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RIPR is a (paper) newsletter
that looks at local, state and federal policy issues
that affect life here in the Ocean State. Each issue focuses on
particular policy areas of interest. Future issues will examine
controversial aspects of environmental policy, health care,
state tax reform, and education spending. The intention is to look at
action rather than talk.
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Available Back Issues:
- Oct 07 (28) - Choosing the most
expensive ways to fight crime, bait and switch tax cuts, review
of Against Prediction, about the perils of using statistics
to fight crime.
- Aug 07 (27) - Sub-prime mortgages
fall heaviest on some neighborhoods, biotech patents in decline, no photo
IDs for voting, review of Al Gore's Against Reason
- Jun 07 (26) - Education
funding, budget secrecy, book review of Boomsday and the Social
Security Trustees' Report
- May 07 (25) - Municipal finance: could citizen
mobility cause high property taxes?
What some Depression-era economists had to say on investment, and why
it's relevant today, again.
- Mar 07 (24) - The state budget
disaster and how we got here. Structural deficit, health care,
borrowing, unfunded liabilities, the works.
- Jan 07 (23) - The impact of real
estate speculation on housing prices, reshaping the electoral college.
Book review of Blocking the Courthouse Door on tort "reform."
- Dec 06 (22) - State deficit: What's
so responsible about this? DOT bonding madness, Quonset, again,
Massachusetts budget comparison.
- Oct 06 (21) - Book review: Out of
Iraq by Geo. McGovern and William Polk, New rules about supervisors
undercut unions, New Hampshire comparisons, and November referenda guide.
- Aug 06 (20) - Measuring teacher
quality, anti-planning referenda and the conspiracy to promote them,
affordable housing in the suburbs, union elections v. card checks.
- Jun 06 (19) - Education report, Do
tax cut really shrink government?, Casinos and constitutions, State historic tax
credit: who uses it.
- May 06 (18) - Distribution
analysis of property taxes by town, critique of RIEDC statistics,
how to reform health care, and how not to.
- Mar 06 (17) - Critique of commonly
used statistics: RI/MA rich people disparity, median income, etc.
Our economic dependence on high health care spending. Review of
Crashing the Gate
- Feb 06 (16) - Unnecessary
accounting changes mean disaster ahead for state and towns, reforming
property tax assessment, random state budget notes.
- Jan 06 (15) - Educational equity,
estimating the amount of real estate speculation in Rhode Island,
interview with Thom Deller, Providence's chief planner.
- Nov 05 (14) - The distribution of
affordable houses and people who need them, a look at RI's affordable
housing laws.
- Sep 05 (13) - A solution to pension
strife, review of J.K. Galbraith biography and why we should care.
- Jul 05 (12) - Kelo v. New London:
Eminent Domain, and what's between the lines in New London.
- Jun 05 (11) - Teacher salaries,
Veterinarian salaries and the
minimum wage. Book review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Apr 05 (10) - Choosing a crisis: Tax fairness and school
funding, suggestions for reform. Book review: business location and
tax incentives.
- Feb 05 (9) - State and teacher
pension costs kept artificially high. Miscellaneous tax suggestions for balancing the state budget.
- Dec 04 (8) - Welfare applications and the iconography of welfare
department logos. The reality of the Social Security trust fund.
- Oct 04 (7) - RIPTA and DOT, who's really in crisis?
- Aug 04 (6) - MTBE and well pollution, Mathematical problems with property taxes
- May 04 (5) - A look at food-safety issues: mad cows, genetic engineering, disappearing farmland.
- Mar 04 (4) - FY05 RI State Budget Critique.
- Feb 04 (3) - A close look at the Blue Cross of RI annual statement.
