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Providence Rep. Maria Cimini has some formidable adversaries to overcome if she’s to win reelection. Her opponent Dan McKiernan, is a business-friendly attorney being backed by House Speaker Nick Mattiello and NEARI, the state’s largest teachers’ union.
But you can help Cimini keep her seat and the progressive State House caucus keep one of its most loyal members by attending a fundraiser for Cimini Monday, 5 p.m. at the Elmhurst Pub (670 Smith St, PVD).See Facebook event here.
Cimini has fought hard for progressive causes during her tenure as a legislator – including leading the charge in the House for the NEARI-backed tax-equity bill that would increase income taxes on the richest Rhode Islanders. She’s also been adamantly against using the NECAP test as a high stakes graduation requirement. She drew the ire of Speaker Mattiello when she challenged an amendment in the budget bill that prevented Providence from passing a hotel industry minimum wage. NEARI said it believes McKiernan can be a more effective legislator.
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Liberal legislator Maria Cimini, who represents the Mt. Pleasant and Elmhurst areas of Providence, is being opposed in her bid for reelection not only by House Speaker Nick Mattiello but also by NEARI, the state’s largest teachers’ union.
“Our PAC committee determined her opponent, who strongly supports our issues, would have a greater impact on those issues in the legislature,” said NEARI President Larry Purtill. “Difficult decision but one we felt was in best interest of our members which is how I believe we should be making decisions.”
In the Democratic primary for House District 7, NEARI is backing Dan McKiernan, a lawyer in private practice.
Cimini administers the state SNAP program as a research associate at the University of Rhode Island, and as such she is dues-paying member of the NEA. More importantly, she says, she worked towards teacher-friendly education reforms as a legislator.
“I’ve been extraordinarily proud to support and champion issues related to supporting educators, administrators and students,” she said. “I’ve been proactive in researching issues of high stakes testing and teacher evaluations, I’ve been vocal in my opposition to some policies as well as supportive of reforms promoted by the NEA.”
She added, “I’m disappointed that as an ardent union supporter in my personal life and my professional and political career that the NEA has chosen to support my opponent.”
Mark Gray, president of the Young Democrats of Rhode Island, took issue with the endorsement.
“We have great respect for the members of NEA and their continued advocacy for children in our state, but we disagree with the NEA endorsement in House District 7,” he said. “Representative Cimini is a champion for Rhode Island workers—NEA members included. Last year, she successfully argued for over $12 million to be returned to the state budget to ensure we met our commitment to the pension fund for workers. She has consistently advocated for fully funding school districts and for ending the malpractice of high-stakes testing. Finally, she’s been a fearless advocate of our state’s most disadvantaged people: those who can’t afford child care, housing, or food for their own families. We feel that the interests of teachers, students, and young Rhode Islanders have been well represented by real Democrats like Maria Cimini.”
McKiernan could not be reached for comment. (I’ll update this post if I hear from him)
Both candidates address education on their campaign websites.
“I will focus on the economy because it impacts ALL of us. A down economy makes it hard for those in private enterprise to make a living. It reduces tax revenues, stressing those who work for the government. This makes it harder for the government to fund other activities, including educational and social welfare programs. A down economy hurts all of us.”
All young people are deserving of a high quality education that prepares them to be successful in the workforce, in the community, and in life. Schools have a responsibility to develop the next generation of leaders, not test takers. Rhode Island needs a statewide school funding formula to ensure that all children have equitable access to high quality education. Schools must support young people not only academically but also by being safe places for social emotional growth both during the school day and after school time.
Legislative Impact
Increased higher education funding by $4 million
Serves on the Commission to Study the Affordability and Accessibility of Public Higher Education in Rhode Island
Co-sponsored the Safe Schools Act to direct RIDE to create and implement statewide policy on cyberbullying prevention
Passed legislation to create the RI Family Engagement Advisory Council. The Council, composed of teachers, parents and administrators, will make recommendations on developing policies to make families more active in the life of their children’s schools
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When it comes to championing progressive causes, no one in the Rhode Island General Assembly is any braver than Providence Rep. Maria Cimini.
