Tom Sgouros: Short Takes
Saturday, October 01, 2011
PRONK! Monday, October 3
Attention! This Monday, October 3, Wickenden Street and Fox Point will be under assault from the funniest and coolest collection of street bands you'll see any time soon. The PRONK! Festival, hosted by Providence's own What Cheer? Brigade, will kick off with bands playing from 4-6 at India Point Park. At 6 there will be a glorious parade of bands and community troublemakers down Wickenden Street, coming to rest in the park between the Hot Club and the hurricane barrier.
The music will continue until late and there will be dancing and all kinds of goings-on we don't usually associate with Mondays. And a special treat -- local composer Steven Jobe has come up with a new anthem for Providence's 375th birthday, and it will be played. See more at http://providencehonkfest.org/ (including music for the anthem and an invitation to play along), and please help make this a fabulous free event by putting a few dollars into their electronic hat.
Changing minds, one at a time
Jennifer Granholm spent eight years as Governor of Michigan. In her first term, she cut taxes 99 times, and slashed state spending by huge amounts. Those numbers are her count, but she lists the tax cuts in an appendix to her new book, "A Governor's Story." So what happened? Disaster happened. Michigan's economy, already reeling from decades of auto industry cutbacks, got significantly worse, something many observers didn't think possible. But here's the remarkable thing about Governor Granholm, and something that appears almost unique among political leaders: she observed what happened, and changed her mind when her policies didn't help. We don't see much of that these days. (Or in past days, for that matter.)
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTTake Rhode Island, for example. We've been cutting state taxes here for 14 years, and our legislature is now firmly in the control of people who think the only good tax is a dead tax, or something like that. So after 14 years of tax cuts, what do we have to show for it? A lack of jobs and a bunch of nearly broke cities and towns, including one involved in a pioneering bankruptcy. We've seen no flowering of manufacturing investment due to low capital gains cuts. We've seen no influx of rich people to enjoy our low taxes on high incomes. And we've also seen no sign that policy makers at the Assembly have changed their minds about how to conduct state fiscal policy.
So hooray for Jennifer Granholm, and hooray for the way she points out the idiocy of having Michigan slash taxes and bid against Ohio for manufacturing jobs. (While next-door Ontario has companies beating down their door to take advantage of their well-educated workers and universal health insurance.) Her experience showed that in the face of the kind of economic hardship Michigan was facing, a program of austerity gets you... pretty much nothing. I'm sorry that her revelations came too late to be of much service to the people of Michigan, and sorrier still that she had to learn her lesson at the expense of so many people. But our nation thrives on conversion stories, and somehow the converts seem always to have more credibility than the people who were right from the start, so maybe her story will show the way to others. At least in terms of intellectual honesty, she's a model to follow. John Stewart did a nice interview with Granholm last week.
Ag Strategy?
An interesting point came up in Governor Granholm's interview. She talked about the wisdom of having an industrial strategy and how nations like China and Singapore do this, but she didn't make the point quite the way I would. That is, our state and our nation have an industrial strategy, but it's one characterized by negligence, except when some bank needs bailing out or a large corporation is about to go under.
In much the same way, I've long said that Rhode Island has an agricultural policy: negligence. This is a problem for pretty much everyone who eats, really. But there have been encouraging signs recently that is changing. A group called the Rhode Island Agricultural Partnership came together in 2010, and it appears they have been finding a voice on important aggriculture issues. For example, Rhode Island has about the most expensive farmland in the country. This is a huge problem for farms that have income measured in the hundreds of dollars per acre.
Another example is that farming typically gets little support from many of the folks who come up with and enforce municipal zoning ordinances. This year, the partnership put together a bill to specify that (plant) agriculture is presumed to be an accepted use in residential zones (except where it becomes a health and safety issue). Sponsored by Reps. Eileen Naughton (D-Warwick), Donna Walsh (D-Charlestown, etc.), and Scott Guthrie (D-Coventry), the bill passed and was signed into law in July. Naughton and Walsh also were the lead sponsors on a resolution intended to begin the process of developing a state agricultural policy that's something more than just neglect. You can read more about the alliance at rhodyag.com. There's also quite a bit of interesting ag news to be found at: farmland.org
Tom Sgouros is the editor of the Rhode Island Policy Reporter, at whatcheer.net and the author of "Ten Things You Don't Know About Rhode Island." Contact him at [email protected].
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