Taxation
The essential argument behind that dreadful tax legislation (whose name we dare not speak) is, as Tom Sgouros put it in testimony last night: The state takes “too much money from people who can’t afford to give it, and not much money from those who can.” Or, as those who are less worried about the…
Tom Sgouros (who is apparently more involved in this bill than I’d thought) just said: The state is getting too much of its money from people who can’t afford to give it, and not much money from those who can. But this is different in kind from what he’s been arguing thus far, which has…
The Big Government folks have themselves a win-win situation with punitive taxation: interested citizens are kept unnaturally busy just making ends meet, so their ability to become involved is diminished. Well, it’s going to take me a while, but I hope to get down to the statehouse tonight, assuming the hearing continues.
House Bill H7950, sponsored by Representative Arthur Handy (D-Cranston) and quizzically entitled “Economic Growth and Fairness Act”, will be heard tomorrow at the rise of the House. There is a rumor also of a rally against the bill at 4:00 in the Capitol Rotunda. Rep. Handy issued a press release (h/t Dan Yorke) today detailing…
A few weeks ago, I pointed out that a basic assumption guiding liberal/progressive thinking about taxation is that…Government is entitled to a fixed amount of revenue, no matter what services it provides.There was some spirited objection to my analysis, questioning whether anyone sane really believed this. Well, today, over at RI Future and in the…
When it so happens that the powers that be seem intent on acting in opposition to crystal clear reality, citizens are compelled to act. In Rhode Island, there’s hope — or, in any case, we’ve hope — that plain information will serve to stop the tides, because it is in the universal self-interest to do…
With a hat tip to Dan Yorke, below are some of the new things that will now fall under the expanded sales tax being proposed by the tax-and-spenders in our Legislature, under the, ahem, “ECONOMIC GROWTH AND FAIRNESS ACT OF 2008”. Oh sure, there is this….. Commencing on January 1, 2010, the rate shall be…
Both the Providence Journal and A.R. commenter Ken have erroneously amplified the amount of power the Executive Branch possesses over the state budget – more specifically, its control of the amount of local aid that will be disbursed from state coffers. This week in an article about current events in Woonsocket, the Providence Journal asserted:…
A Sakonnet Times story that does not appear to be online confirms my suspicions: Tiverton’s going to raise my taxes even more than the previously suggested maximum. Apparently, “the big jump is in the debt service on school bonds” (a 45% increase), followed by an estimated 3.2% increase for the school district. Of course, Rhode…
The problems with it are manifold (some enunciated in the comments section), but Tom Sgouros’s analysis of property taxes brings to light an interesting conceptual matter: However, consider the question, “how much property tax do the richest 11,900 people in Rhode Island pay?” With the data I have, I can’t say for sure, but I…