- Oct 03 (2) - Taxing matters, a historical overview of tax burdens in Rhode Island
- Oct 03 Appendix - Methodology notes and sources for October issue
- Apr 03 (1) - FY04 RI State Budget critique
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Responsibility:
Tom Sgouros
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Tue, 13 May 2008
Carbon for thought
An article
here
points out that a properly done cap-and-trade carbon policy would have
a progressive (in the technical sense of tax policy) effect. It also
points out that doing things John McCain's way might be as effective
in the environmental sense, but have a regressive effect, and provide
a windfall to electric producers and oil companies. More later.
10:37 - 13 May 2008 [/y8/my]
link
Sat, 10 May 2008
Business subsidies
I was reviewing some statistics about state tax revenues last week,
and looked at business taxes. Along with the income tax and sales
tax, business taxes were once the third important leg of funding state
operations, but no longer. Between 1996 and 2006, income tax
collections rose by 76%, sales tax collections by 97% and business
taxes by -- wait for it -- 14%, far less than inflation over that
decade.
Why have business tax revenue declined so much? The economy has
suffered recently, but not for all of that decade. The biggest reason
for the decline is a nearly endless stream of special tax breaks. We
offer businesses several different investment tax credits, an R&D
credit, a credit for wages paid in an Enterprise Zone, a jobs
development credit, a job training credit, a biotechnology tax credit,
an "innovation and growth" tax credit, and much more. Some of these
are worth millions of dollars. For others, we simply don't know what
the effect is on the state budget. But the result is that 94% of the
businesses in our state pay the minimum corporate tax of $500.
See more ...
16:40 - 10 May 2008 [/y8/cols]
link
Highlights from the Supplemental Budget Follies
As expected, the supplemental budget passed the Senate last week,
though it nearly ran off the rails in the Senate Finance Committee
where a majority of the committee voted against it.
What's that? It lost in committee? Then how did it pass? Let's call
it some extraordinary parliamentary maneuvering.
In an official sense, the Senate President and the Majority and
Minority leaders sit on all the committees of the Senate, though they
almost never attend or vote on committee matters. But last week, six
of the ten Finance Committee members decided to vote against the
budget, which forced all three of the ex officio members to interrupt
whatever else they were doing, and show up at the Finance committee to
cast their votes for the budget, in order to get the bill out of
committee, 7-6.
The joke hiding here is not just that it took this much work to
provide for a budget that slashes RIte Care, including for some
legal immigrants, accelerates a few thousand retirement decisions
among state employees, cuts money from all the cities and towns in the
state for the current fiscal year, imposes a tax on bottled water,
and cuts income taxes for the wealthiest taxpayers. The joke is
also that it took two extra Democrats and one extra Republican to do
it. The Republican was voting for his Governor's budget. What were
the Democrats doing?
See more ...
16:33 - 10 May 2008 [/y8/cols]
link
Sun, 04 May 2008
Why do they put up with it?
The House of Representatives last week approved the Governor's
supplemental budget for this current year. They approved of the plan
to take back $12.5 million from all the cities and towns before the
end of June, throwing 39 municipal budgets into chaos. This plan also
cuts 2700 immigrant children from RIte Care -- including more than a
thousand who are here legally -- and forces state employees to take
six furlough days. There are some minor deviations from the
Governor's original proposal, but they are nothing compared to the
agreement.
My favorite: cutting $26 million from Rhode Island Housing. This
agency gets its money from federal housing grants and from borrowing.
Using their money to balance the budget means we are using either
borrowed money or federal housing grants. I report, you decide which
is worse.
The sad truth is that the Governor and the leadership of both houses
of the Assembly are reading from the same script. The Assembly
leadership team call themselves Democrats, but so what? They are for
slashing pensions and health care for state and municipal workers and
ending important (and cost-saving) social programs. All the while,
they are cutting taxes for rich people, while the upward pressure on
local property taxes remains as bad as ever. In what meaningful way
is this a Democratic agenda? Maybe they mean that the program cuts
cause them more pain than they cause Republicans.
See more ...
02:37 - 04 May 2008 [/y8/cols]
link
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