knows best how to run all things, large and small. They connive to foster dependency. They know that an antidote never fully overcomes addiction.

They take, and they tax. They regulate, and they assert authority. They preach their own superiority. And every year, they control a little bit more of our lives, telling a distracted citizenry that they are all that stands between our families and utter collapse and that only their guidance can protect us from our prejudices. They push the fallacy that an increasingly complicated society requires centralized oversight and central planning, when the polar opposite is true. Well, I'm sorry, Senators Reed and Whitehouse, Congressmen Langevin and Kennedy, but no matter how eloquent and genuinely intelligent our new president may be, even if he's the brightest bulb in that dim capital, his thinking is fundamentally flawed. It is dangerous. Oppressive.

If we cannot put a stop to the lapse in our national ideals currently seeping into Washington — very similar to the illness that has ravaged Rhode Island — we will cease to be the United States of America. If we cannot say to the president and his followers, "you lied — you sold us a break, a period of cooperation," if we cannot say that and make the schemers in our government stop pasting a radical pastiche where they promised the even lines of a new realism, then they will have no fear. They will march right into our lives. They will know that the nice image of helping our old country to cross the road to a time of undefined hope and dubious change is suitable propaganda to cover their power grab.

I suspect that most of you here today now understand that there was never any intention to compromise. Those who rule our nation — and who would rule the "global community" — have an idea of compromise that is merely to mouth some pleasing words about listening and then to do whatever they want, take whatever they want. And that is why we must be uncompromising in our message. Enough is enough. That is the statement that the people of these United States have to make. That we have to make here today. And that we must continue to make as we turn our country back toward the right direction in the months and years to come.

How Many of Us Were There?

I'm hearing various media-approved estimates for the crowd at today's tea party, and they seem to hover just north of 2,000 people. Not being sure what the methodology might have been — and suspecting it had a bit of that old give a little credit here, take a little adjustment there — I thought I'd have a go at coming up with something with at least some attempt to be accurate.

So, I took two photos that I took in succession from up high on the steps (here and here) and joined them at a roughly central depth (overlapping the green signs to the left of the second picture), as follows:

As you can see with the buildings and the trees, the different perspectives from which I took the pictures causes some doubling, but the span of the crowd that I'm looking at is relatively narrow in height, and it's also central in the photo. In other words, what I gained slightly above the mid-point was reasonably comparable to what I lost beneath it.

I drew a 1x1 square (the number is arbitrary) and moved it around the field to estimate the average number of people within it at 7. I then drew a box around the crowd (rotated so as not to have empty space in the corners) and by calculating the box's size, figured there to be 2,597 people in that main cobbled area. I then added a conservative estimate of 50 more people on the walkways and down by the road, bringing the subtotal to 2,647.

Taking this picture of the steps from about the same time, I repeated the method for the lower and upper tiers, the former showing 245 people and the latter showing 287.

Granted the method is crude, but I'm reasonably sure that my fudges around the edges cancel out, which makes the total attendance at the time of this picture (roughly quarter to five) 3,179. Given that people were coming and going over the course of the three-hour event, the total attendance was probably in the 3,500–4,000 range.

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party: Special Appearance By...

...Old Glory...

...and related friends.

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party: Rhode Island's Medical Taxes

The most substantive signs of the day came from a pair of nurses who turned out to protest the recent tax increase on medical expenses…

One of the protesting nurses was kind enough to provide some additional detail…

I work at Toll Gate radiology, I schedule all the exams. There's a 2% tax increase for all the patients that come in, they end up spending 2% and it kind of defeats the purpose. They end up paying a lot more to get testing that they need to have done. Even with their co-payments, they end up paying $125 more than they should have to go in for a CAT scan.

The Rest of the Pictures

The extended entry contains the last of my pictures from today's tea party. What an event! Several of Matt Allen's callers made an excellent point: No security was necessary. There will be no trash-pick-up crew needed. These were regular Americans, regular Rhode Islanders, gathering together to make their presence felt. And moreover, they were folks who aren't demanding that more be given to them, but given back to them.

By the way, I've reduced the size of all of the image files, so if slow loading kept you away before, take a look at the previous posts.

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party: The Best Signs (That I Saw)

Honorable mention...

Runner-up...

And, for all of the ideas that it packs into a concise statement, the winner is...

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party: The Best Signs (That I Saw)

Honorable mention...

Runner-up...

And, for all of the ideas that it packs into a concise statement, the winner is...

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party: A Winner is Declared...

The runaway winner in the best metaphorical costume division was the American patriot drowning in taxes…

Photoblogging Today's Tea Party

One nice thing about Rhode Island Statehouse protests is that they provide some aesthetically pleasing backgrounds...

On the other hand, the reverse angle gives a better sense of the size of the crowd...

Technical Note

I've moved the pictures into the extended entry for ease of loading. Another learning curve: I've been using a much better camera than usual, and it keeps reverting to large file sizes. When I get home to my main computer, I'll shrink the images down.

Best in New England?

I'm hearing rumors that this tea party is actually bigger than Boston's. I don't know about that, but it is definitely a large (and diverse) crowd. I'll say this, too: I was embarrassed when Helen Glover introduced me as needing no introduction, but I've been finding that I'm not quite as anonymous in a crowd like this as I once enjoyed being.

Tea Party Continued

Sorry for the lag; nerves made posting even more difficult than the bright sun. Here are pictures from the past hour or so. There have got to be 2,000 to 3,000 people here.

Tax Day Tea Party

It's not three yet, and I'd wager that the crowd's on its way to a thousand (although I'm terrible at estimating). The most recent of these pictures was taken about ten minutes ago (before I sought a location in which it would be possible to see my screen), and people have continued to pour in.

The S-Word: Glenn Beck Refines the Reason Behind the Tea Parties

It's not so much taxes as what creates the necessity to tax. (And look, once again, Rhode Island earns a national mention for a dubious achievement.)

The mainstream media will report on the tea parties as if they're just a bunch of whack-job Republicans who only care about taxes on the rich (like New York's so-called "millionaire's tax" on individuals making $200,000 dollars and couples making $300,000); a third of the average New Yorker's cellphone bill goes to taxes; or smokers (like those in Rhode Island who are ticked off that their state's cigarette tax would rise to $3.46 a pack — the highest in the country); or the proposed 10 percent "tanning salon tax" in Utah; the proposed "streetlight user fee" that would add $51 a year to electric bills in Washington, D.C.; the 3 percent "bed tax" on anyone silly enough to spend the night in a hotel room in the state of Nevada, best known for Las Vegas, which has the largest hotels in the world.

If the Tea Parties were only about taxes, there would still be a great case for them. Americans pay more in taxes than on food, clothing and housing combined.

But, they're not. They're about the reason for our taxes, which is an out-of-control government that can't control its spending.

Add up all the bailouts so far and Congress, the Treasury Department and the Fed have spent, lent and guaranteed a total of $12.8 trillion, an amount that's practically equal to our country's entire GDP.

* * *

Oh, I almost forgot about the pesky issue of $1.25 quadrillion in total debt, which represents the worst-case scenario for our Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security obligations.

Tea Party Speakers List

The RI Tea Party organizers have released speakers list:

• 3:00: Helen Glover (WHJJ)
• 3:10: Colleen Conley (RI Tea Party)
• 3:25: Bill Felkner (Ocean State Policy Research Institute)
• 3:40: John DePetro (WPRO)
• 3:55: Walter Muzzy (descendant of Battle of Lexington fatality)
• 4:00: Father Giacomo Capoverdi (Priest & OSPRI fellow)
• 4:05: Jason Matera (Young Americans Foundation)
• 4:20: Brian Buongiovanni (Motif magazine contributor)
• 4:25: Justin Katz (Anchor Rising)
• 4:30: Ellen Kenner (Rational Basis of Happiness radio host)
• 4:35: Jeff Deckman (businessman)
• 4:40: Bob Cushman (businessman and former Warwick elected official)
• 4:50: Edward Hathaway (teacher)
• 4:55: Jim Beale (Rhode Island Statewide Coalition)
• 5:00: Brian Bishop (OSPRI)
• 5:10: Stefan Tabak (Fairtax)
• 5:15: Bob Healey (Lt. Governor candidate)
• 5:25: Chuck Barton (Operation Clean Government)
• 5:30: Jon Scott (OSPRI)
• 5:40: Ambassador J. William Middendorf
• 5:50: RI Tea Party closing

On the Steps at 4:00 High

Anybody who can make it into Providence for the tea party at any point and for any duration should do so. I'll be liveblogging the whole event and will be taking the microphone for a speech just after 4:00. Like Dan Yorke, I'm not sure what to expect, either as a participant or a speaker, but it'll be interesting to find out.