For years, she has lead the charge – against the richest special interest group in Rhode Island – for a less regressive income tax structure. And this year she valiantly defended on the House floor during the late-night budget bill debate, the Providence hotel house keepers – some of whom live in her district – as House leadership effectively nixed their effort to implement a city-wide hotel-industry minimum wage. She’s always standing up for the poor and standing up to the powerful.
Such progressive bravery has won Cimini not just the respect of this blog, but also the ire of House Speaker Nick Mattiello. He tells the Providence Journal he’s backing Cimini’s primary opponent because she didn’t back him for speaker, didn’t apologize for that and because she doesn’t agree with him on policy.
According to the ProJo Mattiello said, “Representative Cimini didn’t support me for speaker and never came to me to indicate she would support me in the future. She didn’t ask for my support in her race and Dan McKiernan did come and ask. Like me, he is a moderate, and his political viewpoints are more in line with the voters of his district and the state of Rhode Island.
Mattiello is wrong to use his considerable political influence to settle Smith Hill vendettas. And the people of District 7 deserve a legislator elected based on his or her merits, not their loyalty to House leadership.
On the other hand, if he thinks his trickle-down economic policies represent the Elmhurst area of Providence better than Cimini has done, well then it’s his right to oppose her reelection.
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Imagine how much safer Rhode Island would be if police departments and nonviolence nonprofits were incentivized to work together to reduce gun violence? The Senate Finance Committee will consider a bill today that would do exactly that.
Known as the guns and ammo tax, the legislation would put an additional 10 percent tax on the sale of all guns and ammunition in Rhode Island. It’s expected to raise $2 million, which would go to local police departments based on the amount of gun violence in each city and town. Local police departments would disperse the money to area nonprofits that organize against gun violence.
The Senate Finance Committee hearing is at 3pm today.
“It helps our police departments, it helps our nonprofits, and it helps every citizen of our state who sees the detrimental cost of gun violence each day,” said Smiley in a press release today.
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Last evening the RI House Finance Committee heard testimony on two bills that would increase the marginal tax rate on people making more than $200,000 a year. Representative Maria Cimini proposed a 2% increase, from 5.99 to 7.99% on incomes over $250,000, while Representative Larry Valencia proposed a 4.01% increase on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,00 for married couples.
Valencia asked the committee to explain the effectiveness of tax cuts for the rich (starting in 1996) given that these were supposed to bring more jobs to Rhode Island, not less, as evidenced by our high unemployment. Appeals to reason however, were not found persuasive by the committee.
At least ten people spoke in favor of the bills, some telling very moving stories about the way they struggle in a state that continues to cut services and cut assistance to our cities and towns, resulting in higher property taxes. In fact, it’s the property taxes that are hitting these Rhode Islanders the hardest, even as the myopic House Leadership continues to champion a policy of across the board tax cuts, curbs on spending and other austerity measures. The impassioned pleas of struggling Rhode Islanders fell on deaf ears, because appeals to compassion were not found to be persuasive.
Everyone knows that the bills proposed by Cimini and Valencia are going nowhere this year. Chairperson Raymond Gallison, recently appointed to his position by Speaker Mattiello, shaped the discourse by calling up all those in favor of the bills and listening politely, reserving the last word for John Simmons, executive director of a right wing think tank, the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC). Gallison and Simmons are on a first name basis, and Simmons’ testimony was welcomed as a breath of fresh air.
Simmons simply restated the same things RIPEC says every year. Increasing taxes is wrong. The rich already face a higher tax burden than the poor. We shouldn’t be targeting the job creators. Philosophically, why should we be punishing those who are successful? The rich are rich because they are better than the poor, more deserving than the poor, and more important than the middle class. Here’s Simmons’ closing argument:
“Then there’s the philosophic issue, I guess I want to address that. It’s a little bit different. Is it because we can tax people who can make money and are successful that we should? Is that the philosophy we want for people to come to Rhode Island and grow a business here? If you make money we can take it from you? I don’t know that that’s the right message to send to people who want to come to Rhode Island. It’s the opposite. If you are successful we would like you to come to Rhode Island.”
Note that Simmons is not all that interested in those who already live in Rhode Island. He isn’t talking about improving the lives of Rhode Islanders, instead he’s talking about making Rhode Island a haven for the rich and successful. If Rhode Islanders are lucky, I suppose, we might find jobs shining the shoes and cleaning the yachts of our more deserving citizens.
