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October 30, 2008
Admitting What Must Be Done
Even just a hint that Governor Carcieri likes the notion of eliminating the income tax, almost as a philosophical matter, is enough to induce the fury of Johnathan Berard (emphasis added):
As a taxpayer, I'm mad because the state decided to go more than $33 million dollars over budget, but as a student, I'm absolutely furious that the solution to make up some of that loss is to take funding from state schools, necessitating tuition increases. This makes some of us losers on both ends! Part of the reason students like me go to schools like URI, RIC, and CCRI is because of the affordability of the education provided. Now, because of these rate hikes, current students and their families, who have already received their financial aid award packets for the year, are forced to come up with even more money to fund their educations. This is especially tough on families on already restrictive budgets who now have to somehow cough up hundreds or thousands of extra dollars to continue their or their loved one's education. Unfortunately, unlike the executive branch of their state government, when Rhode Island families go over their budgets, they have no one to take funding away from in order to make up for the shortfall.
Following Berard's reasoning in principle ought to lead one to small-government conclusions. Take his thought another step: When citizens face a shortage of income, because they lack jobs, they can't just turn to wealthier neighbors and take the money from them. Instead, they tighten their belts and focus on improving their circumstances for the future.
There are two explanations on the table for the current state of our state's budget. The first, presumably Berard's, is that Rhode Island has been allowing its wealthier citizens to keep too much of their money. The second, the correct option, is that the government is spending money on things that it oughtn't be spending money on — from extravagant worker benefits to an imbalanced welfare industry. Reluctance to admit the second conclusion leads Berard to miss his rhetorical mark in two significant ways.
The first relates to his mistaken inference that the governor would intend to make up the full loss of revenue from the eliminated income tax through sales tax, "assuming that taxpayers will just spend their extra money on retail purchases":
Rhode Island is in a recession, has the highest unemployment rate in the country, and we rank 18th in home foreclosures. Besides that, a great majority of residents' retirement savings are in question due to the volatility on Wall Street and the instability of financial markets. What makes the Governor think that we'd choose to spend that extra income on a new car, iPod, or plasma TV, rather than paying our mortgages, purchasing groceries for our families, or saving for our retirements? Or paying our tuitions?
Note the implication that Rhode Islanders can't pay for mortgages, groceries, retirements, or tuitions as things stand. How then is it moral to take money from their paychecks? No, a shift in the state's method of taxation wouldn't likely be a wash as a matter of revenue, but more of its citizens would have more money in their pockets in order to support their families, save, and invest, whether by investing we mean purchasing stocks, investing in real estate (i.e., a home), or investing in their own educations. If, financially, they need to avoid taxes, they can do so by eliminating consumption.
The second assumes that the working and middle classes won't act out of self interest (ironically, because it is clearly in Berard's self interest to push this line):
What if, instead of gambling that business will take root in Rhode Island by abolishing taxes, Rhode Island instead decides to provide initiatives for and incentives to the students in its higher education system who aspire to help grow the statewide economy? What if, instead of allowing the lower and middle classes to bear a larger percentage of the tax burden, Rhode Island instead provided a way for those same people to increase their level of education, which induces economic growth? Instead of helping to better the lives of Rhode Islanders, though, the actions of the Carcieri administration have simply served as hindrance to our advancement, both financially and educationally.
So, it is a gamble to attract businesses by allowing them (and their employees) to keep more of the money that they make here in Rhode Island, but it is somehow not a gamble to hand cash to students in the hopes that they'll leap from the graduation stage to slay the state's economic demons with their diplomas. That's worse than a gamble; it's unrealistic. Newly credentialed citizens generally lack the resources, the experience, and the tolerance for risk to build businesses from the ground up. Graduates will go where the jobs are, and the jobs are currently more likely to be found anywhere in the United States other than Rhode Island. Any coins that the government plunks into the educational slots, in other words, just fall out the back of the machines.
The difficult reality that many of those who've read Berard's commentary on RI Future are ideologically disposed to deny is that a state so desperately in need of economic expansion must shave off all expenditures that do not serve that single-minded objective. That means paying less to keep the government operating. That means paying less for the education that its towns provide. That means regretfully admitting that those in need of assistance have to look elsewhere.
Because their constituencies rely on it, those on the left emphasize the health of the politcal entity, of the government. At this moment in history, Rhode Island needs to focus on the well-being of its people.
About Community Crier
About Engaged Citizen
Dear Mr. Berard:
The economic policy of the Rhode Island General Assembly is to import welfare recipients, without discrimination as to their legal or illegal immigration status, and to export college graduates.
In this way we help spread the wealth (money) from Rhode Island's working families to Rhode Island's non-working families, and spread the wealth (brainpower) to other parts of the United States.