Feel free, by the way, to send me pictures to post after the fact (or to either compliment or console me, as merited, after my performance).

"What Do We Need to Do to Get Out of This Mess?"

If you're available on the morning of Saturday the 25th, you might consider joining me in North Kingstown, as a member of the the audience of Operation Clean Government's spring public affairs forum, which is intended to probe "the RI fiscal train wreck."

There's a breakfast beforehand, at 8:45 a.m., with the main event being a panel moderated by Dan Yorke and consisting of a list of familiar names, beginning at 10.

A Not-So-Idle Question

Pondering something not at all self-referential, I got to wondering who might rank on a top 10 list of conservative Rhode Islanders. (Given the competition, let's define "conservative" as "right-of-center.") Some names and placements are obvious, but what would the breakdown be?

I suppose one would first have to settle on criteria. There are folks who, by the nature of their positions, have a certain amount of power. Others have influence of which the public is hardly aware. Still others are very visible, but their influence beyond their visibility is a question. How does one measure a legislator against a radio personality? A newspaper editor against an activist?

What do you think?

Two Tea Parties for the Ocean State

Further to the complaints pointed remarks of commenter TaxPayer and myself under Justin's post, the Ocean State Republican blog reports that, in fact,

There will be two Rhode Island “Tea Parties” on Tax Day, April 15th. The different times should allow anyone who wants to participate, to fit at least one of the parties into their schedule. The first will be in Providence from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM [new time] 3:00 PM TO 6:00 PM, and the second will be in Warwick, from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

The Providence Tax Day Tea Party will be on Wednesday, April 15, 2009 from 12:00 PM to 3:00 PM, which will be taking place at the Rhode Island State House on Smith Street.

* * *

The Warwick Tax Tea Day Party will take place at the corner of Airport Road and Post Road, outside of the Rhode Island Republican Party HQ from 4:00 PM to 7:00 PM.

A Tea Party for the Ocean State

It's becoming a frequently asked question of me, when I'm going about my business, when Rhode Island will host its own tea party. Well, I just received word that Ocean State Policy Research Institute has put up a Web site to promote just such an event on April 15th (tax day) 12:00 to 3:00 p.m. at the State House:

On February 19th, 2009, Rick Santelli spoke out on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange during a CNBC broadcast and expressed the frustration we are all feeling. Spawned of that "rant" was the National Tax Day Tea Party - and when Colleen Conley emailed the national group and said, "Rhode Island should do something like that," she had no idea how many other people were thinking the same thing.

Make your voice be heard on April 15th

Please join us as we send a message to our elected leaders that THEY WORK FOR US!

We the People are tired of irresponsible spending and actions taken by the state and federal government which threatens the financial health of the United States of America. We refuse to allow them to mortgage our children's and grandchildren's futures.

We demand accountability for their actions!

Back in the Town Hall

Missing a town meeting or two reminds the active citizen how nice it is to have nights at home. Ah, well. If we're going to have a democracy...

When I walked in (yes, a few minutes late) RI Rep. John Loughlin (R., Tiverton, Little Compton, Portsmouth) was giving the council the newly regular update of happenings at the State House. Now, Wayne [somebody] is describing the state's stimulus-related activities. Councilor Louise Durfee asked whether the money-related decisions will be made by the General Assembly or ladled out after the session's end. Loughlin answered, "Yes." Both methods will play a role.

7:19 p.m.

Just an observation: Councilor Jay Lambert asked Loughlin about state aid (receiving no concrete answer), and jovial comments from Durfee thereafter gave the impression that something has changed in their relationship. Since the last meeting that I attended.

7:23 p.m.

On state aid and the financial town meeting, Durfee told Loughlin that the town is considering giving the legislature a bill for spending needs or demand a change in the financial town meeting's date.

TCC member Joe Souza just asked the town council to request that Loughlin introduce a bill to end binding arbitration for police and fire. Souza: "We've heard the town council complain that they have no control over the budget."

8:13 p.m.

Town Administrator Jim Goncalo informed the council that the governor has offered to reinstate some of the state financial aid to the town... but only if he can use stimulus money for the general fund.

This issue seemed to be raised mainly to offer another opportunity for councilors to mention postponing the financial town meeting.

8:34 p.m.

The town recreation committee is requesting permission to put up outfield banner ads for the Little League fields in order to fund capital projects. They're estimating that 20 banners will generate $20,000-$25,000 per year. The committee sees the practice as the norm.

Louise Durfee is objecting that allowing advertising puts the town on slippery slope as other leagues come forward for similar treatment. "We've kept our recreation areas free of commercialism." Council President Don Bollin is getting pretty fired up about the visibility of the signage.

Hey, here's an idea: Let's raise taxes! It's almost the same thing, only the people paying the money get no advertisements in return.

8:45 p.m.

Lambert suggested trying one field for a year. Councilor Ed Roderick is partial to the slippery slope argument.

9:00 p.m.

Durfee moved to reject the proposal. Lambert amended to make it a one-year, one-field experiment, but received no second. All but Lambert voted to reject the proposal to place green signs with yellow letters (lettering only visible within the field) in order to build a new concession stand that isn't rodent-infested.

Have I mentioned that the town recently approved raises for AFSCME employees? Maybe we should make them wear advertising buttons on their shirts.

If I had time, I'd prove a point by standing near the outfield fence with a handheld sign for one of the organizations with which I'm involved and see if the police come after me.

9:22 p.m.

Jay Lambert and Ed Roderick are about to move to postpone the financial town meeting to allow for more information to be available.

9:24 p.m.

Actually... Lambert's making the point that all estimates are for tax increases below the 3050 cap even with the state aid listed as zero dollars. Consequently, he's proposing to go ahead with FTM as scheduled, where town officials would lay out what will happen with any state money: half to the reserve fund and half to tax relief for the town. "A lot of people may not trust us on a continuance."

9:29 p.m.

Durfee wants to recess a meeting to "level the playing field." At the latter point, we'll have facts that we don't currently have, on which list she includes labor agreements. She argues that the low tax increase currently on the table provides for no increases for any employees. Regarding negotiations: "Changes we want in contracts, we may need to give a little to get it."

They (i.e., Durfee and her backers) just want to give more away to the unions than they should, and they don't want the citizens to feel that they have any say in the budget.

9:38 p.m.

The solicitor (not Teitz) is suggesting that the General Assembly may lack the authority to permit the town to change the date of the FTM.

Durfee interrupted to argue "that doesn't ring accurately with me."

9:41 p.m.

Councilor Cecil Leonard just noted another instance of numbers games in the low, low budget: Revenue projections that are dramatically higher than history, such as a jump in mooring fees from $3,500 to $45,000.

He's also arguing that postponing the FTM will result in unrest. He cited the 58% of people who rejected the proposal to let the town council decide the budget.

9:44 p.m.

Chris Cotta took his regular turn at the microphone to suggest that nobody's trying to fool the taxpayers; they're just trying to have accurate information for the taxpayers. I'd suggest that the only information that they want to feed the taxpayers is how much they have to pay for signed union contracts.

9:51 p.m.

Durfee moved to proceed in seeking legislation that would postpone the FTM until Saturday, September 12, pending a legal decision that it is legal to do so. Just curios: when do our seasonal retirees leave town?

If this passes, I think my summer may be devoted to campaigning to cut a double-digit percentage from the budget.

9:59 p.m.

The council voted to have a special meeting next Monday, at which time, the solicitor will have an opinion, and they'll take the vote on postponement then.

