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For nearly a decade, the House Freedom Caucus has disrupted the way business is done in Congress. Now, that same model is spreading to state capitals across America. State Freedom Caucus Network President Andy Roth is no stranger to Washington’s policy fights after spending years with the Club for Growth. A few years ago, he […]
EDITOR’s NOTE: Fentanyl is the poison that is killing our fellow Americans. “Kickback Capitalism” is the poison that is killing our American economy and our politics. **** Originally published in the Wall Street Journal on March 5, by Andy Kessler as: The Rise of Kickback Capitalism What the government does best is throw your tax […]
The following excerpts were provided to The Current by the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity. They represent actual commentary from concerned citizens who have emailed the RI Board Of Education, encouraging them to REJECT the inaccurate and overly-politicized social studies standards, proposed by RI Department of Education and its Commissioner, Angelic Infante-Green. A vote […]
The bonds on the ballot this week are the sort of thing that government officials do when the people paying the bills are last in the line of their concerns.
Rhode Islanders should take the Russian approach to economic development as a warning of the future when government consolidates authority over crony capitalism.
The common wisdom that outside investment is the start of all productive activity can distort economic policy and political unity.
Step 1 in transforming Rhode Island’s economy is to stop talking in jargon and to trust people to forge their own futures.
The Stephen Hopkins Center birthday celebration for Milton Friedman raised questions of justice and virtue.
Of course, the idea of making the federal government something like everybody’s rich uncle, endowing every baby with a $1,000 savings account with annual deposits at taxpayer expense, strikes all the wrong chords for a conservative like me. The details of legislation that U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D, New Jersey) has submitted don’t really help:
The accounts would be federally insured, and the funds could only be used for homeownership and “human and financial capital investments that [change] life trajectories,” according to the summary. …
The program would cost roughly $60 billion if implemented in 2019, a Booker aide told The Hill, and would be funded by increasing the capital gains tax rate by 4.2 points, increasing the estate tax to its 2009 level and raising taxes on multimillion-dollar inheritances.
So, the federal government would create and help fund individual investment accounts and then pay for it by increasing the cost of investing as well as taxing those who are able to change their “life trajectories” enough to ensure that their own children don’t need rich Uncle Sam. That doesn’t sound like the most efficient policy design.
All of that said, Booker’s concept does have some similar features to my long-standing proposal for health care: Set everybody up with a health savings account, which government could use as its Medicaid/Medicare mechanism, which employers could use to provide their health care benefits, which charities could use to offer assistance to the poor, and which would bring market mechanisms into health care.
That would be a better use of money than buying houses. Moreover, some significant part of the funding could be found in government health care savings (as all of the funding for any new program should be found in the existing budget).
Reading Steven Frias’s commentary in today’s Providence Journal points toward a possibility that should really be emphasized as the General Assembly embarks on a session during which some are saying truck tolls are a done deal. Frias notes decades of resistance to tolls, in Rhode Island, and emphasizes that:
In the past, new taxes have been expanded after efforts to avoid the tax led to revenue shortfalls. For example, in 1969, Gov. Frank Licht’s investment tax was adopted. It was an income tax limited to only interest paid on savings accounts, dividends, and capital gains, which significantly impacted a small minority of taxpayers. But after millions were withdrawn from savings accounts in Rhode Island banks and reinvested into tax-exempt bonds to avoid the tax, the investment tax ended up generating far less in revenue than originally estimated. As a result, in 1971, a state income tax was imposed on all.
In particular Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo’s toll-and-borrow scheme is practically designed to ensure that tolls expand to cars if the actual collections fall short of the estimates (and they will).
Some have wondered why the governor is so insistent on rushing forward with a revenue bond when a general obligation bond would be sure to pass at the ballot box and would save the state tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in interest. I’d argue that this financing mechanism would be contrary to the state constitution if we had a real judiciary, but even if that isn’t the case, why waste taxpayer dollars? One obvious explanation is that unnecessarily high interest on the debt makes RhodeWorks a twofer for Raimondo’s friends and backers, funding work for the Laborer’s union and a windfall for Wall Street investment types.
Another explanation could be that people in state government have their eyes on much more revenue — revenue that’s relatively easy to ratchet up and that doesn’t count in some measurements of the state’s tax burden — by taxing cars. From this cynical perspective, we can observe that placing a debt of the state on the rickety planks of such a narrow bridge makes it likely that the revenue source will prove inadequate, practically obligating the state to expand the base, specifically to catch the driving piggy banks that can’t simply route around the state: those of us who live here.