This is what Gallison, representing House Leadership as Chairperson of House Finance, found persuasive: A naked appeal to everything he wants to believe is true, despite all evidence to the contrary. It’s called motivated reasoning, a process of having a conclusion and then searching for reasons to believe it. No contrary examples, no logic, no amount of suffering and no evidence contrary to the deeply held belief will be truly considered.
So what do you say to the man who eases your mind and continues to guide you down the primrose path of massive economic inequality? What do you say to the man who confirms all your biases and tells you that everything you sincerely wish were true is true and good, despite the nagging fear at the back of your mind that tells you it’s all a lie?
Gallison said, “Thank you very much John, I appreciate it.”
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Today in the State House Rotunda at 4:30 the newly formed “RI Mobilization Against Poverty”(RIMAP) is demanding bold action to address the economic woes of Rhode Islanders with plans that start with what Franklin Deleno Roosevelt called “the forgotten man” – the unemployed, the underemployed and the under-paid workers.
As growing wealth inequality pressurizes the streets, squeezing the middle class into poverty and those in poverty into despair, people of moral consciousness will not allow budget cuts to eviscerate what remains of the social safety net so that politicians can pad the bank rolls of the elite who fund their campaigns and profit off of side deals.
Mr. Elmer Gardiner of the George Wiley Center Leadership Committee explains:
“They recently announced that NORAD, the 7th largest auto importer in the US located in Quonset, are going to ‘create’ almost 300 new jobs paying only $10/hour -which means still they would be still economic slaves. We can’t be subsidizing these large corporations profits by paying for food stamps (SNAP) which wouldn’t be necessary if paid a living wage of $15/hour. Then these workers to have pride and self esteem, not feel that their work isn’t even enough to sustain themselves.”
We have more people today living in poverty than at any time in the history of this country, including the highest rate of children in poverty of any industrialized nation. Here the top one percent owns 38% of all the wealth in America while the bottom 60% own 2.3% collectively. In fact one family, the Walton’s of WalMart, are worth 138 Billion Dollars, more than the bottom 40% own all together. At a freezing cold Black Friday protest, a student said had to quit his job at WalMart and work for a local business the pay wasn’t enough to live on. While protesters chanted “low pay is not OK,” Scott DuHammel of the Painters and Allied Trades Union said “I think this is a terrible situation. The workers obviously deserve more.”
In fact one family, the Walton’s of WalMart, are worth 138 Billion Dollars, more than the bottom 40% own all together. At a freezing cold Black Friday protest, a student said had to quit his job at WalMart and work for a local business the pay wasn’t enough to live on. While protesters chanted “low pay is not OK,” Scott DuHammel of the Painters and Allied Trades Union said “I think this is a terrible situation. The workers obviously deserve more.”
UniteHere has been confronting the same poor pay and benefits at the Renaissance Hotel and the Weston, where the owners multi-millionaire owners lawyer threatened the city with “consequences” if they were not given tax credits for a development project.
And the story is the same all across the service industry. A mother of two children on strike at Wendy’s said “I am tired of getting paid $7.75/hour, and that’s sad…after working there for 4 years.” Women across the country have been earning 78 cents compared to every dollar that a man earns for doing the same job. Carolyn Mark, President of RI National Organization of Woman elaborated. “The number is higher now – 84.8 cents to the dollar, although it’s much lower for women of color. The common wisdom is that it’s not that RI women are doing so much better than women around the country, but that men in Rhode Island are doing that much worse.”
Poverty is the root community problem creating a cycle of crime leading to do to lack of opportunity – a downward spiral caused by a lack of jobs and unequal quality, materials for and access to education which is the key to social mobility. John Prince, founding member of Direct Action for Rights and equality points out that victory of the Ban the Box campaign, which a means amends employment laws to limit inquiries like “have you ever been convicted of a crime” helps to break a cycle of economic inopportunely. “I never heard a judge sentence anyone to a lifetime without employment. What we need now is for the City of Providence to finally enforce it’s First Source law to hire residents first so there are real jobs developed here.”