RISC Winter Meeting: Governor Don Carcieri on Budgets, Benefits, and the Future

Governor Don Carcieri was the final speaker at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's Winter Meeting (stream entire speech):

• RISC Chairman Harry Staley's introduction: stream, download
• Opening remarks — coverage of the budget proposal has been "incomprehensible"; "politics is a contact sport"; "I am mad as hell": stream, download
• The need for RISC and citizen action — American Revolution began with just a few taxpayers who had had enough: stream, download
• The problem — "We have gotten ourselves into a position over decades"; Look around the country and see all the states that have grown and prospered over the last decade: they are all the low-tax, right-to-work states, where businesses are happy to go there": stream, download
• On state employees — "I don't blame them. If you can get it and your employer is dumb enough to give it to you": stream, download
• Riling up — "I'm tired of just talking around the edges"; "The reason we are where we are with spending and these benefits are out of control is you've got special interests — number 1, unions — state employees unions that are controlling this"; "They've been masterful, and are getting more masterful every day, and you're seeing it happen right now at the national level.": stream, download
• Countervailing force needed — "In playing the game, that means there's got to be a countervailing force."; "What I'm talking about is a party system that is essentially a monopoly... They just do what the leadership wants done, and the interest groups that are up there every single day.": stream, download
• Wall Street Journal editorial about taxation in Illinois — "Everything I say here, think 'Rhode Island.'": stream, download
• We are improving — "This doesn't happen over night."; after pension change, over 1,200 people left, so state employment is at its lowest point since they've been counting: "It isn't any surprise why your property taxes are constantly under pressure, because most of the money that the towns and cities and states spend is for people.": stream, download
• On being competitive — "We've got to be competitive from a tax standpoint as a state... News bulletin! News bulletin out there: The government does not create jobs."; "The government's job is to create the environment where the private sector creates jobs, employs people, makes higher wages, and grows the wealth of the community.": stream, download
• We need to lower taxes across the board, not just one-off deals — "The beauty about reducing and eliminating our corporate income taxes is that everybody's in the same boat.": stream, download
• Must move now — "We are at such an axis point, right now. This is it. This year, either we're going to do the things that we need to position this state to really prosper and to be able to sustain what it is we're doing, or we're not... It's not a foregone conclusion.": stream, download
• Need to change our municipal operations, such as consolidating services on Aquidneck Island: stream, download
• On the budget and stimulus — "There's a lot of confusion about what we're doing in this budget, what we're trying to accomplish."; "From my standpoint, there's three philosophical issues related to the so-called stimulus. ... A chunk of this stimulus money was... to help the states bridge [the revenue fall-off]. ... The hard choices are still there; they're not going away just because of this money."; "The second principle in this was, there's a lot of people out of work... so it was trying to help them."; "Third principle: Create jobs, but the only part of this whole package that's going to create jobs tangibly is the highway and bridge funding."; "I'm trying to get tax reform into place now because it's the only thing that's going to be our salvation going forward.": stream, download
• On motivation and legacy — "I want to make sure that I'm leaving this state in a position that it's going to prosper; that's all I care about... change decades of bad behavior and bad habits."; "There's no other agenda. I'm not running for anything.": stream, download
• Closing remarks — "You are the only hope. It's true. Don't look scared."; example: killing the Economic Death and Dismemberment Act last year; "We can do this, here. We're right on the cusp.": stream, download

RISC Winter Meeting: EPTA's William Murphy Encourages Engaged Citizens

The second speech at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's Winter Meeting came from the East Providence Taxpayers Association's William Murphy, who focused on local-level movement building (stream entire speech):

• RISC Chairman Harry Staley's introduction: stream, download
• Murphy's opening remarks: stream, download
• We must focus on our effectiveness as citizens: stream, download
• Step 1 is to formulate our goals clearly: stream, download
• Step 2 is to "offer the average citizen opportunity to constructdively participate," because "citizens have abandoned the public square": stream, download
• The reform movement needs to strengthen local taxpayer groups — "we are learning in East Providence that shining the light on the process makes a difference": stream, download
• Describing the situation in East Providence and suggesting that the solution lies elsewhere than on taxpayers' backs, but that taxpayers must be more involved: stream, download
• Closing remarks: stream, download

RISC Winter Meeting: Gary Sasse Talks Taxes

Giving the first speech at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's Winter Meeting, Gary Sasse, Governor Carcieri's Director of the Department of Administration, spoke about tax policy (stream entire speech):

• RISC Chairman Harry Staley's introduction: stream, download
• Sasse's opening remarks — we compete for capital and labor, and tax policy affects our success: stream, download
• The reason for a Tax Policy Workgroup was our lack of competitiveness — we were "taking money out of the private sector and putting it in the public sector in a very uncompetitive way": stream, download
• The need for reform to prepare for the end of the recession: stream, download
• The tax reform in the governor's current budget — increase exemption of estate tax, phase out and eliminate the corporate tax ("That is the perception change we need. That is a bold step."), decrease personal income taxes ("Every income group, up to a half million dollars, pays lower average income taxes under the proposed system."): stream, download
• Closing remarks: stream, download

A Winter Meeting in Spring

What better way to spend the first Saturday of spring than listening to political speehes at the Rhode Island Statewide Coalition's Winter Meeting?

RISC Chairman Harry Staley is currently making opening remarks. Frank Caprio has been walking the room. Ed O'Neil is here. And the governor just walked in with his entourage.

9:42 a.m.

I've been battling unexpected technical difficulties. Gary Sasse explained some necessary tax changes. (I'll have audio up later.)

East Providence Taxpayer Association's Bill Murphy is now talking about the need for citizen activism, making arguments that would be very familiar to Anchor Rising readers and has progressed to describe circumstances in his native East Providence.

10:05 a.m.

Next up is Treasurer Frank Caprio:

As it happens, Mr. Caprio was Harvard classmates with the previous speaker. Every now and then a carpenter is reminded how connected others are.

By the way, Mr. Caprio pointed out, during his opening remarks that Warwick Mayor Scott Avedisian snuck in behind me.

10:11 a.m.

Caprio is giving a brief history of state pensions. The tale begins in the 1930s and winds through decades of General Assembly failure to adjust... in the right direction.

"When groups say that they're being unfairly attacked... the issue is that the equation has been changed to make it much better for one side." (slight paraphrase)

10:16 a.m.

Mr. Caprio is describing that we're 10 years into a 30 year plan to balance our pensions, but he's not really expressing a plan. His message is more that the legislature is currently working on it. "We're trying to be fair," etc.

Incidentally, I see that Rep. John Loughlin has entered the room and is standing next to Avedisian. Oddly, to his left. (I kid... not about the positioning, just its import.)

10:24 a.m.

Now it's the governor:

His first point was to suggest that coverage of the budget hasn't been reliable: "The only thing incoherent about the budget is the people who are writing about it."

Next he mentioned some of the former Ivy League athletes in the room, the point being that we're in the midst of a contact sport, and he's "mad as hell."

10:27 a.m.

"We are hanging in the balance." I haven't heard the governor speak all that many time, but he's certainly more fired up than what I've perceived to be his norm.

10:30 a.m.

The states that are in the best position, right now, are all the low-tax, right-to-work states. Regarding lavish public-sector union benefits, Carcieri doesn't blame the state workers: "If you can get it, and your employer's dumb enough to give it to you..."

10:34 a.m.

"I've been in this six years; I'm tired of talking around the edges." The reason that we're in this mess is the special interests that control the legislature.

The interests are "masterful" and they're getting better and better. You can see it at the national level. Point being that we the citizens have to begin making the same moves: running candidates against elected representatives who go the wrong way, organizing, and so on.

10:36 a.m.

Legislators can't move around the State House without being "descended upon by people who want something." We need "a countervailing force."

10:39 a.m.

Carcieri just read an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal about Illinois that might as well be describing Rhode Island.

10:44 a.m.

Addressing the media directly: "News bulletin! News bulletin: The government does not create jobs."

Rather than giving tax breaks to incoming companies, the governor would like to reduce or eliminate corporate income taxes.

