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general freedom local leaders

Tyranny Averted?

Parents United Rhode Island has apparently fended off a vaccination mandate in their state.

Mike Stenhouse explains how this coalition leapt into action against a legislative effort to impose universal vaccination. (We use the term “vaccinated” loosely, since any ameliorative effects of the vaccines reportedly fade pretty quickly and don’t actually prevent COVID-19.)

The mandate’s penalties for noncompliance would have included monthly $50 fines, doubling of recalcitrants’ state income taxes, and fines upon employers of $5,000 per unvaccinated employee.

State Senator Samuel Bell submitted the legislation, S2552, on March 1 of this year. Because the country was by then returning to something like pre-​pandemic “normal life,” the bill seemed dead on arrival.

But then the Boston Globe shifted into overdrive to revive the legislation, which also received new support from local media.

That’s when ParentsUnitedRI​.com and others sounded the alarm. In just a few weeks, the bill became radioactive, hurrying former sponsors to renounce their support.

The state legislature’s current session ends June 30. Stenhouse suggests that although the senate president could still fast-​track the Draconian proposal at any time, “there is likely no political appetite for such a heavy-​handed measure, especially in an election year.”

If Bell’s bill does die in the current session, it’s even less likely to be revived in the next. Whatever political appetite there may be right now to stomp people who make the “wrong” decision about getting vaccinated, popular opposition has done its work, making medical tyranny much less likely.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.


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free trade & free markets too much government

Bankrupted by Cushy Pension Contracts

Central Falls, Rhode Island, is not a large city. It is a town of under 20,000 people. And its government is broke, facing likely bankruptcy.

Municipal bankruptcies are not common. But they might become so. Why? The blame is easy to place: the proverbial gun-​under-​the-​table contracting foisted on small localities by state governments.

That’s what happened in Central Falls, anyway.

Even the New York Times has an idea of the underlying problem:

The city, just north of Providence, is small and poor, but over the years it has promised police officers and firefighters retirement benefits like those offered in big, rich states like California and New York. These uniformed workers can retire after just 20 years of service, receive free health care in retirement, and qualify for full disability pensions when only partly disabled.

Walter Olson, of the Cato Institute, elaborates on this account: “‘Promised’ is a word of art here, because the city wasn’t really making all of these concessions on a voluntary basis.…” The concessions to unions were, instead, forced on the town by “public-​sector arbitration” (which has almost nothing to do with private arbitration) that has led to a widespread “crisis in municipal finance,” which, the Times states, has brought one in four Rhode Island municipalities to the brink.

Olson makes the reasonable case that public-​sector employee unions are a very bad idea to begin with. The end comes either with serious reform or bankruptcy.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.