The Winners — Standing up for Budget Sanity in RI

Here’s the roll call of Yeas and Nays on H7720-A, the Rhode Island tax cut for the wealthy:

YEAS – 52: The Honorable Speaker Murphy and Representatives Amaral, Anguilla, Caprio, Carter, Church, Coderre, Corvese, Costantino, Davey, Dennigan, Ehrhardt, Fox, Gallison, Gemma, Ginaitt, Gorham, Jackson, Jacquard, Kennedy, Kilmartin, Lally, Landroche, Lewiss, Lima, Long, Loughlin, Malik, McHugh, McManus, McNamara, Melo, Moffitt, Moura, Mumford, Naughton, O’Neill, Palumbo, Petrarca, Picard, Rose, Savage, Schadone, Scott, Shanley, Slater, Story, Sullivan, Trillo, Watson, Williamson, Winfield.

NAYS – 17: Representatives Ajello, Almeida, Brien, DeSimone, Diaz, Faria, Flaherty, Giannini, Handy, Laroche, McCauley, Menard, Moran, Pacheco, Smith, Ucci, Wasylyk.

Thank you to the 17 who had the courage to stand up to this foolish and anti-Democratic legislation. I hope that Rhode Islanders out there will contact their State Senators and repeat this phrase to them: It is highly irresponsible for the Rhode Island Legislature to pass huge tax cuts that favor the rich, while deficits soar and programs for the needy are being slashed. I challenge readers to help me find the evidence that tax cuts for a tiny percentage of wealthy citizens can do anything to significantly improve a faltering state economy.

One thought on “The Winners — Standing up for Budget Sanity in RI”

  1. They cannot show anyone any evidence that this sort of tax cut works. There is no evidence that they work. And the evidence that does exist demonstrates pretty conclusively that they DON’T work.

    The four states with the highest tax burden (state & federal combined) are in the top five of highest per-capita income (CT, NY, NJ, MA; the 5th is WY, which is 15th in per capita income).

    The two states with the lowest combined tax burden, MS & AL, are also dead last in per capita income. Of the five states with the lowest tax burden, the highest rank in per capita income is AK, which is 13th. SD is 27th, and TN is 35th.

    Ergo, there is a pretty strong inverse correlation between tax burden and high income states. So why are we cutting taxes?

    Note: part of the rationale is to compete more effectively with neighboring state: CT and MA are numbers 1 and 4 of states with the highest tax burden. RI is 7th in tax burden, and 17th in p/c income.

    Stats are from http://www.taxfoundation.org, and are based on 2004 data, which was the latest available when compiled.

    Also, with 25 years of data available since the Reagan cuts, the evidence shows that tax cuts do not increase revenue, as the supply-siders have argued. The opposite is true. After the 2003 tax cuts, it took 3 years before revenue surpassed the level prior to the cut. And the revenue only exceeded 2002 in NOMINAL terms. This means it was not adjusted to reflect either inflation or a larger work force. In REAL terms, revenue is still below what it was in 2002.

    Tax cuts do not pay for themselves by spurring growth.

    The JFK example that supply-siders like to refer to was an abberation because the top rate was around 90%.

    So, why did this pass? Who really benefitted?

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