What's this? A Book!
Or buy here: Light Publications, Powell's, or Bn, Amazon A look at the lousy situation Rhode Island is in, how we got here, and how we might be able to get out. Featuring
Now at bookstores near you, or buy it with the button above ($14, or $18 with shipping and sales tax). Contact information below if you'd like to schedule a book-related event, like a possibly entertaining talk on the book's subjects, featuring the famous mystery graph. Join the RIPR Mailing List! For a weekly column and (a few) other items of interest, click here or send an email to ripr-list-subscribe@whatcheer.net. RIPR is a (paper) newsletter and a weekly column appearing in ten of Rhode Island's finer newspapers. The goal is to look at local, state and federal policy issues that affect life here in the Ocean State, concentrating on action, not intentions or talk. If you'd like to help, please contribute an item, suggest an issue topic, or buy a subscription. If you can, buy two or three (subscribe here). Search this siteAvailable Back Issues:
Subscription information:
Contact:For those of you who can read english and understand it, the following is an email address you are welcome to use. If you are a web bot, we hope you can't understand it, and that's the point of writing it this way. editor at whatcheer dot net Archive:
AboutThe Rhode Island Policy Reporter is an independent news source that specializes in the technical issues of public policy that matter so much to all our lives, but that also tend not to be reported very well or even at all. The publication is owned and operated by Tom Sgouros, who has written all the text you'll find on this site, except for the articles with actual bylines. Responsibility: Tom Sgouros
|
Mon, 27 Feb 2006
The paper mentioned by Paul Krugman's column today is here. In it, the authors argue that virtually all the benefits of productivity growth in the US economy over the last 40 years, has accrued to the top 10% of the income distribution, with the top 1% taking by far the lion's share of that. So if you're wondering why your wages don't keep up with the cost of living, well, the reason is that someone else is taking the gains that would have helped you do it.
Via this blog, I also learned about this study, which is an international comparison of income distributions and their changes over time. English-speaking countries have seen an explosion in the top end over the last 30 years, not shared by other European countries. What's also interesting is that the top end is now occupied by wage earners, instead of capital-gains takers. In other words, CEOs and other denizens of the highest rungs of the corporate management ladder.
09:28 - 27 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Tue, 14 Feb 2006
Articles:
- Accounting changes mean bad news ahead in state and city budgets.
- A sampling of what you'll find in the Governor's FY07 budget.
- Reforming property tax assessment (by David Segal, City Council member in Providence)
The issue is at the printer's now, and will be mailed on Thursday. Wouldn't now be a great time to subscribe?
13:43 - 14 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Mon, 13 Feb 2006
The arrival of the Governor's budget may have rendered the House tax cut proposal inoperative, but time will tell. But here is a little more information about what they proposed.
The data isn't public to make this very precise, but I can put a reasonable minimum on the numbers. The following is based on the assumption that the stated cost of next year's income tax cut is about right. The proposal, to recap, is to allow the wealthy to choose between our current system, and a "flat" system like they use in Massachusetts. The proposal starts the alternative tax at 7.5%, but then lowers it in successive years. The table contains my estimate of how much revenue is lost compared to the current system, with the tax set at different levels.
| "Flat" Rate | Cost in tax revenue |
| 7.5% | $9 million |
| 7.0% | $26 million |
| 6.5% | $43 million |
| 6.0% | $62 million |
| 5.5% | $104 million |
| 5.1% | $131 million |
Given all the uncertainties involved, the error in the above is about 20-25%. So that $131 million could be $100 million, or it could be $160 million.
12:30 - 13 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Wed, 08 Feb 2006
President Bush has finally come up with a proposal to "fix" Social Security. A press release? An announcement? A mention in the State of the Union address? Nope. But it's there in the budget waiting for approval in Congress.
Read here.
16:50 - 08 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Fri, 03 Feb 2006
Calming down a bit, I whipped out the ol' statistics of incomes spreadsheets and did a little figuring. Making only conservative estimates, as much as a third of the income tax Rhode Island collects is collected from people who earn more than $200,000 in AGI. (This is the top 2% of taxpayers, and in 2003, they had about 18% of the total AGI in the state.) Since we collect about a billion dollars in income tax overall, this means that a one-percent cut for these people will cost us about $3 million.
The press release and the press so far describe what is proposed as a $10 million cut in taxes on the wealthy. I can't tell yet from the press and the press release exactly how to calculate the changes, but if we're talking about a 10% cut for the wealthy, that's a $30 million hit, not $10 million.
Possibility 1: They are only proposing a 3% cut in the taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers. I which case, I'm not sure why bother. It's hard to imagine a 3% cut as much of an incentive to anything.
Possibility 2: They are full of, um, incorrectitude.
08:54 - 03 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Thu, 02 Feb 2006
The House leadership today announced that they are going to be proposing a large package of tax cuts this year. This is pretty funny, since the word is that the state deficit is supposed to be huge this year. We haven't even seen the Governor's budget yet (two weeks late) but that normally energetic tax-cutter is said to be foregoing proposing tax cuts this year, because there isn't enough money.
One wonders where they think they'll get the money for tax cuts, when they can't manage to find money for affordable housing, health care for poor children, heating assistance and all that. Not to mention the disaster of funding for our schools, and the over-reliance on property taxes.
At the press conference announcing this travesty, Gordon Fox, the House Majority Leader, said "I'm supporting this and I'm a liberal Democrat." I'd suggest instead that self-identification isn't always the most reliable. That is, I know someone who considers himself witty and charming. No one will tell him that the important factor isn't his own judgment on the point, and the weight of evidence isn't really in his favor.
23:34 - 02 Feb 2006 [/y6/fe]
Ads and the like:
(A funny book you should own)
