A proposal unveiled last week by the new “Affordable Rhode Island Coalition,” led by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, and several business and citizens’ groups, is intriguing and merits serious discussion.
The coalition members want to ask voters to approve a constitutional amendment this November that would cap annual spending hikes at both the state and local levels. They’re convinced that many of our leaders lack the fiscal discipline – and courage – to make tough budget choices, so they want to give them a nudge in the right direction.
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Tax expenditure limits are not a new concept. Massachusetts’ Proposition 2? was approved by voters 25 years ago. California’s Proposition 13 is even older. By now, Rhode Island is in the minority of states that don’t limit spending beyond requiring a balanced budget.
And lacking a strict limit, our politicians have shown they can spend every penny they can get their hands on – whether it comes from gambling, from the tobacco settlement, or from ever-rising local property taxes. History is on the coalition’s side.
Politicians and special-interest groups are also great at finding loopholes and gimmicks to get around rules they dislike. We’re sure spending caps would inspire a perverse new creativity, so we need to draft the language carefully to minimize that risk.
But this shouldn’t stop us from looking at how to stop runaway spending. We believe a constitutional amendment, if well-written, could do the job.
Higher education loses an unsung hero
Rhode Island lost a smart, tough and caring leader in higher education this month.
Kathleen Mallon, who succumbed to cancer at age 55, was best known in the general public as the University of Rhode Island gardening expert who for many years gave advice on Channel 10 and in the newspapers on everything from horticulture to pest control.
But if you’ve ever been to URI’s Ryan Center and Boss Arena, you can thank Mallon, to a great extent, for making it happen. She also led the Narragansett Bay Campus master planning effort and the North Campus Sustainable Neighborhood Plan, both crucial to the university.
And for the last three years, she’s led the City Campus initiative, a joint effort by URI and the Community College of Rhode Island to bring the transformative power of higher education to the people who need it most, those in the inner city.
She’ll be sorely missed. In her honor, and for all our sakes, let’s uphold her legacy.
