Taxation
As Justin points out, The Poverty Institute’s Kate Brewster seems to be basing much of her “more taxes, increase spending” argument on the work of Peter Orszag and Joseph Stiglitz. Brewster states that they’ve determined that “tax increases on high earners are less harmful than spending cuts.” True enough and plausible, but that isn’t exactly…
True to form, the Poverty Institute’s Kate Brewster notes that “two-thirds of the [state budget] gap is due to declining corporate, income- and sales-tax collections, as well as shrinking lottery revenues,” but her proposed response is not to find ways to increase the economic activity that drives such revenue. Rather, she’d simply like to jack…
Neil Downing explored the governor’s taxation panel, and beyond my complaint that it strove to remain essentially revenue neutral (rather than decreasin taxes), if we strip away the specifics, none of the proposals are very attractive in their predicted effects: The first solution would transfer the income tax burden from the top and the bottom…
I suspect that this idea from Congressman Louie Gohmert (R-TX) would have broad support among the Republican Assembly members and sympathizers with whom I’m spending time this evening: Where the Pelosi-Paulson plan takes the taxpayers’ money and puts it under the government’s thumb so that predatory politicians and micromanaging bureaucrats have more and more control…
Well, the governor’s tax panel appears to be a bit more in line with the state’s needs than his transportation panel, but we really have to turn this starting point around: Overall, “The goal is to develop . . . alternatives that would be revenue neutral . . . but would present options that would…
So I took a 14% reduction in my hourly pay rate this week. My other option was to quit and look for another job (without the benefit of a few months of unemployment insurance). Desperate times are here. Meanwhile, the Sakonnet Times did run Richard Joslin’s diatribe against the Tiverton taxpayers group with which I’m…
Seriously? A new mileage fee. The $150-million plan would not include it, but the $300-million plan would impose a half-cent-per-mile fee, raising an estimated $50 million per year. But officials said yesterday that they expect to eliminate the transfer of some sales tax revenue to the transportation system, proposed elsewhere in the report. Raising the…
According to RI Future contributor Pat Crowley, if your pension plan is underfunded don’t think of it as a bug, think of it as a feature…An unfunded liability may in fact enhance the security of the plan because it requires more caution, therefore, more long term thinking.I wonder if progressives will apply this line of…
And not just because it’s Thanksgiving. In light of Speaker Murphy’s comment in front of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce, a quick review of Rhode Island’s current standing in certain tax categories is in order. [Data courtesy the Tax Foundation.] > Business Tax Climate: 50th (worst) > Cigarette Tax: 2nd highest nationally > Corporate…
Continuing the earlier discussion about the Detroit bailouts, there is a broader debate taking shape: Obama Chief of Staff Hopes to Exploit the Economic Crisis to Expand the Growth of Government: In earlier posts I have emphasized the risk that the combination of economic crisis and unified Democratic control of Congress and the White House…
