Taxation
Addressing homelessness requires tracing the economic causes to their roots, including (for example) money provided to politically connected projects like the Superman Building rehab.
Socialist Rhode Island state senator Sam Bell (Democrat, Providence) has gotten a good deal of richly deserved negative pushback over truly terrible legislation he submitted in the state General Assembly (which is not to say that some of the correspondence he’s received hasn’t gone too far). As the cosigners on Bell’s legislation back away from…
Well, we have to thank Rhode Island Republicans for trying: The Rhode Island Senate Republican Caucus is proposing the state eliminate gas tax for the remainder of the year. “We want to direct the influx in tax revenue back to residents and provide relief from the crushing pain at the pump,” Senate Minority Whip Jessica…
Perhaps the key detail to be found in the report and interactive tools that the Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council (RIPEC) just released is to be found at the top of its associated infographic. As shown in the featured image of this post, although Rhode Island is the 18th state in the country for per…
From Preston Brashers’s report, the three Bs appear to stand for “Build Bureaucracy Bigger”: The Build Back Better Act has several provisions that make Congress less accountable for U.S. tax policy and give unaccountable bureaucrats more control. The act would (1) give the IRS more regulatory authority, (2) task IRS agents with finding new revenues,…
As I’ve written before, when considering a state’s mix of all the different taxes, I’m not as bothered by high property taxes as other folks on the hawk side of the taxation spectrum. That said, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC) makes a good point that differentiations between different types of property should be…
Robert Wiblin gets to the economics of student debt cancelation in a dead-on way with this comment: Cancelling student debt is good but we could do more. The government should also tax non-college grads in order to fund a $5,000 annual gift for all college grads as a way to show appreciation for how smart…
The Rhode Island Public Expenditures Council (RIPEC) notes that Rhode Island’s downward slide on the Tax Foundation Business Tax Climate Index continues, with the Ocean State exiting the 30-something range on the bad side for the first time since 2017, at 40. The only saving graces are that Connecticut has been stuck at 47 forever…
Reading political tea leaves from interviews is an iffy game, but this feels like a bit of a tone change from Democrat Senate President Dominick Ruggerio: On the Rhode Island Report podcast, state Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio said he opposes raising the income tax rate for the richest Rhode Islanders, saying he fears they…
When people in government are pushing for new programs, especially programs to extract money from the economy, it’s crucial to remember all the little unforeseen events — inconveniences, errors, and so on. The fact that nothing ever works as perfectly in real life as it does on paper is why voters and taxpayers ought always…
