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Think about the effect of having elected officials like Sam Bell in the General Assembly.
Here is Senator Bell’s response, back in November, to the CEO of Box.com, who offered a mild, moderate suggestion for Democrats after the election:
Bell exposes two important things, with this Tweet. First, a significant portion of Rhode Island’s Democrat power elite are happy to ride the state into utter, Venezuelan devastation for the sake of ideological purity. Most of us understand the idea of states as testing grounds for different ideas means that states that choose poorly will learn from those that choose well, but for fanatics like Bell, the drive is to control a state simply for the sake of imposing their ideology for the ideology’s sake.
Second, Bell’s ideology is about hurting people he doesn’t like. He excuses it for himself by insisting the reason he doesn’t like them is they harm others, but that’s a screen. The ego boost of power over others (probably out of envy) is the fundamental motivation.
Just to clarify the Senator’s thinking for him, corporations and other pass-through entities don’t actually pay taxes. The taxes imposed on corporations (a/k/a employers of the Senator’s constituents) are actually paid by the customers and shareholders of the company.
The sooner we dispense with this politically useful, economically harmful fiction, the better for the prosperity of Senator’s constituents.