"This is it. This year, either we're going to do the things that will enable this state, or we're not... It's not a foregone conclusion, by the way."

10:49 a.m.

When Carcieri taught at Rogers High School in 1965, it was the only high school on the island, and Jamestown kids took the ferry over. "There ought to be one school system [on Acquidneck Island], one police department, on fire department on the island."

10:55 a.m.

Closing with three "philosophical principles related to the stimulus package:

• Hard choices are not going away because of stimulus.
• Unemployment is high, and we need to help them and to create jobs. "The only part of this package that is going to create jobs is the highway and bridge component." The governor specifically mentioned
• Use this money as a bridge extending beyond the date when the federal money dries up, specifically by leveraging it to enact tax reform.

10:59 a.m.

"I want to see the state do well; I got no other agenda. I'm not running for anything."

11:01 a.m.

Governor Carcieri framed his speech with a comparison with the American Revolution. It doesn't take many people to get things moving, and we can turn the state around.

11:03 a.m.

Now a Q&A session with all of the speakers. First up is a man from Middletown suggesting a reduction of retirement income tax. The governor is making the point that about 20% of the states payments to its retirees go out of state, a third of them to Florida. He's also restating his support for eliminating the income tax.

Another question from the audience is where the noise from the business community is. Carcieri: "Everybody wants to keep their head down, in this state, because they're afraid that if they stick them up, they'll get whacked."

11:28 a.m.

Interesting tidbit. Bob Cushman from Warwick asked whether the governor's proposed mandatory 25% healthcare copays at the municipal level will apply to contracts already in effect (such as the one just passed in Warwick providing for $11 weekly copays). The answer: No.

Keep that in mind taxpayers and municipal negotiators!

A Clarification in the Other Direction

Lest I be misunderstood, perhaps a note's in order stating that I support the Ocean State 38 initiative that Travis Rowley describes. As a political organization, the RIGOP must reinvent itself at the local level and build from there — not just for fundraising, but in order to get to know voters and to identify candidates.

Basically, the RIGOP has to be visible among the various reform groups and amidst the political backlash against Rhode Island's status quo.

It will be critical, however, for the party to present itself as just another group interested in a larger cause than itself. Each local member of the Ocean State 38 should engage with all reform activities, and without the implication that they intend to subsume them. An approach that errs on the side of arm's length assistance, rather than political opportunism, will rebuild the party more quickly. The question to answer is, "How does the party fit within this grassroots movement?"

It most definitely has a place.

Our Movement Needs a Common Focus, Not a Common Label

In attempting to navigate the difficult waters that separate my employer and the clients on whose property we labor, I've at times been called "The Diplomat." I very often disagree with his decisions and, even more often, his methods, but there's a job to be done, and it requires that responsibility be properly allocated and that everybody's opinions contribute to final decisions without having differences break communication down to static. Everybody's got their own intentions and purposes, and the combination thereof sometimes reaches the brink of utter incompatibility. If I want to get a particular job done and move on with my life, that's not a functional place to remain.

I bring this up in response to the dispute between Travis Rowley and Ken Block, the latter of whose comment appeared earlier today on Anchor Rising.

Right now Rhode Island desperately needs to be shaken — and hard. Movement in any way toward the political and economic right is movement in the correct direction, and we who are doing the pushing will only trip each other up if some of us don't remain explicit about the extent of our cooperation and the limits of our commonalities.

Overstating will be a very easy thing to do, and emotions are going to be running high throughout the involved class of Rhode Island. We need circumspection and, yes, occasional internal diplomacy.

Ken Block: "Moderate" Is Not Another Word for "Republican"

Travis Rowley, Chairman of the Rhode Island Young Republicans, in a recent posting discussing the Ocean State 38 on the Ocean State Republican blog, purposely and inaccurately attempts to link the Moderate Party of Rhode Island to efforts to rehabilitate the RI GOP.

In his post, Travis attempts to show that the RI GOP has lots of grassroots support due to the existence of "right-of-center" advocacy groups.

I also believe in the individuals taking up our cause—the people within and supportive of the RIGOP. The RIGOP is buttressed by a local conservative uprising. Evidence of this is the recent explosion of right-of-center advocacy groups. Each in their own way, these organizations and their members serve as crucial components to Rhode Island's Republican reform effort. Included in this list are:

The Rhode Island Statewide Coalition — RISC
The Rhode Island Republican Assembly — RIRA
The Ocean State Policy Research Institute — OSPRI
Anchor Rising — www.anchorrising.com
The Moderate Party
Operation Clean Government
Transform Rhode Island
Rhode Island Young Republicans
Rhode Island College Republicans
The Republican Jewish Coalition
Rhode Islanders for Immigration Law Enforcement — RIILE

Speaking for the Moderate Party of RI, I can attest that Mr. Rowley made no attempt to contact us and ask if in fact our group was in some way endorsing or participating in some manner in the reform of the RI GOP. For the record, we are not.

While it is a safe assumption that any group with the word Republican as part of its name will be an active supporter of the state GOP, it is a monumental and irresponsible stretch to make that same leap with at least some of the other organizations listed above.

Hijacking the support of non-affiliated organizations is hardly the way to burnish, re-brand or rebuild the image of the RI GOP.

Ken Block is the chairman of the Moderate Party of RI.

Comments from the Chair

Or maybe it was a bar stool; I couldn't see. Most of the talking at Thursday night's Young Republicans event was of a mingling sort among the 60–80 people in the room, so I didn't record it, but Travis Rowley and RIGOP Chairman Gio Cicione did offer more public comments:

• Travis: Stream, Download
• Gio: Stream, Download

I'd like to note, for the record, that mine is not the voice of the "woohoo" that one hears just after Travis mentions me.

The setting made it particularly appropriate, but Gio made a point that applies much more broadly than just to young Republicans:

When I got reengaged in the party about three years ago, it was through the Young Republicans and through somebody like Travis taking the reins and starting to do good things with this group, and two years after I got reengaged, I was the chair of the party. That's not necessarily a good sign for a party, but it's a good sign for the people in this group, because there is a lot of opportunity for people who are willing to put in the time.

Gio's is a common experience, in this state, from local taxpayer groups on up. Owing to dire need, willingness to engage and a bit of native intelligence can bring a person rapidly to positions in which it is actually possible to make a significant difference.

Out on the Town with Republicans

Well, the country boy made it to the city. Eventually, I broke down and paid $5 to park (next door, by the way). The room at McFadden's is pretty full, but there's still room if you can get here.

So far, I've bumped into Gio Ciccione, Mark Zaccaria, Jon Scott, Dave Talan, Bob Watson, OSPRI'S Brian Bishop, a few familiars from RIRA (Ray McKay, Will Ricci), and of course, RIILE' Terry Gorman, host Travis Rowley. (Oh, and some guy named Andrew Morse.)

A lot of very young-looking folks (guess I'm officially n my thirties). And oddly, I'm the only person using a bluetooth keyboard and cell phone to post to the Internet. The decline of the state of Rhode Island!

Who Said Republicans Aren't Fun?

As we old folks get our act together, on the political scene, we should ensure that there's a continuity stretching down to our younger right-of-center compatriots. So, if you can put down that new book about Reagan and Buckley for a couple of hours on Thursday night, you might consider joining me here:

Join us at McFadden's, at 52 Pine Street, in Downtown Providence next Thursday night, January 22nd, from 7:30pm to 9:30pm, for our 2009 Kickoff Event.

McFadden's is providing us with free appetizers and drink specials. All we have to do is show up and make fun of Democrats for a couple hours.

Taxpayer Group's Message Spun

The East Providence Taxpayer Association is getting a lot of well deserved press, lately. The dispute in their city is big news, and the EPTA is keeping a consistent and measured message out there. From today's Providence Journal:

Standing in the cold outside East Providence High School yesterday, a lone spokesman for the East Providence Taxpayer Association said public school teachers are being misinformed by their union in their ongoing dispute with the School Committee.

"We are pleading with our teachers not to let an out-of-touch leadership lead them off a cliff that perhaps will result in layoffs, missed payrolls or even the closing of the school system," William Murphy said. "Solidarity is little consolation at the bottom of the abyss."