Such a cynic might also expect that the governor has the calendar worked out with the expectation that she’ll have moved up to bigger and better things by the time this becomes clear. (She certainly has the investment experience to know how to structure the bonds to ensure the delay.) But even without that level of cynicism, it’s reasonable to conclude that one truly “done deal” should be the end of the political career of any legislator or executive who brings any tolls to the state as part of this particular project.
Is the departure of recent college graduates keeping Rhode Island at the back of the pack economically? Progressives in the state’s legislature apparently think it would be beneficial to have taxpayers subsidize student loans. A look at student debt data suggests that would be a major burden on a population that’s already heavily taxed–and that the idea may, in fact, backfire.
The debate has been raging almost since the turn of the millennium: With Rhode Island’s population waning, who’s leaving? The first assumption was that the rich were fleeing the high taxes, which inspired policies meant to keep them — like an alternative flat tax and a phase-out of the capital gains tax.
Progressives objected that the evidence did not show flight of the rich, and as it turned out, they were right. The departing demographic was the “productive class” — families in that highly motivated period of their lives when they’re exchanging their time, sweat, and talents for a trip up the rungs to the middle class.
To make that group stay, though, politicians can’t cut taxes in exchange for the campaign support like do for the wealthy. And the productive class doesn’t use direct government handouts, so the government can’t make them stay by handing out entitlements. They need less regulations so they can work and innovate, and they need to be able to keep the money that they’ve earned, rather than having it taxed away.
If we look at who is sponsoring two relevant pieces of legislation on the subject, it becomes clear that Rhode Island progressives have decided to try and bribe recent college graduates into staying in the state. Based on the rationale described in the bills, they hope a younger crowd will be like their older brothers and sisters in helping the economy to grow.
It’s that time of the year once again: tax season. Although the process of filing an income tax return is often arduous, the hope of a sizable refund from the IRS removes a little pain from the ordeal. But with an economy such as the one we have right now, Preston Brashers, a senior policy […]
Progressives and conservatives frame things like tax policy differently, and not only does it prevent fruitful discourse, but progressives’ errors undermine an economic system that makes shared prosperity more likely.
1. H7817: Eliminates the Rhode Island Health Benefits Exchange and transfers its responsibilities to the Federal Government. (H Finance; Wed, May 28)
2. S2988: Reduces the corporate tax rate in Rhode Island from 9% to 7%, while implementing “combined reporting”. (S Finance; Tue, May 27)
3. S2143: Increases the estate tax threshold from $850K to $1.5M, but continues the practice of taxing the entire amount of an estate with a value greater than the threshold, and not just the amount above the threshold. (S Finance; Tue, May 27)
4. H7433: “The percentage of a charter public school’s housing costs reimbursed with state aid shall be equal to the percentage of school housing costs reimbursed with state aid for the municipality where a charter public school is located”. (H Finance; Tue, May 27)
5. S2976: The Comprehensive Community-Police Relationship Act of 2014 which, among other things, outlaws stop-and-frisk procedures, requires specific, detailed information to be logged about motor vehicle or pedestrian stops, requires many motor vehicle stops to be directly recorded, and extends warrant requirements to searches involving juveniles (S Judiciary; Tue, May 27)
6. H7983: Allows the division of taxation to enter into contracts with private organizations (or individual people), providing them with tax-credits in return “for engaging in certified rehabilitation of a manufacturing facility”. (H Finance; Tue, May 27) Implementing a system where people can change their tax liability by dealing directly with a government bureaucracy seems like an odd way to approach the problem of tax-incentives, and one that has substantial potential for unintended consequences. Is this kind of system used anywhere else?
Can’t Rank This One Until It’s Known What Projects It’s Targeted At: S2989: Substantial package of tax-incentives for the “substantial rehabilitation” of buildings in an economic micro-zone. Micro-zones would be designated by town/city governments within their borders, and the RI Commerce Corporation would approve projects for incentives, according to criteria laid out in the law, within a designated micro-zone. (S Finance; Thu, May 29)
Samuel Bell’s op-ed in today’s Providence Journal is hard to take seriously, but it must be taken seriously, because its like is doing terrible harm to the people of Rhode Island.
Ever the gracious adversary, Tom Sgouros takes to the Internet, today, to insult people who helped to give him a platform, and he bases his insults on stuff that he just makes up.
1. H7512: Eliminates the straight-party option, aka “the master lever”, from Rhode Island general election ballots. Also, H8072 eliminates the the master lever from Rhode Island general election ballots, and provides for “community outreach” in order “to educate the public, including the elderly” about how to vote without using the master lever. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)
2. H7767: Repeal of Rhode Island’s voter-ID law. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)
3. Proposed amendments to the State Constitution, that would require ratification by the voters:
• H7024: Trades an extension of Senator/Representative terms to 4 years, for a term-limit of 3 terms. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29) I’m not in favor of across the board 4 year terms for the Rhode Island General Assembly, but if they were to be implemented, shouldn’t they be staggered so roughly half the seats are up every two years?
