Taxation
The reason it’s terrifying isn’t only that unrealized gains are purely hypothetical. The proposal (and defenses of it) show that for many taxation has become purely a money-finding scheme requiring the scantiest of rationale. By their nature, unrealized capital gains do not actually exist; they are hypothetical. While striving to come up with some sort…
We should repeal all federal income taxes. Income taxes are a great evil that has changed the nature of our relationship with government. Instead, the federal government should be funded through a capitation (per-person) tax payable proportionally by each state. That is, our states would be responsible for collecting a tax calculated based purely on…
I was puzzled recently when I discovered that updated registration forms had somehow not made it into two of our cars. The technician inspecting one of them told me many Rhode Islanders are accidentally throwing their registration forms out. I chuckled along with him but wondered how that would be possible. A couple days later,…
Because progressives have driven conversations about taxes for much of the last century, our thinking is all askew. Characteristic of their approach is to focus on who is giving and receiving the money. This isn’t surprising, because like Karl Marx in their personal life, they’re obsessed with other people giving them money, but it generates the…
Consider two general principles of political theory while reading this: 1) Government starts by telling the people how much money it needs and then proceeds to collect it, not the other way around. 2) The less competitive political races are, the more incentive those who are predictably elected have to spend money on corruption and…
The Rhode Island Office of Revenue Analysis releases regular reports summarizing the state’s tax credit programs, and sometimes progressive politicians and journalists get a news story out of them. What’s disappointing is the paucity of the opposing voices. According to Katherine Gregg’s Providence Journal article the Rhode Island Business Coalition is fine with ending the program…
With Lawrence, MA, as my inspiration, I described what I’ve since come to call the “company state” or “government plantation.” Just as big companies used to set up “company towns” which existed mainly to serve the companies, now governments are becoming the central industry and animating force of the regions under their control. Their model…
John DePetro and Justin Katz check in on the insider operations of the RI State House, bureaucracy, and media.
Clips from the John Loughlin show that carried Rhode Islanders through the holiday season and into the new year.
John DePetro and Justin Katz go over the characters and controversies of state government in Rhode Island.