Today, the the House Finance Committee will be hearing Rep. Cimini’s bill H7471 would raise taxes by 2% for people making over $250,000 and Rep. Valencia’s Bill H7552 would raise taxes by 4% for people making over $200-250k. This is the way to raise revenues to develop the economy of the state, not by balancing the books on the backs of the poor and shrinking middle class. Austerity cuts are not an option. We need a law to raise the minimum wage to a living wage of $15/hour. Build Rhode Island “from the bottom up. Keep Martin Luther Kings Dream alive with action.
RIMAP is a coalition of organizations and individual from a wide array of backgrounds among anti-poverty, social justice, civil rights, women, human rights, community, labor, seniors, disabled, student, immigrant, and LGBT with a steering committee modeled after tho one formed by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in his Poor Peoples Campaign in 1967.
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A proposed 10 percent tax on guns and ammo to help fund public/private nonviolence partnerships has shed light on a philosophical difference between Justin Katz and I. And we have a pretty interesting and (sometimes humorous) debate about the ammo tax too, thanks in no small part to our host/referee Bill Rappeleye.
But one quick clarification first, Katz says “guns are not designed to be used in crime.” True, but they are designed to cause violence. And that’s why the sale of them should help prevent violence.
But back to the interesting philosophical divide though: Katz says the intent of taxes is to infringe. I think he’s wrong about that. And my great fear is that he knows it, but he is going on TV and the internet and purposefully lying about this as a means to an end: to convince the public to shrink government. (More likely is that he’s just become so entrenched in his cause that he’s not able to see the other side of the coin clearly.)
At the end, he explains how he thinks government works: “This is the problem with government and progressive policies in general. You’re not saying hey this is a good thing, let’s feed people, let’s get people jobs, let’s protect people from guns. You’re saying this is my priority I’m going to take your money and give it people I know and trust to do things I want done. That’s not the way the country is supposed to work.”
Progressives certainly are saying the first part that. Our government is too but it can defend itself (if it wants to). As for the latter part of his statement, he’s just got his pronoun wrong. Here’s the corrected quote of how our government actually works:
“We are going to take our money and give it to people we known and trust to do the things we want done.”
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“These three programs seem arbitrary to me. If one of the goals of the NECAP was to be an indicator of college and career readiness, being accepted into a college or university seems in line with that. By including the National Community Service programs as appropriate alternatives, makes me question the rationale of those making this decision. Why isn’t acceptance into the military also sufficient? Commissioner Gist has testified before HEW that our students are ill prepared to join the military just as they are ill prepared for college. If the deciding body’s rationale was based on a student showing readiness for being successful beyond high school, shouldn’t showing that s/he had enlisted be similar? Why not allow students who can prove they’ve secured employment be allowed to graduate without meeting the NECAP requirements?
“I’m glad to know that RIDE is reviewing their guidelines and making changes. I am happy to learn RIDE has decided to grant diplomas to students who’ve been accepted into a college or university. I believed that such students would exist and we do them, their families and the community at large a disservice by being denied a diploma based on one standardized test that their college of choice didn’t require for admission.
“I wonder, however, about the likelihood of lower-income students being able to take advantage of this new waiver. If I’ve read NECAP data correctly, there are more students from low-income communities at risk of not meeting the NECAP requirement than those from middle class or affluent communities. This policy impacts those students going to college, which may be out of reach for low-income families, or those students able to live on a poverty-level stipend for a year.
“Further, I’d be interested to know how these changes were communicated to high school students. I hope it was done early so that the students and their families can plan their futures with all pertinent information available to them.
“Finally, if awarding high school diplomas is going to be based, to some level, on the preparedness of a student’s life post-graduation, perhaps we should spend money on guidance counselors, college and career planning rather than standardized testing.”
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Maria Cimini is one of my favorite politicians in the state of Rhode Island. Far too few state representatives understand the plight of working people like she does. When conservatives attack economic growth and the 99%, she is there on the floor of the House making passionate and moving speeches defending those who are too often left voiceless.
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Rhode Island is going to debate using the NECAP test as a graduation requirement with or without RIDE and the Board of Education. Not only are activists hosting a panel with a RIDE staffer on Wednesday, but three state legislators are holding a similar forum on Monday night.