In a statement, the association said one misconception is that the teachers were "attacked and victimized" by the School Committee when it decided earlier this month to reduce the teachers' salaries by nearly 5 percent and force the educators to pay 20 percent of their health insurance costs. The taxpayers group said the changes were "in no way motivated by the ill will toward teachers."

Of course, it's worth a moment's note that the Projo's headline for the report amounts to spin: "Taxpayer group says teachers misinformed." The group's tempered plea thus becomes an insult. Yesterday's Projo headline was "Taxpayer group criticizes teachers." Funny how the passive voice comes and goes. It would not have been grammatically unusual for the paper to have gone with "Teachers' Behavior Criticized."

The phrasing is a matter of interest within the belly of Alisha Pina's Friday report, as well:

The audience erupted in cheers when union President Valarie Lawson told the committee it should accept a recent arbitrator's recommendation for a new contract, which included a wage freeze this year and teachers' contributions to health care that would increase to 15 percent — 5 percent this year and 10 percent next year — within three years. She said the teachers were willing and simply want to get back to the business of teaching.

The rest of the meeting was dominated by boos and outbursts, most of which were directed at School Committee Chairman Anthony A. Carcieri.

Note that it was the entire audience — not the teachers and their unionist allies — who applauded the union president and that the union supporters are taken entirely out of the sentence about "boos and outbursts." Teachers of English and writing take note: These are some illustrative examples of bias's insertion into ostensibly neutral reportage.

Which Side Their Bacon's Buttered On

I've been meaning to make sure y'all are aware of a newly available resource for transparency in state government:

For the first time, the commission has posted online the latest financial disclosure statement filed by each of the state's general officers - the governor, lieutenant governor, state treasurer, secretary of state and attorney general - and every current state legislator.

The filings can be found under the heading "financial disclosure'' on the Ethics Commission's web page: http://www.ethics.ri.gov/disclosure/

Our judiciary can declare legislators' votes to be sacrosanct, but if voters have the right information — and someday manage to gather the will to deny lawmakers' political checkmate — they can punish the appearance of impropriety.

"A Fussy and Difficult Student"

There's a familiar face on the front page of the Providence Journal today:

From the beginning, the relationship between William Felkner and the Rhode Island College School of Social Work has sounded like the screech of chalk on a blackboard. ...

Felkner has filed a lawsuit against Rhode Island College that revives arguments from conservatives who have assailed the NASW code of ethics, the profession of social work and the structure of academic programs in schools of social work across the country.

The article reminds readers of a quotation from one social work professor in Felkner's past who succinctly illustrated the attitude that can fester when a group is ideologically cloistered, standing as timely evidence of the need for intellectual diversity and of the opportunity for citizen media, such as blogs, to have an effect by shedding light even in small dark pits:

[Felkner's] complaint about the film prompted an e-mail from his professor, former adjunct faculty member James Ryczek. "Social work is a value-based profession that clearly articulates a socio-political ideology about how the world works and how the world should be," Ryczek wrote.

While Ryczek said he wanted to promote an open debate in class, he acknowledged his own liberal leanings.

"I revel in my biases," Ryczek wrote. "So I think anyone who consistently holds antithetical views to those that are espoused by the profession might ask themselves whether social work is the profession for them."

One problem that arises from this particular mentality is that it creates a system whereby public funds are used toward the education of people subsequently tasked with pressuring the public for further funding by a caste of secular sacerdotalists who dictate the methods and means for which acolytes must advocate. Along those lines, note this paragraph, as well:

The School of Social Work and its advocacy arm, the Poverty Institute, favored an "education first" approach to welfare, arguing that training helps recipients land higher-paying jobs in the long run.

A peculiar and tricky business this balancing of "arms," as one can begin to see (for example) in one California union's stewardship of a charitable appendage:

A nonprofit organization founded by California's largest union local reported spending nothing on its charitable purpose -- to develop housing for low-income workers -- during at least two of the four years it has been operating, federal records show. ...

The primary mission of the charity -- the Long Term Care Housing Corp. -- is to provide affordable homes for the local's members, most of whom earn about $9 an hour caring for the elderly and infirm. But SEIU officials declined to discuss the charity, saying it is a separate legal entity from the union, even though its board is dominated by officials from the local. The charity is located at the local's headquarters.

In some respects, it's surprising that Bill was able to infiltrate our local cell of poverty advocates as deeply as he did.

William Felkner: Not All the Answers, Just a Few Things That Worked

According to Rasmussen, when given a choice between a government that provides fewer services and sets lower taxes and one that demands higher taxes but offers more services, Americans choose smaller government by a 59% to 28% margin. So, if these views are in the majority, why is it that our elected representatives do the opposite?

Maybe the answer lies in how we communicate with them.

Recently, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in a large meeting room with individuals from other state think tanks, advocacy organizations, state parties, and the different branches of our government. As the nation slips into an economic abyss, or becomes more RI-like, people there were asking the same question we do here at home: "How do taxpayers communicate their wants with policy makers more effectively?"

Like most meetings, it was 90% complaining and campaigning, but I did find a few examples around the country that showed success.

The first order of business is to establish an infrastructure of advocacy. I used to call it the Poverty Institute–One RI–Working RI model. Then I found the good people at the Sam Adams Alliance working on a similar program, but on steroids, called the Six Capacities. This model suggests having the following tasks performed:

• New Media Capacity — Blogs and other online venues can refute and direct the 6:00 news (think Drudge Report and Monica Lewinsky).
• Political capacity — Taxpayer groups are the political muscle to rally, lobby, and influence policy makers at all levels.
• Legal capacity — He who wins the case, influences policy. We have long been losing in this category.
• Intellectual capacity — Create empirical evidence that is timely and made for general consumption.
• Investigative capacity — Lets face it, newspapers and TV don't have the resources or, sometimes, the will. We can perform this function and let them report it.
• Leadership training capacity — Like anything else, a political party needs to develop the majority of its team through a farm system.

In a perfect world, our side would be funded in parity with union dues and tax (or litigation) funded advocacy, but it's not. That being said, we do have each of these functions covered, at least in part. Once the infrastructure is in place, we need tactics and strategies. I heard a ton of these over the week, but two struck me as consistently successful.

I heard from more than one state that voters want assurances of candidates' intent on issues they cared about, which is provided by a simple and straightforward process. First, review the Democrat and Republican Party platforms for those items in which they are diametrically opposed. Second, review the poll numbers on each of those issues and find the ones with the most voter support. Third, have each candidate sign a "Pledge to the Taxpayer" that those issues will be supported.

Each and every area that implemented this system had success.

The next idea having the most success provides a more direct path to changing the law, especially relevant to states like Rhode Island that do not have voter initiative. This strategy has been mentioned on this blog before: initiate change via referenda at the municipal level.

The General Assembly does have authority over municipal decisions on some issues (education and costal development come to mind), but that doesn't mean they have to intervene or that they would if the will of the people were squarely opposed. Besides, there are lots of things the General Assembly might not be able to stop (such as tax caps). So rather than fighting the special interest groups at the State House, champion reform in your own back yard.

For relatively little money, a grassroots effort at the municipal level can be a very effective strategy. One example given involved referenda at three different towns. The local teachers' union spent money at a ratio of 30:1 more than our side, but they only defeated two out of the three.

If we are correct that our views on issues like school choice, tax caps, and transparent governance are universally supported then local referenda can be our voice.

Those are the basics of what I learned on my field trip. Specific issues relevant to specific areas will require unique tactics, but it's the job of the six capacities to figure them out. It may sound as if it is out of reach in far-gone Rhode Island, but Justin showed in a piece on the statewide battlefield, we already have most of the infrastructure, and many of you are already doing your bit (this blog front and center). We just need a little more collaboration and a little (lot) more funding.

Bill Felkner, executive director of Ocean State Policy Research Institute writes this letter as an angry taxpayer and not in a professional capacity.

Where Transformation Fits

As I admitted this morning, I haven't been entirely sure where TransformRI fits into a complementary strategy for the advancement of reform in Rhode Island. Looking at the group's Web site, my impression is that, beyond reinforcing grassroots efforts, the group's role should be to liaise between the Republican Party and the various groups that advisably remain independent.

