Eliminating (or even discounting) capital gains taxes on the sale of real estate.

The value of housing only goes up, around here, so it ought to be an obvious use for the fallow cash of individuals and investors.  Unlike stocks, however, it tends to require work to be done on behalf of the investment, limiting the interested parties.

Of course, a free-market solution like this eliminates the need for “nonprofit” salaries and the opportunity for grift and vote-buying from politicians.  The labor unions will have to compete for bids to build, rather than relying on requirements in government contracts, too.

The reason we never hear such solutions mentioned is that those layers of redistribution are the point of Rhode Island’s system of government.  Our intractable problems are only intractable because we allow insiders to insert “that also” requirements for everything we do.  We want great public education that also funds elaborate teachers unions with huge political power to implement far-left ideological change.  We want smooth roads that also enrich a go-between class of union leaders and force taxpayers to fund more personnel than are needed.

Sadly, Rhode Island has recently crossed the tipping point at which the “that alsos” become the most important things.  We have an entrenched, corrupt insider system “that also” provides some of our most-fundamental services and determines what we are and aren’t permitted to do.