Representatives Maria Cimini, Providence, Frank Ferri, Cranston and Teresa Tanzi, South Kingstown are hosting an event called: “Great Futures for ALL Rhode Island Students: Keeping the Conversation Going”
“Join us for a community discussion of your concerns about using the NECAP as a graduation requirement and how we can work together to build a better future for Rhode Island students,” says a Facebook event. And here’s a flyer:
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House Speaker Gordon Fox is open to the idea that the time has come for tax equity in Rhode Island. But he still needs to be convinced it’s the economic tack for the state.
“Major changes to the state’s income tax code were enacted only a few years ago, and he needs to be convinced that there is a compelling reason to alter that reform effort which makes Rhode Island much more competitive with our neighboring states,” said Fox’s spokesman Larry Berman in an email to me yesterday.
While it’s certainly not a ringing endorsement of legislation that would raise income tax rates slightly on those who make about a quarter of a million dollars a year, it’s a stark contrast to what Fox, who sponsored the most recent bill that lowered taxes to the rich, has said in the past.
Fox still sees “tax stability and predictability” as being attractive to business owners, said Berman, but his statement comes as the legislature grapples with how to plug a $51 million deficit after years of cuts to services to balance the state’s budget and Rep. Maria Cimini, a champion of the tax equity movement, sent a letter to House colleagues last week imploring them to support her bill that would raise about $66 million and prevent the state from having to cut more services.
She said years of austerity has left the state with little left to cut – as well as dangerously dilapidated roads and bridges and a workforce that is meeting the demands of a 21st century economy.
When I spoke to Cimini yesterday, she made a point of saying that the proposed legislation doesn’t seek to reverse the 2010 tax code changes, but rather than many tax breaks the legislature has given the affluent in recent years.
Much evidence has been presented over the past three legislative sessions that shows tax cuts to the wealthy didn’t stimulate the economy. While the evidence doesn’t prove the tax cuts caused the recession, it does show that the tax cuts didn’t stimulate job creation, as politicians and conservative pundits said they would.
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With state revenue projections lower than expected, progressive Providence Rep. Maria Cimini thinks income tax increases are more likely – and warranted – than corporate tax cuts.
“I’m concerned that for too long we’ve been penny wise and pound foolish,” Cimini said in an interview this morning.
In previous years, social services have been cut to balance the budget and preserve tax cuts to the wealthy.
“Last year people said give it another year,” Cimini said. “Well here we are at another year and we still can’t support our citizenry. If we don’t look at ways to enhance revenue this year then we are saying as a legislative body that we are willing t0 protect upper income workers at the expense of everyone else.”
Cimini is the lead sponsor of one of the tax equity bills that has been supported by about half the House in the past two legislative sessions. Her bill would raise an estimated $66 million in new revenue and the state projects a $51 million revenue shortfall. Cimini wanted to make “very clear” that her bill was not seeking to repeal the 2010 changes to the income tax but rather, she said it seeks to “address many years of tax breaks to the wealthy.”
She said Rhode Islanders, businesses and the economy would all benefit from rolling back some of these income tax cuts. “While businesses do talk about tax consistency,” she said, “they also talk about a trained workforce and functioning roads and bridges
Cimini wrote an impassioned letter to her colleagues on Thursday calling on them to support a more robust Rhode Island through tax equity legislation. In it, she wrote:
Dear Colleague,
I was disappointed to learn our estimated revenues are lower than anticipated. Perhaps you share my disappointment. Maybe you had hope that this would be the year to lower the corporate income tax. We could restore the historic tax credit. We could fast-track the school funding formula. Perhaps we could invest in public transportation, higher education or workforce development. With the news that we’re encountering a large revenue shortfall, however, those opportunities to better Rhode Island may be in danger or lost.
As budget negotiations and conversations speed up in the next few weeks we discuss and think about how to balance this budget. Balancing the state budget can be accomplished by cutting spending, raising revenue, or a combination of the two. This year I encourage you to consider raising revenue.
We all want the best for our state, our families and our businesses. This session we heard great ideas at our economic conference. Perhaps you hoped to implement Connecticut’s small loans to local businesses, provide a greater investment in software and hardware to have a fully accessible on-line system for business permitting, create the new business re-locator concierge program, expand a public-private job training program or work toward a world-class pre-K through higher education public education system. Unfortunately, without revenue, those investments may be impossible.
