Six BIG Questions No One is Asking in the 2014 Campaign

What do the candidates for governor say?

Or other statewide and General Assembly candidates? Why are they and the media avoiding the BIG questions?

[button url=”http://www.rifreedom.org/2014/07/2014-campaign-six-big-issues-no-one-is-talking-about/” target=”_self” size=”medium” style=”royalblue” ] 6 BIG Questions [/button]

2014 Campaign: Six BIG Issues No One is Talking About

6 Big Questions Not Being Asked of the Gubernatorial Candidates

With the 2014 Rhode Island gubernatorial campaign now shifting into high gear, the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity encourages the media, advocacy groups, and citizens to ensure that certain major policy issues are publicly addressed by the full slate of gubernatorial and other statewide and General Assembly candidates.

big-questionsEach of the issues below has the potential to significantly alter the future of our state, and to date, little, if any debate has taken place, with most candidates talking vaguely about their own plans for broadly related issues. The specific positions of each candidate on these issues and questions would provide clearer insight into each of their individual governing philosophies.

The Center believes that candidates should be forced out of their comfort zones and inform voters of their specific positions on each of these important statewide issues:

1. Constitutional Convention: on the ballot this year will be a referendum for voters to decide if the State should convene a constitutional convention. Advocates believe that a convention is necessary due to the lack of action by the General Assembly in addressing Rhode Island’s most pressing issues and its continued favoritism to special-interest groups.

  • Are you in support of a Constitutional Convention for Rhode Island?
  • What specific issues would you like to see addressed if a convention were to be approved by voters?
  • As governor, if the convention is approved, how would you help ensure that the Convention is conducted a non “politics as usual” manner?
    • Would you encourage the election of delegates in a nonpartisan manner?
    • How do you feel about sitting lawmakers’ being eligible to run as delegates?

2. HealthSource RI: once federal funding runs out in FY2016, what position will the candidates take regarding use of state funds or assessments to Ocean State taxpayers or policyholders?

  • Do you support paying $23 million per year for ongoing operations? Or should we transfer the exchange to the federal government?
  • Major insurance premium increases were again approved for 2015, despite HealthSourceRI claims that it would decrease costs. Is this a concern to you?
  • Do you support consolidating all public and private healthcare in the state under HealthSource RI? (Per H7819, which was heard in House Finance in June 2014)
  • Are you aware of and do you support paying $10-15 million per year for the related Unified Health Infrastructure Project (UHIP)?
    • Do you support using financial information collected from individuals applying for health insurance via HealthSource RI to automatically enroll them in other statewide public assistance programs?
      • Given the projected $50 million per year increase in the state share of Medicaid costs, can the state afford similar additional increases in other public assistance programs?

3. Educational Choice: While each candidate has put forth some general thoughts on education, no significant reforms have been suggested. A movement is underway in Rhode Island to empower parents with expanded choices for their children’s education, choices that may include some form of scholarship voucher so that no child is condemned to remain in a failed government school.

  • Do you support providing expanded educational choice for families? Why or why not?
  • Do you specifically support some form of educational voucher?
  • Do you support expansion of charter schools? Or expansion of the state’s existing Corporate Tax Credit Scholarship program?

4. Sales Tax Reform: Speaker Mattiello has publicly stated that he will take a look at sales tax reform in 2015. The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity claims that major reforms in this area would produce a game-changing, massive jobs boost for the state’s economy, much more than any other tax reform idea. Given the chronic unemployment problems we face in Rhode Island …

  • As Governor, will you support significant sales tax reform?
  • Do you believe any major jobs creation policy idea would be worth pursuing if it was not revenue-neutral?

5. RhodeMapRI: is a major economic development plan for the state, quietly advanced by the Chafee administration and signed-on to by multiple municipalities and other organizations, that has largely flown under public and media scrutiny. This self-described “sustainable living” plan is funded by the federal department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and is largely based on an environmentalist and economic justice agenda, that may even include future racial quotas for communities.

  • Are you aware of and do you generally support the RhodeMapRI plan?
  • Do you believe that unelected federal bureaucrats should be dictating the future economic development of our state?
  • Or should any plan for Rhode Island be developed by our own elected officials?

In other cities and counties across the nation where similar plans have been implemented, such as Westchester County, NY, residents have complained about a loss of individual property rights, loss of sovereignty of locally elected government, and unequal property taxes levies.

  • Do you share these concerns or do you believe they justify the larger goals of the plan?

