Break the chains, think free.

Sorry, I have been out of touch. After being unemployed since December 2008, I launched my own business venture during the middle of August offering market driven web design, marketing services and product photograpy. (www.webdesign-ri.com) and haven’t had time to breathe..I will be back on the saddle within a few days.

George.

Concerned about the fact that ‘RI’s Washington four’ of Senators Reed and Whitehouse and Congressmen Langevin and Kennedy, Colleen Conley and the RI Tea Party issued the following:

We have also been busy trying to arrange meetings and determine public speaking schedules for our legislators who are home on August recess so that you may have an opportunity to ask the questions in person. Here are the schedules as deterimed thus far:

Colleen Conley
Marina Peterson
RI Tea Party
www.riteaparty.com

This is clearly not a great state of affairs and shows the lack of interest in their home state at a time of a sky-rocketing budget deficit and an out-of-control unemployment rate (12.4%). Spurred on by this lack of involvement, the RI Tea Party supporters reached oiut to touch their elected representatives and, today, the Tea Party issued the following:

Reps Langevin and Kennedy meet with RI Tea Party Leaders

Ms Conley and Marina Peterson met with both Congressmen on Thursday afternoon. Rep. Langevin informed them that he will appear at two venues at which his constituents may ask questions and provide feedback: August 19th from 6:00-7:00PM at the Warwick Police Station and Sept. 3rd from 4:30-6:00PM at the Wilcox Band Center in Westerly. Rep. Kennedy did not provide any dates or times for public input, but says that he will hold a meeting in a small room at the RI State House at a date to be announced.

A good step forward for holding our elected representatives to account, by a grass roots organization, but another cop-out by Congressman Kennedy. The tragedy is that this should not be a reactive issue, our elected officials are elected to be proactive.

I advocate that each has lost the right to represent this fine state. It is time to dump the incumbents….and tomorrow, would not be quick enough.

Received this from Colleen Conley on Facebook and thought that it should be distributed further…

As I read and listen to those who are charged with taking the taxation monies from our pockets and then using those monies to run the state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, it is abundantly clear that there is no strategy for success. The state politicians focus on individual issues without regard on the intercourse between issues.Clearly not understanding that the sum of the parts is, almost always, greater than the whole.

So, rather than play the daily game of political dodge ball let’s take a look at how businesses succeed and grow.

Businesses grow by developing a vision and then executing a strategic plan, typically a 3-year plan, which will have all of the elements and executable tactics necessary to reach the desired vision.

My suggested vision for success for the state would be for Rhode Island to be …”the state where ALL businesses would wish to relocate to”. Vision statements should be a stretch, you should almost never reach your vision as the organization must keep working hard to reach the vision. It can never let up.

Now, let’s develop a strategic plan that can put the state well on it’s way to reaching that vision.

A strategic plan has 3 elements:

1) Where are we now?
This is an honest, non-political, assessment of where we are. If we fully understand how good and bad we are in all areas of state government we have a basis for improvement.

2) Where do we want to be?
Let focus on a metric that will help us reach the vision. Currently, Rhode Island is ranked the 46th state in the rankings which measure how attractive a state is to business. Clearly, developing a 3-year strategy to move to number 1 in the rankings would be pie-in-the-sky buy we could set the 3-year goal to move from 46th to 25th. An aggressive but doable goal.

3) How do we get there?
‘Aye, there’s the rub’ I hear you say but in business we would analyze the needs of of customers, assess the market and evaluate the competitive landscape.

We have 49 competitors and 45 of them perform better than we do, why? If we understood why we lagged behind these states, who compete with Rhode Island in attracting business, we would have the essence of plan for success.

It is not rocket science, we just need a vision and a plan.

Political Dodge Ball or Strategic Planning? You choose.

I took a few days to myself, primarily stunned into silence by President Obama. What stunned me in particular was the realization that our leader is either totally naïve or totally brilliant.

• Naive because the leader of the free world doesn’t under stand why his words created a brouhaha
• Brilliant because he is pushing the agenda of an African American community leader and he has snuck that agenda past the goalie.

I, personally, think he is just naive and inexperienced.

While I do not doubt that there are some race issues buried in his persona, we all have our fears and biases! He is a black man who has lived through racial segregation and he will have witnessed, if not directly then indirectly, bias, hate and fear; and those memories will reside with him. So, I do not fault him for that because racial segregation was real and it is something for all to be truly ashamed of. Today, I am still ashamed of the many who argue that he is not black so racial issue never applied to him. If President Obama ran into the KKK do you think they would check his birth certificate first?

So, when he cracks open a bottle of Blue Moon for sergeant Crowley today, I hope he thinks every thing through before he speaks.

So, 16 year old boys and girls can work the Rhode Island strip clubs as long as they check their time cards out by 1130 pm on school nights. Well, I hope Attorney General Patrick Lynch and the democratic legislature are very proud? Very proud indeed.

Our state, with the second highest unemployment rate, hit the national news last night and I thought you may like to see the the attached clip from the 1994 movie Dumb and Dumber. This scene centers on a magazine called ‘Rhody Sluts’. What is tragic is the fact that in the last 15 years not much has has changed.

What new businesses will relocate to Rhode Island…the home of Rhody Sluts, teenage strippers and discouraging tax levels? We need to develop a climate that will attract business and not chase it away.

Photo by George Ross

The Boston Red Sox, Boston Bruins and New England Patriots all participate in leagues, which are salary-capped to create a ‘level playing field’. The argument being that small markets cannot compete with big markets.