This is a smaller deficit than we’ve faced recently. Between 2008 and 2010 Rhode Island had deficits in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Each year we did what we were elected to do. We balanced the budget. While this year’s deficit pales in comparison, in some ways the challenge may be greater. We have largely balanced those budgets by cutting spending. Some of that has worked. Current reports indicate that our revenue shortfall would have been worse but for a reduction in human service caseloads which occurred in part due to more stringent time limits and a reduction in services. Some will say there is always more to cut. I argue that it will be harder to find cuts that don’t cause real pain to middle class families.
Last year I sponsored legislation to increase the marginal tax rate by 4 percent on personal income over $250,000 year. That legislation was co-sponsored by nearly half the Assembly. It contained a tax reduction plan to coincide with a reduction in unemployment and was estimated to bring in about $120 million in revenue. Unfortunately it did not pass. There was consensus that, at minimum, there needed to be a clearer understanding of the impact of tax changes that went into effect in 2010.
This year we face another budget shortfall. Again, nearly half the Assembly cosponsored this bill. I’ve proposed raising income taxes on upper income earners. I heard the concern of the business community. They feel consistency is important. They thought tying the income tax to unemployment was detrimental. That part of last year’s bill is gone. This year, I propose a simple 2% on $250,000.
With the benefit of another year of tax data and having made more budgetary cuts, it is time to have this discussion. It is true that upper income earners pay a large portion of the income tax, but that is because they have a large portion of the income. The number of tax returns filed in 2012 by households with income above $200,000 increased by 16.5% over 2011. By comparison, other income brackets saw the number of tax returns increase by about 2 to 7%. For the same time period, the rate of income growth of the top tax bracket tax filers was 25%, while the rate of income growth for the lower five income brackets ranged from 1.75%-7.5%.
Those who testified against increasing income taxes argued that government has a responsibility to keep taxes low for the benefit of business and citizens. But is that the primary responsibility of government? Right now, 70% of our roads are rated poor or mediocre. We face a 20 year cost of $428 million to maintain and upgrade our drinking water. Our much needed school infrastructure costs are nearly $700 million.
Because of our on-going budgetary shortfalls we are not only limited in our ability to fully invest in a robust Rhode Island moving forward, but we are also not fulfilling our obligations to provide our neighbors with the services they depend on and deserve.
Our out year expenses may be quite large and would not be fully addressed through this income tax proposal, but our role is to look forward. There are many other pieces of legislation that would have an upfront cost with long term savings. Our colleagues have plans to address public transit funding, address long term homelessness and create state programs to better track state funding, program success and accountability. Cutting spending may fix today’s budget, but will it result in an ill-prepared workforce in a decade or two? Will our tourism and industry suffer if we don’t protect our environment?
Rhode Islanders and our economy are struggling to come out of recession. During the recession, we worked to not raise taxes. Instead we cut services to seniors, people with disabilities and our most economically vulnerable citizens. We eliminated general revenue sharing to cities and towns, and raised fees. And these flat costs are often the same regardless of income or ability to pay.
Since 2008 program revenues (charges for services) have increased in the areas of general government, human services, public safety and transportation. And after a drop in revenue from taxes in the 2009/2010 fiscal years, our revenues have almost, once again, reached 2008 levels. Unfortunately we still are not making ends meet.
Let’s have a real conversation about our hopes for Rhode Island. This year, our budget process can be an opportunity. This is an opportunity to think about all the hopes for economic advancement we have for our state’s businesses and families. Those plans for economic improvement come with a cost. Let’s make it an investment in the common good.
Sincerely,
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The state could collect a much-needed $66 million in additional revenue by raising the income tax rate the richest 2 percent of residents pay by 2 percent. That’s the message tax equity advocates will announce at a press conference at the State House this afternoon.
“We can’t keep going down this failed path,” said Kristina Fox, who works for Ocean State Action. “RI needs a more equitable tax code that brings in revenue fairly to fund public programs and services that we all benefit from.”