The extra benefit of this economic policy is that it helps keeps replenishing the pool of government dependent, Democratic voters in the majority in Rhode Island.
Good luck with your studies, and please do send a postcard from wherever you do find a job after graduation.
Sincerely,
Senate Majority Leader Teresa Paiva-Weed
Posted by: Ragin' Rhode Islander at October 30, 2008 11:20 AMIt has been funny to see all the news coverage and professed "outrage" over just the mere suggestion on a call-in show of repealing the state income tax (which apparently, the governor has the dictatorial ability to decree). Obviously, the governor would probably love to do that and more, if we didn't have such a massive deficit. Maybe, just maybe, if our tax burden here, especially on retirees and others with fixed-incomes, were less onerous, old people wouldn't feel the need to migrate to Florida -- taking their hard-earned money with them.
Posted by: Will at October 30, 2008 11:59 AMThe definition of crazy is "to do the same thing over and over expecting a different result."
We all know what needs to get done, yet we (the collective 'we') are idiots for electing the same people over and over.
This will not change until the leadership changes.
Not sure if it gets any simpler than this.
Posted by: Rabbit at October 30, 2008 12:50 PMSome suggestions to cure RI's economic and social environments:
1) Provide free parking in downtown providence, to encourage visitors who will spend money, as they, like most people, get annoyed by rapacious parking fees and fines.
2) Stop bombarding our college students with parking tickets, which makes their life more stressful and anxious. The easier we make life for our students here, the more likely they'll be to stick around after graduation and start businesses, which will provide jobs and tax revenue for the state.
3) Close the legal loophole allowing indoor prostution, to prevent RI from become a seedy, crime, drug, disease plagued international capital of human sex trafficking, making it easier to lure upscale visitors with money to spend and companies to relocate.
4) Establish one or more trade schools in every city in the state, to train our young people for careers besides drug dealer, rapper, or attorney. There are not many white collar jobs in our state right now, but there are blue collar jobs in the trades and services, and always will be.
5) Establish apprenticeship programs for youth who are not able to excel in school, but who excel at hands on work like carpentry, masonry, boatbuilding, food preparation and plumbing. That would prevent more young people from falling into drug dealing, crime and gangs, and also prevent them from being sent to the training school at $90,000 per year, or the ACI at $40,000 per year.
5) Create a pro-business tax and regulatory climate, and aggressively seek out businesses that want to relocate to RI.
6) Market our arts and cultural strengths to wealthy visitors from other states and nations, and work to establish RI as an international destination. Refraining from selectively persecuting immigrants and instead continuing to be a welcoming place for foreigners would go a long way towards rehabilitating RI's image as a provincial, reactionary, scapegoating nest of xenophobes and nativists.
These are just a few suggestions, but ones which would go a long way toward rehabilitating RI's social, cultural, economic and international health and reputation.
Posted by: Erik D. at October 30, 2008 5:35 PMIt's true that our chronic export of college graduates is one of our biggest missed opportunities.
We should do everything possible to make life better and less stressful for our college students, such as making all parking in Providence free, and refraining from hassling them with repeated parking tickets, which you see them chronically aggravated over on TV traffic court.
It's the little, petty things that grate on peoples nerves. Things like rapacious parking lot fees, inadequate free public parking, and repeated inflated parking tickets while just trying to conduct simple business or class meetings in Providence.
The more we can do to accomodate our college students, the more likely they are to stick around after graduation, and the more we can do to accomodate our downtown visitors, the more likely they are to visit downtown Providence repeatedly, and spend time and money.
Also, the hours of the Providence Public Library are not adequate, considering that it's likely the only main public library in a major city that opens at 12:00 noon on some days.
Somehow, we also need to get those condos filled, to generate property and income taxes.
Posted by: Erik D. at October 30, 2008 5:45 PM>>and repeated inflated parking tickets while just trying to conduct simple business or class meetings in Providence.
Actually this is a great "internship" on the anti-business attitude in Rhode Island.
We're doing them a favor, educating them on the manifold reasons why they don't want to stay in Rhode Island and start a business.
If they stay, the inflated parking tickets will seem like chump change to the progressive taxes and fees they'll encounter if the get into business and try to pursue the American Dream in Rhode Island.
Better they learn about Rhode Island before they're committed - this way they can leave and set up shop in Research Triangle or Austin, where their odds of success will be better, where their success will be celebrated instead of resented, where they'll be considered contributors to the community instead of revenue sources to be exploited, and where they'll be more prosperous, employee people their fellow citizens, and be happy.
Posted by: Tom W at October 30, 2008 8:46 PM