Rhode Island's Economic Tax Incentives - Good, Bad, or Ugly?
"...he [Gov. Romney of Mass.] also spoke of Rhode Island's ability to capture billions of dollars in investments over the last four years -- including luring jobs from Massachusetts....Romney told the crowd [of Gov. Carcieri supporters] that he called Boston-based Fidelity Investments personally after learning they were creating 1,000 jobs in Rhode Island, instead of Massachusetts. 'I was a little embarrassed,' he said,but Rhode Island had negotiated an attractive deal. "
It sounds like a game of economic chicken using taxpayer funding. I have no problem with tax redits & incentives, providing that they do what is promised - increase jobs & state revenues. Do they? And what do they cost us? ???
What I expect is yearly accountability. Tax incentives cost us all money in lost income. So what are we getting back besides giving Republican governors photo ops? There's an old saying that, "Sunshine is the best antiseptic." It applies to government also. I want disclosure!
Let me be specific. Every year I want a filing for any businesses benefiting from subsidies above a specified threshold. Doesn't have to be long or complicated. Maine requires annual reporting on 7 subsidy programs. I also want public tax disclosure by corporations. The IRS is considering this & so are some states. Let's see if what they disclose to their stockholders and to the IRS match up. Exactly what are these corp. paying in state & federal taxes?
There's more that we could do, but this is a start. We need to stop thinking locally & begin thinking as a region. Rather than viewing neighboring states as competitors (like Governors Romney & Carcieri), we should be planning as a geographic region (just as we live, shop, & drive). Instead of cutting each other's throats & vying with each other for give-aways, we need to stand unified. As Ben Franklin said, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately. ..."
2 comments:
Nationally and within Rhode Island there is a disproportionate concentration of wealth by a very, very small percenatge.
The tax cuts for the wealthy reappear as higher property taxes at te local level, because there's nothing our towns and cities can really do about it (occasional sales tax hikes).
Since social services and education is what good government does best and tax cuts are purported to stimulate the economy - the tax cuts ought to be applied to the widest population - middle class - who will more likely stimulate their local economies from purchases.
The wealthy can be given tax credits for making education contributions to public schooling K - college to offset their rolled back taxes applied to wealth income from 2001.
It's workable and it's fair.
If we revamped our pubic education system to provide a well trained work force, the wealthy (who often run companies or at least have high level positions in these companies) would come to RI because it would make good sense. AND, their kids would have good schools to go to. This tax break, while argued on one side as not really impacting the overall RI state budget, can also be viewed as a drop in the bucket as to why wealthy and intelligent people would rather live elsewhere.
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