• H7458: Reduces the number of House districts to 50, with two representatives being elected from each district, one male and one female. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)
• H7593: Unambiguously extends the jurisdiction of the State Ethics Commission to the legislature (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)
• H7594/S2420: Removes free-speech protections from any activity that involves the spending of money. (H Judiciary; Tuesday, April 29 & S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30) The publication of newspaper editorials that offer candidate endorsements could be regulated by the government under this amendment — that is, if there’s weren’t a First Amendment to the Federal Constitution, that supersedes any attempt by Rhode Island’s governing class to limit political speech.
• S2113: Requires “Senators, representatives and general office holders [to] contribute twenty percent (20%) towards the premium for health care coverage paid for by the state of Rhode Island”. (S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30)
• S2397: Changes the state’s current duty under Article XII to promote schools and libraries into a (judicially enforceable) “right to an adequate education”. (S Special Legislation and Veterans’ Affairs; Wed, Apr 30)
• H8014: Line item veto (including the option of line-item reductions), with the GA able to override any item through the usual process. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29) One thought here: Does a provision like this need some kind of protection, so that the GA can’t just override everything that was line-item vetoed, with a single en masse override vote?
4. S2309: Repeals the the provisions in the law allowing “deferred deposit” loans, i.e. “pay-day” loans, and that allow check-cashing businesses to automatically operate as pay-day lenders. (S Commerce; Thu, May 1) According to the official description, this is a complete repeal of pay-day lending.
5. H7263: Clarifies that existing law states that the home address of someone confined to a correctional facility, for voting purposes, is the address they had before they began serving their sentence, and creates processes to make sure this law is properly enforced. (H Judiciary; Tue, Apr 29)
The first 10 News Conference segment focused on (disagreements about) Governor Chafee’s time in office.
Justin writes live from the floor of the House on budget night.
Notes from testimony on tax-the-rich legislation raise interesting points about what happened with tax policy and the economy over the past five years and what would be likely to happen under other policies moving forward.
The seeds of the economic collapse were sown during the Clinton Years, but the government surplus was a symptom, not a cause.
Trends in GDP growth for Rhode Island and three other New England states suggest that its general policy approaches during the last decade might be worth reconsidering.
Local political analyst Tom Sgouros asserts that government ought to be measured against income, rather than in line with other expenses, but it isn’t as reasonable a premise as it may at first seem.
Parents unite against a disturbing “trans” bill, securing a victory for family rights. Urgent calls for nationwide action arise, revealing shocking details and urging awareness for the battle ahead.
Originally published on The Daily Signal, as: 3 Absurd Claims About the Lewiston Shooting Made by Gun Control Activists Amy Swearer / @AmySwearer / Ann Coates / November 06, 2023 Here’s why gun control advocates are wrong in making three of their most egregious claims about the shooting rampage in Lewiston, Maine. Pictured: A police officer guards the ambulance entrance to […]
Intersectionality Devolves Left-wing radicals have long supported the violent “decolonization” of Israel. by Christopher Rufo For years, left-wing intellectuals have treated “intersectionality” as an inevitability. The social theory, which holds that all oppressed peoples must join together to overthrow their common oppressor, has been an essential strategy of the Left. There is some truth to […]
The battleground that the radical Left has not conquered is “our children,” commentator and podcast host Liz Wheeler says, but make no mistake—the battle is raging. “The Left has actually been trying to reengineer our society for nearly a century, and unfortunately, they have been very successful at it,” says Wheeler, host of “The Liz […]
Aug. 15 marked two years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan after a nearly two-decade war. For James Hasson, co-author of “Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End” and an Afghanistan veteran, seeing the Taliban takeover “was a punch in the gut.” “And I […]
Originally published By Tyler O’Neil on The Daily Signal ATLANTA—Sen. Tim Scott exposed President Joe Biden’s economic record Friday, explaining why the president’s celebration of “Bidenomics” is an illusion. “The average American family has lost $10,000 of spending power because of Bidenomics,” the South Carolina Republican, a candidate for the 2024 presidential nomination, said at The […]
DES MOINES, Iowa—Loaded with attractions such as bacon pecan pie on a stick, dairy cows, a tractor pull, and presidential candidates, the Iowa State Fair truly offers something for everyone. Over a million visitors are expected this year for the annual fair, which runs Aug. 10-20, so it’s a magnet for presidential hopefuls ahead of […]