6. Unionization of Independent Business Owners: in June of this year, the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on the Harris v Quinn case led most legal experts to believe that the ruling has a direct impact on last year’s successful effort to unionize home childcare workers in Rhode Island. The 2013 law and subsequent election that would force the payment of union dues or fair-share fees is now likely unconstitutional for such non full-time state employees.

  • As governor, what will you do regarding ongoing negotiations with the SEIU?
  • What will you do to return workplace freedom to this group of childcare workers?
  • What is your position on the unions’ stated intention to unionize other private workers — as quasi public employees — in other industries?

List of Lasts RI

LastPlace

July 22, 2014

Providence, RI – Calling it “a shameful failure of public policy and political leadership”, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity today published a List of Lasts RI, based on its revealing 2014 Report Card on RI Competitiveness, which was released last week. The List of Lasts documents (19) distinct categories where the Ocean State ranks last, either nationally or regionally, in various national performance indices, as of the spring of 2014.

“Our elected officials keep telling us how they’re moving our state forward, yet we’ve fallen to the bottom of the class in an shockingly high number of subjects,” commented CEO Mike Stenhouse. “Rhode Island has all the characteristics to be an A+ state, yet our political class keeps failing us.”

Rhode Island’s Lists of Lasts (19)

National Lasts:

  • CNBC saddles the Ocean State with the WORST CLIMATE FOR BUSINESS
  • The Federal Government ranks RI as suffering from the HIGHEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
  • 247 Wall Street ranks our state as having the HIGHEST LEVEL OF SPREADING THE WEALTH; or taxpayer funded income redistribution.
  • A Reason Foundation report rates RI as being hampered with the MOST DEFICIENT BRIDGE SYSTEM
  • CNBC also handicaps RI as enduring the WORST TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE state in the nation
  • RI is burdened with the HIGHEST NUMBER OF HEALTH INSURANCE MANDATES, per the Council for Affordable Health Insurance

New England Lasts: In addition to the above (6) categories, Rhode Island also ranks last in New England in (13) more categories:

  • Business Tax Climate
  • Sales Tax Rate
  • Estate Tax Exemption
  • Economic Freedom Index
  • State Lawsuit Climate
  • Unemployment Tax Rate
  • High School Graduation Rate
  • 4th Grade Reading Scores (NAEP)
  • 4th Grade Math Scores (NAEP)
  • Municipal Worker Compensation (vs private sector)
  • State & Local Pension Liabilities
  • Medicaid Payments (per enrollee)
  • Overall Freedom

NOTE: All citations and sourcing can be found on the 2014 Report Card on RI Competitiveness.

Stenhouse continued, “This November, voters should hold accountable those legislators they feel contributed to these dismal rankings. Hopefully, in 2015, we will see a new public policy culture on Smith Hill.”

Rhode Island Employment Snapshot, June 2014: Really Pushing Credulity

You’ll never guess what Rhode Island’s unemployment rate did in June.  It went down again!  To 7.9%.

That’s still worst in the country (tied with Mississippi), but Rhode Island has now had its best six months of employment growth in recorded history.  For the past three months, the Ocean State has had the most employment growth (as a percentage) in the entire country.  It’s boom-time in the Ocean State, even if we’re still at the wrong side of just about every ranking, and even if it doesn’t feel like things have turned around.

In fact, there were actually 400 fewer jobs based in Rhode Island in June than May, yet, somehow an additional 3,246 Rhode Islanders found work… according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in cooperation with the state Dept. of Labor and Training.

The first chart below illustrates just how bizarre the numbers look, given the state’s recent history. Since December, more than 16,000 Rhode Islanders have found employment.  The total number hasn’t been so high since November 2008.

The second chart provides a longer-term sense of the results. Rhode Island is still below its employment level just before the jobs-crash of the recession and still lags both of its neighbors dramatically when it comes to reclaiming jobs.  Indeed, Massachusetts has now surpassed its pre-recession peak, and Connecticut is just about there.

The third chart compares Rhode Island’s unemployment rate with what it would have been if the state’s labor force had held steady. It shows that unemployment never got as low as Rhode Island officials had claimed, and the growth in the gap between the two lines is steadier and more dramatic, with the exception of the peculiar results these past three months.  Even if the results since December reflect real growth, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate would still be over 10% if people had not stopped looking for work.

RI-laborforceandemp-0107-0614

RIMACT-laborforceandemp-0614perc0107

 

RI-unemploymentrate-steadyLF-0107-0614

Stenhouse OpEd & Testimony Video re. Bill to Socialize Healthcare in RI (H7819)

 

See related OpEd in the Providence Journal, July 3, 2014