Apart from collecting the Governor's radio appearances the Web site summarizes some of the bigger issues in the state and directs visitors to opportunities for action.

The challenge will be to preserve the mutual support, even when the imperative of independence causes rifts on one matter or another.

Pulling Together the Change Agents

If the statewide election results accomplished anything, this year, it was to up the ante for pessimism in Rhode Island. Whereas we used to ask each other how bad things would have to get, here, before voters would begin to wake up, it is beginning to seem more realistic to ask whether the state can save itself at all.

The partisan Democrats are busily constructing distractions to deflect the blame that obviously falls at their feet. The ideologically driven liberals have not relented in their push for progress toward oblivion and, indeed, have inhaled some pure oxygen with Obama's success. Economic recession, even depression, will shore up the poverty advocates' ammunition and expand the base of struggling families who are susceptible to their message. And public union members have, if anything, been sending a message that they want to compromise even less than their leaders.

Meanwhile, the exodus of productive taxpayers continues apace. In fact, I'll be so bold as to predict that the stream will become a flood unless Rhode Island manages to beat the rest of the nation out of recession — an unlikely scenario bordering on impossibility. For many residents who might be inclined to reorder the state, saying "uncle" won't entail resignation to changing our government, but to changing zip codes. Indeed, I can testify from my own experience that construction industry realities and disconcerting noises from my employer leave me little choice but to begin preparing an escape route.

In other words, time is short to rally those who would change Rhode Island for the better and to concentrate their talents for maximum effect. We have to push aside egos, spread around resources, and work together in designing structure:

• The Rhode Island GOP: The official state opposition party has to lower its profile for a while. Its role should retrench to support of grassroots operations and maintenance of a channel to the national party structure. Step away from the stove for a bit and let the boil stir the broth; perhaps it's to the best if some detritus burns to the bottom of the pot.
• Local "CC" Groups: Town-level taxpayer organizations, such as those in Tiverton, Portsmouth, East Providence, Lincoln, and Little Compton, need to arise in every town and concentrate on changing the habits and processes of government at the municipal level. Their focus should be on identifying citizens who might require only a little push to become active and to give residents a sense that they can make a difference if they would just engage. In this way, they may be able to give hope and a reason to stay to those Rhode Islanders whom we can't afford to lose, while building up a base of informed citizens with whom to populate town and state government.
• Rhode Island Statewide Coalition: While the local groups form and get up to speed, RISC should focus on building an infrastructure to link them together and identify areas of common cause. As the "CC" groups develop their understanding of municipal government, they'll begin to identify the areas in which state law hinders their advancement. They'll also run right into entrenched organizations, such as the teachers unions, that act statewide. RISC can facilitate the initiation of CCs, whether financially or by connecting interested organizers with the leaders of successful groups in other towns, aggregate the intelligence about state-level obstacles, and prepare channels by which town groups can expand to statewide office and action.
• Ocean State Policy Research Institute: As an organic network grows from town to town, there is clearly a role for a think-tank-style organization to research the statewide playing field and to develop policy suggestions that answer the CC groups' findings as well as broader problems that the state faces. While it will be important for OSPRI to remain organizationally independent from direct political interests, it will be critical for it and RISC to work together as complementary state-level organizations — in particular to avoid duplicated efforts.
• TransformRI: To be honest, I haven't developed a sufficient sense of TransformRI's goals to place it within this proposed structure, but there are certainly gaps remaining that it may readily fill. Again, the key will be for the organization to work with the others, not duplicating their efforts.

Any successful network requires the involvement of "people groups," with the goal of furthering principles that they support:

• Rhode Island Republican Assembly: RIRA's Web site quotes Ronald Reagan as characterizing the California Republican Assembly as "the conscience of the Republican Party," and RIRA's role should be to populate the reform structure in Rhode Island with an eye toward maintaining principles that ought not be diluted.
• Moderate Party of Rhode Island: That said, there remain plenty of Rhode Islanders who recognize the pending calamity in their state and have a sound understanding of the steps necessary to avoid the worst of it. For that reason, it will remain important for dyed-in-the-wool conservatives and Republicans to work alongside self-identifying moderates. Compromises will have to go both ways, of course, such that nobody walks away from the table based on tangential or wholly irrelevant differences of opinion or aesthetic preferences. Toward that end distinct party labels are probably advisable, but cross-endorsements, so to speak, ought to be encouraged.
• College Republican Federation of Rhode Island and Rhode Island Young Republicans: Similarly to RIRA, groups for young Republicans in the state should be brought into the fold, not only to cull active participants, but to involve a different voice and perspective.

Where Anchor Rising Fits into the Scheme.

Having observed the results of such a project, the contributors of Anchor Rising have no intention of becoming a propaganda organ for partisan activism, but when the lines are so clear and the needs so broad as in RI, there is no conflict between independence and cooperation. Our unique platform and established voice put us in an advantageous position to fill in gaps between and connect the various groups described above, primarily for the ends of communications and messaging:

• The contributors are universally interested in researching and analyzing Rhode Island's problems, making it a natural inclination to take the findings of others — whether OSPRI's research or the CC groups' experience — and fit them into the narrative of the state. In that way, we would connect the various dots and help to make the case for suggested changes.
• Blogs are also an excellent route by which to bring exposure to stories and events that might fall through the cracks of mainstream media attention. Not only could we keep distant members of the statewide network informed, but we could provide a stepping stone from which to hand stories to larger media organizations, feeding the news upward, so to speak.
• As a setting for public discussion — not only in the comments, but also through our Engaged Citizen feature — we provide an online forum for continual principle and message development. To keep reformers focused and united will require a mechanism for sharing experience and working out differences (or agreeing to disagree), and an independent Web site allows that discussion to occur.

What I'm proposing, from our end, begins with a request: If you help us to generate enough revenue initially to fund a single full-time position for the site administrator (ahem), we can become a substantial force enabling the construction of a statewide opposition movement. We could expand our coverage of relevant events and develop our understanding of the players and playing field. I'd also take it as a goal to seek out and encourage Rhode Islanders who display an interest in getting involved, particularly with respect to public debate. I've got a list of specific initiatives on which I'd embark from day-one as a professional blogger (for lack of a better term), but I won't burden you with them, here; even presented vaguely, the value proposition is crystal clear.

For the time being, it is our intention to remain non-non-profit, so as to ensure both independence and privacy, but we'd be open to working with anybody who's interested in helping, whether via donations, advertising, or some other mutually beneficial arrangement.

Considering what we've accomplished as a group of part-time hobbyists, I'm confident that, if we can fund a single year of increased involvement, we could get Anchor Rising standing on its own feet, perhaps even chasing down Rhode Island's problems at a run within a year.

Please contact me with any leads or suggestions:

Justin Katz
jkatz@timshelarts.com
(401) 835-7156
P.O. Box 751
Portsmouth, RI 02871

Doing Something

Paul at Powerline suggests some actions that rightward Americans can take in order to rebound from the election. This one is particularly significant here in Rhode Island:

Support fledgling conservative institutions. The left has "marched through our institutions" - including the MSM, Hollywood, the public schools, academia, and even large swaths of corporate America. Conservatives need to respond by developing alternative sources of information, entertainment, and education. These alternatives won't succeed unless we support them.

If statewide elections illustrated anything, here, it's that Rhode Islanders don't feel that they've a viable alternative to the Democrats. The remedies are to (1) develop a compelling and palatable choice and (2) persuade our fellow residents that alternative policies will work. Toward those ends, a number of groups have sprung up around the state, but they operate largely on a volunteer basis, so they can only take their efforts so far.

We at Anchor Rising, for example, continue to see the growth of our readership and influence, but we're coming up against a wall of time that prevents our doing much more. You might be surprised at how little financial backing it would take to bring Anchor Rising out of the "hobby" category, and I'm confident that the blooming of our content and activities would impress under those circumstances.