Rep. Maria Cimini and Senator Juan Pichardo, both of Providence, are sponsoring a bill that would roll back some of the tax cuts bestowed on the richest Rhode Islanders during the previous decade. Their proposal would raise the rate from 5.99 percent to 7.99 percent of those who make more than $250,000 a year.
“This is a common sense solution to the biggest problem facing our state,” Fox said.
Tax advocates say the additional revenue could be used to increase state aid to cities and towns. When former Gov. Don Carcieri and the legislature gave tax breaks to the rich, they did so in part by slashing aid to cities and towns. This is what led to the financial catastrophes in Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket and West Warwick.
Not only did Rhode Island’s urban areas struggle because of the rapid decline in state aid, but the rationale for the tax cuts never materialized. In fact, unemployment in Rhode Island has skyrocketed since the tax cuts of 2006 and 2010 and the cuts in state aid, which you can see in this chart:
Or you can watch this video that the group Rhode Islander for Tax Equity created last year:
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Tonight’s your chance to help bring tax fairness to Rhode Island. Ocean State Action is holding a phone bank party its headquarters at 99 Bald Hill Rd. in Cranston from 5:30 to 8 p.m.
“We’ll be mobilizing Rhode Islanders from Woonsocket to Westerly to contact their elected officials in support of tax fairness,” said Kristina Fox, who is leading OSA’s tax equity campaign. “Every phone call counts, and we need your help to reach as many folks as possible.”
Last session, Ocean State Action lobbied hard for the legislature to pass Rep. Maria Cimini and Senator Josh Miller’s tax equity bill. That legislation would have increased taxes on those who earn more than $250,000 annually but also tying that tax rate to the unemployment rate to encourage job growth.
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As Rhode Island struggles to pull itself out of the recession many have been asked to sacrifice. Cities and towns have seen drastic cuts in state aid, schools have had their budgets cut, the poor have endured program cuts and public sector employees have had their benefits slashed.
Now it’s time to ask Rhode Island’s wealthiest residents to help out, too.
There are a number of bills before the General Assembly this year that would do this by creating new tax brackets for the state’s wealthiest residents with the most interesting one being a bill sponsored by Maria Cimini, D- Providence.
“We’ve really called on low and middle income Rhode Islanders to feel the pain of this recession,” Cimini said. “I don’t feel that we’ve called on upper income Rhode Islanders to feel that pain or share that sacrifice.”
Her bill, H7729, would increase the amount of income taxes people pay who make more than $250,000 a year from 5.99 percent to 9.99%.
“What this bill does is calls upon people who are better off to chip in during this time of economic crisis,” she said.
A similar bill proposed by Rep. Larry Valencia in the previous legislation was estimated to bring in about $130 million to the state coffers. That’s about a third as much as the landmark pension reform bill passed in the fall saved the state.
The bill would actual restore the tax rate to the exact level that former Governor Donald Carcieri cut it from (at the time, Carcieri said doing so would spur economic development in the state), except instead of being applied to everyone making more than $125,000 – or the richest 20 percent of Rhode Island – it would only apply to those who make more than $250,000 – or the richest 4 percent of the state.
Cimini’s bill also offers an economic incentive for the so-called job creators to actually creating jobs in the state. According to Cimini, the tax rate increase proposed in her bill would drop by one percentage point with every percentage point that the state unemployment rate drops. So if the unemployment rate drops from 10 percent to 9 percent, the tax rate increase would drop from 4 percent to 3 percent. The potential decrease would be capped at the same amount as the proposed increase.
“What this bill does if you do hire people and you do help to lower unemployment in Rhode Island,” she said, “we will recognize those efforts.”
Cimini said there are 37 co-sponsors of the bill – that’s almost half of the 75-member House of Representatives. On the Senate side, Josh Miller, D- Cranston, is expected to introduce similar legislation.
Similarly, Sen. Harold Metts, D-Prov, has introduced a bill that would increase income taxes on people making more than $500,000 by 3 percent. Even Gary Sasse, who helped orchestrate the Carcieri tax cuts, has said that he thinks taxes should be raised on Rhode Island’s wealthiest. But he suggested only raising taxes by less than 1 percent on those who earn more than $400,000 annually, which would only mean an additional $10 million in state revenue.
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