Taxation
Rhode Islanders are beginning to catch on, I think, to the game whereby the state government spends our tax dollars on labor costs, entitlements, and other non-essential or excessive line items and then returns to the taxpayers requesting the passage of bonds for infrastructural basics, like roads. As has come up on Anchor Rising, before,…
I’m sure Tom Daschle had every intention of filing three years of amended tax returns (one for every year since he was bumped from public office, I believe) whether or not he’d been presented with the opportunity of joining the Obama administration: Thomas A. Daschle recently filed amended tax returns for 2005, 2006 and 2007…
This quotation from the Providence Journal‘s latest story on Gov. Carcieri’s tax panel pretty well highlights the philosophical differences at play: … under proposals involving the personal income tax, lower-income and many higher-income taxpayers would generally pay less, but middle-income taxpayers — and the state’s highest-income taxpayers — would generally pay more. This is partly…
Damien Baldino beat me to the punch, but the same thing jumped out at us both from this article about Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick’s consideration of toll booths at the border: Robert Cusack, a member of the panel and an East Providence councilman, said that the Massachusetts governor has the right idea. As much as…
AR commenters and contributors have observed for some time that the source of the budget problem now facing the state and locals is not a lack, demonstrated by our high property and other taxes, of revenue but rather, many years of imprudent spending. In Providence, Local 1033 of the Laborers’ International Union of North America…
In a press release announcing his nomination for Director of the Department of Administration, Governor Carcieri says of Gary Sasse that he has “more than 30 years of experience in crafting and analyzing sound fiscal policies and sustainability for government programs,” but I’ll risk exposing my ignorance to scratch my head at the proposal taking…
RI General Treasurer Frank Caprio invited Anchor Rising for a sit-down chat in his office last night, centering on pension issues, but touching on various other matters. In general, I think the four of us in attendance were reasonably impressed with the treasurer’s explanations for economic policies and his knowledge of political history in Rhode…
With taxpayers — especially business taxpayers — beginning to get uppity, one often hears the invocation of Rhode Island’s Political Knot. Nothing objectionable is anybody’s fault; it’s all a natural construct that can’t be changed… at least by the person to whom one would turn for relief. Take the “tangible tax.” I know of at…
On Thursday, Glenn Beck took a skeptical look at some of the projects that would constitute the proposed economic stimulus plan of President-Elect Obama and the 111th Congress, contrasting them to the projects targeted by the last major federal spending spree intended to jump-start the economy. (Guess which state’s polar bear exhibit made his list…
URI economics professor Len Lardaro had a very disappointing piece in the Providence Journal on Saturday, advising a tax increase in order — curiously enough — to benefit schools and universities. Professor Lardaro states that “investment-related activities… by their nature entail sacrifice” and suggests the following: I propose raising the state’s sales-tax rate to 8…