Unfortunately, the reality is that small donations — as helpful and encouraging as they are — have thus far proven not enough to change the nature of the Web site. If anybody is interested and able to help us move forward, please contact me by email (jkatz@timshelarts.com) or phone (401-835-7156).

Getting the Message Out

I just passed a woman standing at the corner of Union and West Main in Portsmouth holding a home-made sign reading:

Try the REPUBLICANS for Change

Now, I don't know if she intended just to buck the national mantra or if she's referring to state and municipal elections, to which her message is more clearly applicable. But I love the idea that she had a thought and set about conveying it to hundreds of people, with no apparent direct personal benefit.

Stopping the Tides

When it so happens that the powers that be seem intent on acting in opposition to crystal clear reality, citizens are compelled to act. In Rhode Island, there's hope — or, in any case, we've hope — that plain information will serve to stop the tides, because it is in the universal self-interest to do so.

You've heard the argument: Our state's regime of taxation, regulation, and spending is driving away the range of citizens who are most likely to be productive, both as workers and as entrepreneurs, while attracting those most apt to partake of our too-generous services. As the taxation policies installed to compensate for the lack of further windfalls inspire the outward flow to continue, the government's shortfall with each budget will expand, rather than contract. How far down the path of economic stagnation do we want to go?

Under the principle that the impossibility of taking strides does not grant us permission to stand still, we've put together a flyer of sorts that seeks to convey one component of the vast body of evidence. We encourage you to print out copies to do with as you deem productive. Put them on public bulletin boards. Hand them out. Send them to media types and legislators. And if the effort meets any success, we'll proceed down the list of points until we've persuaded enough people to make it possible for Rhode Island to avoid utter (and utterly unnecessary) calamity.

The Counterprotest Must Go On

By the way, I would be shirking my agitator's duty if I didn't highlight some folks who managed to get out to Fall River and counterprotest the picket that didn't happen:

But even though a judge had said such picketing would be legal, the union didn't show up. Instead, two Portsmouth residents stood outside the hospital on Middle Avenue to picket the teachers' union. Forest Golden and Joe Robicheau held up signs in front of the main entrance to the hospital that read, "Tiverton School Committee: Taxpayer Heroes" and "NEA: Professional Bullies."

"We're here to picket the picketers," Mr. Golden said. "We support the School Committee. I applaud them for holding the line on spending."

Town Council members Joanne M. Arruda and Jay Edwards also turned up at St. Anne's Hospital to support Ms. deMedeiros.

Right on.

Protest Against Stephen Tocco

The Rhode Island Republican Assembly forwards this notice about a demonstration being held in Smithfield tonight...

There will be a resignation rally on Tuesday 8/7/2007 at 7:00pm @ Smithfield Town Hall (64 Farnum Pike, Route 104).

The purpose is to demand that disgraced former Capitol Police Chief Stephen Tocco resign from the Town Council.

[Jeff Neal, spokesman for Governor Donald Carcieri,] declared on June 7 that Tocco had been “temporarily reassigned” while the governor’s office examined the police chief’s role as a facilitator of bribes in municipal corruption cases in the 1980s and 1990s. The issue arose after a reporter uncovered records in the archives of the U.S. District Court that had lain unnoticed for more than a decade...

Tocco, according to the transcript of the trial of Garafano, the former Providence public works director, testified under oath that he had negotiated bribes and carried thousands of dollars in bribes on a number of occasions both to Garafano and to Louis S. Simon, then public works director in Pawtucket during the administration of Mayor Brian J. Sarault. Simon and Sarault pleaded guilty and served jail terms. Garafano was convicted and sentenced to prison.

Tocco committed these acts while he was also an officer of the Capitol Police, he testified.

Tocco, who also is president of the Smithfield Town Council, said he intended no change in that position.

“Sure, I’ll remain on the council,” he said. “Why wouldn’t I?”....

When Tocco sought election to the Smithfield Council in 2004, he apparently neglected to mention the skeleton in his closet to Larry Mancini, the chairman of the Democratic Town Committee. “It was never disclosed to me in any capacity,” Mancini said last week. “If it was disclosed to me and to those who participate in the candidate-selection process, I think we would have weighed that in the context of a viable candidate.”

Mancini added, however, “Knowing him as a person and having the ability to assess his qualities in my mind would have outweighed the negativity.

Introducing the Ocean State Policy Research Institute

In an op-ed in today’s Projo, William Felkner introduces the Ocean State Policy Research Institute (OSPRI) and explains why such an organization is desperately needed here in Rhode Island…

Ironically, Rhode Island is stuck in a “conservative” cycle protecting the “liberal” status quo of excessive workplace rules, generous social programs, retentive regulation, entrenched unionism in state government and Horace Mann’s approach to education. Harking to the days of the Dorr War (1842) and the Bloodless Revolution (1935), our oligarchy is unwilling to risk the progress it has made by reassessing these circumstances lest the robber barons should rise from their graves.

A voice for a more independent perspective has been missing on the Rhode Island scene until this Independence Day heralded the founding of the Ocean State Policy Research Institute. This nonprofit foundation intends to promote free-market ideals not as partisan choices, but as foundational American aspirations no less worthy of consideration than socially collective compassion epitomized by the Great Society.

Rhode Island is replete with a collection of “special-interest groups” promoting government intervention as the solution. Such groups as the Poverty Institute, at Rhode Island College, Ocean State Action and other nonprofits and public institutions lobby for more government programs and spending. Paradoxically, your taxes fund part of this activity, effectively government lobbying itself in a spiral to budget insanity…Evidence from the solid accomplishments of free-market institutes in 46 other states suggests that Rhode Island should re-examine the prevailing ‘’wisdom” that expanding government is the way to solve problems.

The Wisdom of Bloggers: Doesn’t Balancing a Budget Mean Spending Only As Much as You Take In?

Local Coventry blogger Scott “I am the Duck” Duckworth appears in today's Nicole Wietrak Kent County Times story about last night’s Coventry financial town meeting…

The next issue on the table was the school budget, with resident Dennis Geoffroy making a motion to add $99,999 to the bottom line of $64.4 million.

Resident Scott Duckworth spoke in response to the motion and asked the school committee if the district’s budget had officially been balanced after the state announced its decision to level-fund education aid, which left Coventry $600,000 in the red.

"It is a balanced budget that we put together, which, as we all know now, is $600,000 short of what we requested," said School Committee Chairman Raymond E. Spear (R-Dist. 1).

"But if you don’t have the money for it, then it’s not a balanced budget," retorted Duckworth.

"Well, technically, no," answered Spear, "but we are aware of the place we’re at and we recognize that the budget is going to require cuts of up to a half a million dollars or more."

In the end, 105 residents voted to give the additional money to the school department compared with 144 who opposed the action.

The Dim Future for the Term Compassionate Conservatism Shouldn’t Doom its Underlying Idea

Marc's previous post on "civic conservatism" prompts me to give my report on the national-state of another conservative brand, "compassionate conservatism". It's finished as a political label, but it's rooted in better ideas than you might think.

At the NRI Conservative Summit, Professor Marvin Olasky, the individual probably most responsible for bringing the term “compassionate conservative” into mainstream public discourse, expressed disappointment with President Bush’s version of compassionately conservative social welfare policy. His complaint was that President Bush has invoked the term “compassionate conservatism” without implementing the underlying ideas on the scale that is necessary.

According to Professor Olasky, compassionate conservatism should involve a radical simplification (my term) in the way that government delivers social welfare benefits to its citizens. He named two specific examples: a) an expanded child tax-credit and b) vouchers that public aid-recipients could use to seek help from social service providers of their choice -- faith-based providers included. In contrast, President Bush’s big domestic initiatives, like No-Child-Left-Behind and Medicare part-D, have been attempts to reform and expand existing bureaucracies. Dare I say that on the homefront, President Bush has governed more as a “Rockefeller Republican” who believes that big bureaucracy works, if you just find the right set of managers, and not really as a “compassionate conservative” who believes that something is irretrievably lost when personal efforts to help one another are replaced with government regimentation?

