Rhode Island Economy
I’d been meaning to note financial planner George Wright’s thoughts on demographic trends in Rhode Island: Financial advisers are seeing a noticeable increase in affluent retirees moving out of the state, especially to Florida, which has no state income, inheritance or personal-property taxes, and is about three hours away on Southwest Airlines. Here’s a plan:…
Opinions are split concerning the significance of plummeting federally backed loans to small businesses in Rhode Island: “There is capital available today that you can access without the [SBA] guarantees,” said Kenneth B. Martin, executive vice president and director of business banking for the bank’s parent, Citizens Financial Group. “That is typically the case when…
Unfortunately, neither Community Catalyst nor RIte Care Works, the author and promoter respectively, seem interested in providing the full details behind a press release from The Clarendon Group that appears to support the conclusion that every dollar of RI government money taken from RIte Care comes with a 12¢ cost in economic activity but save…
The Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) makes a point that ought to be raised every time the progressives put forward data purporting to illustrate the lack of effect of recent tax cuts: Estimating that taxpayers already are kicking in an average of 12.3 percent of their income to finance state and local government, the…
Anybody who missed it on Sunday should take a moment to read URI Business Administration Professor Edward Mazze’s “10 steps to right R.I.’s dire financial state“: Any optimism for job creation next month has disappeared as the state, region and national economy slide downward. For years, we have been dealing with a partial truth that…
Rep. Handy, who introduced the atrocity of a bill currently being discussed, just described one of the “injustices” that he’s seeking to alleviate: He spent the past few years paying taxes on diapers for his child, but a rich person who could afford a diaper service would be free of that burden. I’d dispute the…
The ranking to which Justin refers also gives us the edge in unemployment: Rhode Island last month shed 1,200 more jobs, and payrolls shrank to their lowest level in nearly four years, a government report released today shows. The state unemployment rate ticked up one-tenth of a percentage point, to 5.8 percent, as the ranks…
Not surprisingly, taxation appears to be Rhode Island’s method of being a world leader. We’re tied with West Virginia for seventh highest top total corporate tax rate in the world. Oddly, China and India aren’t among the global Top 30. Go figure. (via Instapundit)
I may be incorrect about this, but the historic tax credits appear to be of a different nature than the movie industry tax credits. The latter are ultimately advance giveaways of tax money yet to be collected. The credits are handed to a production company, which can sell them to third-parties that aren’t at all…
Tom Sgouros decries the lack of worthy investments for people with money. The problem, he’s arguing, isn’t that the wealthy don’t have the money to invest; it’s that they have nowhere to invest it; they’re holding it or directing it to safer investments. Me, I’ll take his argument at face value, because I think he…