How ludicrous, this is socialism in its purist form and the populace embraces it. How can this be socialism you may ask yourself because the athletes make huge amounts of money but yes it is, within the ‘microcosm economy’ of major league sports. It is a centrally planned, controlled market.

Sport is about competition…winning and failure. The essence of failure is such that it creates a will never to fail again, to build upon that failure and to find a path to success. It is this migration path from failure to success, which, historically, made the USA great.

American sports can take a lesson from the European sports where free-market capitalism thrives. There are no salary caps and failure is punished. In the major league sports there is no punishment for failure, in fact there are rewards to be had if you fail. In order, to ‘level the playing field’ poorly performing teams get higher rated picks in the draft process and organized labor manages the compensation structure.

In European sports, there are no salary-caps and if you finish in the bottom two or three teams in your league the team will be ‘relegated: drop to a lower division to be replaced by the top teams from the lower division. Can you imagine the Red Sox having a bad season and moving down to a lower league!

Well, I have to tell you, as a sports fan, it is awesome. Every point from every game matters and if the club owners take their foot of the gas they will be replaced by some other team who earned the right to replace them….who were more successful.

So, as you look at every day American life, and the move towards Socialism, you do not have to look very far to see what is influencing this paradigm change in American politics: Major League Sports

Everyone is a winner.

Really?

The Tax Foundation monitors State Business Tax Climate Index Rankings and while it disheartens me, it absolutely does not surprise me that Rhode Island is very close to the bottom:

2009 # 46th
2008 # 49th
2007 # 50th
2006 # 50th

Clearly, we should encourage improvement but it is still very, very, ugly. We have the 46th worst ranking in having a tax climate which will encourage business and we have the 2nd highest unemployment rate at 12.4%. By comparison, the state with the best business tax climate, Wyoming, has an unemployment rate of 5.9%, the 5th best in the country.

I don’t think that you need be a rocket scientist to see what area of the Rhode island economy that out state leaders should be focused on. Do you?

The RI 2010 budget is $7,814.7 million and it includes monies from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – STIMULUS MONEY. The FY 2010 budget assumes use of $633.5 million from these funds with approximately $189.3 million used for direct state budget relief

8.1% of the state 2010 budget is propped up by stimulus money.

One of the drivers that caused the economy to collapse was the fact that the populace borrowed money to finance property and lifestyles which it could not afford. The Rhode Island state government has not learned much from the economic collapse and they are using federal stimulus money to fund a budget that the state cannot afford. Instead of investing the money on economic development and job creation the state leadership are are investing in themselves and welfare programs. If we don’t invest in economic development, how will we be able to support welfare programs in the future when the government handouts stop?

Unedited extract from the 2010 Rhode Island State Budget – to view the state budget click here

Federal Stimulus…..

• American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. On February 17, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Generally referred to as the Stimulus Act, it provides $789 billion of federal spending designed to prevent further deterioration in the national economy, provide relief to states and individuals, and create new jobs. The FY 2010 budget assumes use of $633.5 million from these funds with approximately $189.3 million used for direct state budget relief. Tax law changes result in $0.2 million less revenues, partially offsetting this relief.

• State Fiscal Stabilization. The state has received a preliminary waiver from the requirement that the state maintain support for both elementary and secondary education and public higher education at no less than the FY 2006 level for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011 in order to be eligible for stabilization funds. The FY 2010 budget uses $63.3 million of the total $164.9 million available over that three-year period. This includes $37.2 million for elementary and secondary education, $16.1 million for fire safety projects at the institutions of public higher education and $10.0 million for public safety expenses. The final FY 2009 budget uses $58.3 million including $38.3 million for local education aid and $20.0 million for public safety expenses.

• Medicaid Reimbursement. The Budget includes $320.8 million from federal funds over a two
year period from the enhanced Medicaid reimbursement rate for direct general revenue budget relief, including $131.5 million for FY 2009 and $189.3 million for FY 2010. States must maintain their Medicaid eligibility standards, methodologies, and procedures in effect as of July 1, 2008.

• Nutrition Programs. The Budget includes an additional $35.9 million for the supplemental
nutrition assistance program, formerly known as food stamps. Stimulus funding for elderly meal
services totals $0.5 million.

• Unemployment and Reemployment. The Budget includes $177.0 million from stimulus funds for direct benefits to the unemployed as well as funding to support administrative costs and worker training. education through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act program and $37.2 million from fiscal stabilization funds.

• Education Programs. The Budget includes $10.2 million from other education related federal
stimulus funds for competitive grants to local schools and use by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education for technology and other school improvement programs.

• Weatherization. The Budget includes $6.8 million from stimulus funds to expand the home
weatherization program through increased eligibility and grant awards. The state contracts with
community action agencies to provide low-income individuals, particularly the elderly and disabled, and households with high energy burdens, with weatherization improvements to lower utility costs.

• Housing and Community Development. The Budget includes $3.4 million in stimulus funds for community development block grants and homelessness prevention. It does not show the funding that will be provided directly to local housing authorities.

• Public Safety. The Budget excludes $3.8 million of funding for state justice program grants from the Stimulus Act for which there has not been sufficient review of the proposed uses.

• Transportation. The Budget includes $97.4 million in stimulus funds for transportation projects of which $97.1 million will be used for highway, road and bridge projects, and $0.3 million will be used for fixed guideway infrastructure improvements.