Of course, many mainstream conservatives bristle at the suggestion that “compassionate” can ever be a proper qualifier for conservative, wary that the implication that there is something compassion-neutral about conservatism does more perceptual harm than the modifier heals. This unpopularity with conservatives, combined with compassionate conservatism’s association in the mind of the general public with President Bush and his in-the-thirties approval ratings has already settled the taxonomical argument -- “Compassionate Coservatism” as a defining paradigm is not going to catch on. This most emphatically does not mean that the merits of Professor Olasky’s ideas about the role of government in providing social services and individual opportunity should be dismissed.

Mitt Romney on Social Issues

I know. I’m not supposed to be posting anything on the 2008 Presidential campaign before June. However, I’m adding a codicil to my New Year’s resolution: I can make an exception when able to present primary-source material about a Presidential candidate (or someone with a Presidential exploratory committee) that adds to a discussion area already active here at Anchor Rising.

At the National Review Institute’s (direct quote from NRO-Editor-at-Large Jonah Goldberg: "Whatever that is") Conservative Summit held this past weekend in Washington D.C., Presidential Candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney gave a substantive address on his philosophy concerning the major issues in American politics -- limited and fiscally conservative government, healthcare, foreign policy, and social and life issues. Here's what Governor Romney had to say about gay marriage, abortion and stem-cell research...

Governor Mitt Romney: When I ran [for Governor of Massachusetts], there were a couple of social issues that were part of that debate. You probably know what some of them were.

One was gay marriage. I opposed then and do now oppose gay marriage and civil unions.

One was related to abortion. My opponent was in favor of lowering the age where a young woman could get an abortion without parental consent from 18 to 16…I, of course, opposed changing the law in that regard.

Another issue was the death penalty, I was for, [my opponent] was against.

Another was English immersion. For a long time, our state had bilingual education, where the schools or the parents get to choose what language their child is taught in. I said that’s just not right. If kids want to be successful in America, they have to learn the language of America. We fought for that, and by the way, I won that one, my opponent did not.

Now, as you know, after I got elected, Massachusetts became sort of the center stage for a number of very important social issues, one of them being gay marriage. I am proud of the fact that I and my team did everything within our power and within the law to stand up for traditional marriage. This is not, in my view and the view of my team, a matter of adult rights. We respect the rights of gay citizens to live as they wish and to have tolerance and respect and not be discriminated against. I feel that very deeply. At the same time, we believe that marriage is not primarily about adults. In a society, marriage is primarily about the development and nurturing of children. A child’s development, I believe, is enhanced by access to a mom and a dad. I believe in every child’s right to a mom and a dad.

Now, there’s one key social issue where I did not run as a social conservative, at least one. That was with regards to abortion. I said I would protect a woman’s right to choose an abortion. I’ve changed my view on that, as you probably know.

Let me tell you the history about that. Some years ago, when I was at the Olympics, I met a guy named Mark Lewis. He was head of our marketing there. He told me that he was a finalist for a Rhodes scholarship. I don’t know how far he got. His final interview was with a German interviewer and the interviewer said to him “Mr. Lewis, who is one of your political heroes?” and he said Ronald Reagan. The German had the predictable response -- *GASP*. He said how in the world can you square that statement with what Churchill said, which is that “a young person who is not a liberal has no heart?” Mark responded by repeating the last portion of that Churchillian comment, that “an older person who was not a conservative had no brain” and adding “I, Herr Doctor, simply matured early”.

On abortion, I wasn’t always a Ronald Reagan conservative. Neither was Ronald Regan, by the way. But like him, I learned with experience.

In my case, the point where that experience came most to bear was with regards to learning about stem-cell research. Let me tell you, there are so many different ways of getting stem cells. I was delving into that because my legislature was proposing new legislation that re-defined when life began. I think it’s interesting that the legislature thinks it has the capacity to make that determination. Our state had always said that life began at conception, but they were going to re-define when life began, so I spent some time learning (with, by the way, a number of people in this room who helped) about all of the different types and sources of stem-cells, not only adult stem cells and umbilical stem cells and stem cells from existing lines, but also surplus embryos from in-vitro fertilization. I supported all of those.

But for me, there was a bright-line when you started creating new life for the purposes of destruction and experimentation. That was somatic-cell nuclear transfer (or cloning) and also what’s known as embryo farming. At one point, I was sitting down with the head of the stem-cell research department at Harvard and the provost of Harvard University, and they were explaining these techniques to me. I imagined in my mind this embryo farming. Embryo farming is taking donor sperm and donor eggs and putting them together in the laboratory and creating a new embryo. If that’s not creating new life, then I don’t know what is. I imagined row after row after row of racks of these, created either by the cloning process or the farming process. At that point, one of the two gentleman said, “Governor, there’s really not a moral issue at stake here, because we destroy the embryos at 14 days”. I have to tell you, that comment and that perspective hit me very hard. As he left the room with his colleague, I turned to Beth Myers, my chief of staff, and said I want to make it real clear: we have so cheapened the value and sanctity of human life in our society that someone can think there’s not a moral issue because we kill embryos at 14 days.

Shortly thereafter, I announced I was firmly pro-life.

Now, you don’t have to take my word for it, by the way. The nice thing about being able to watch governors is you don’t have to look just at what they say, you can look at what they’ve done. Over my term, I had 4 or 5 different measures that came to my desk [concerning life issues] and on every single one I came down on the side of respecting human life. That didn’t make me real popular in the state. Remember, in Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy is considered a moderate….

In the next few days, I’ll have more from Mitt Romney on other issues, excerpts from Newt Gingrich and Jeb Bush on the meaning and future direction of conservatism and from Tony Snow on the Iraq Surge and the President’s new healthcare proposal, plus a whole lot of insights and opinions that I heard discussed at the conference that will bring you up-to-date on the state of conservatism…

Toward a New Direction in Rhode Island

Among the qualities that I love about Rhode Island is its size. For some Americans, for example, attending an event across their state requires a plane and a hotel. Rhode Islanders can traverse theirs without even stopping for gas. One can get to know this state; it's manageable.

Of course, its manageability is also its great vulnerability. Entrenched powers, with their short-sighted self-interest, have been managing it right into a hole. So much is this true, it increasingly seems with each passing election that the only reasonable response is to give up on electoral politics. Between Rhode-apathy and the habitual voting practices — most notably those of voting Democrat and of granting the state government permission to grab new money for worthwhile expenditures that ought to have been included in its general spending — it is tempting to dismiss the system as unfixable.

So, many of us have begun to think it necessary to look for ways to work outside of the system, and here the state's size emerges again as a wonderful quality — in terms of both effectiveness and opportunity for experimentation. Many of us have also begun to think that the way in which to implement the conservative approaches that can save this state is through the very conservative principle of community activity, the conservative ethos of open and plain discussion of facts, and the classically liberal application of universal freedoms. To put it into a credo: we must give everybody a forum in which to discuss matters of concern to us all, within the context of plain recitation of stubborn facts and honestly assessed principles, at the most basic levels of society.

One such, newly implemented, experiment is Bill Felkner's Parents' Forum for the Chariho School district. On the index page, the Web site offers links to more information than the average parent will have time or inclination to peruse. Perhaps more importantly, Felkner has set up a message board, in the form of a blog, through which parents can discuss matters of mutual interest. I encourage those to whom the site applies to participate, and those to whom it does not to pursue similar strategies.

The movement to push Rhode Island toward healthier societal construction will by necessity incorporate many roles, and it is crucial that we remember that, especially in this state, local involvement can have far-reaching effects.

Getting to Work... by Postponing Work

It was one thing to do nothing more active than sit in my office, blog, and write columns when I actually managed to make time to write. Lately that hasn't been possible. So, with the thought that "getting to work" in a metaphorical, political, and Anchor-Rising-al sense may now require me to actually leave the house (so as not to slip into working), I've decided to take a morning off and attend this Saturday's East Bay GOP Breakfast.

Whether you're from one of the ten technically included towns or otherwise, I encourage you to attend. Perhaps we can argue about Mayor Laffey's candidacy in the presence of the man himself.

ADDENDUM:
So as to provide me somebody behind whom to hide should things get testy, Andrew will be attending the breakfast, as well.