Rhode Island Small Business Economic Summit

May 2, 2016May 2, 2016

Time for progressives to Bern down Mattiello’s estate tax reform

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As the results of last Tuesday’s primary show, RI Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello is seriously out of step with Rhode Island voters. Progressives in this state demonstrated the kind of change they want, yet instead of course-correcting, the speaker is doubling down on policies Tuesday’s vote clearly rejected.

One key reform Mattiello has his eye on is lowering the estate tax, the tax levied exclusively on dead millionaires. In the ProJo, Mattiello said he is “‘hearing from successful folks in Rhode Island pretty regularly lately’ that, without assistance, ‘they will be forced to leave the state,’ adding that he is going to ‘work hard to get [this] done in the budget.’”

This isn’t a new idea for the Speaker. Back in January, at the 2016 Rhode Island Small Business Economic Summit, Grafton H. “Cap” Wiley IV told Governor Gina Raimondo, Speaker Mattiello and a room full of government officials and small business owners that “it would be great if we had enough revenue to get rid of the estate tax” or if we don’t have enough revenue, “look at an increase in the exemption.”

“That’s something I’ve got my eye on,” said Mattiello.

Here’s the problem: Lowering or eliminating the estate tax does nothing for the economy. It doesn’t lead to greater entrepreneurship, doesn’t create jobs and doesn’t put money back into the economy. It’s a straight up giveaway to the 1 percent. And lest we forget, the care and comfort of the 1 percent has always been Speaker Mattiello’s primary concern. Remember his comment last year that his “well-to-do” neighbors don’t see any tax relief?

The suggestion that “successful folks” are being “forced to leave the state” because of the estate tax is frankly idiotic. This economic hokum has been debunked time and again, yet our speaker clings to this lie to justify giving more money to the already rich.

To quote the speaker, “that discussion has to stop.”

Let your legislators know that you oppose these tax cuts for the rich. Tell them what their priorities should be. Remind them of the results of Tuesday’s primary, and let’s start using our newfound progressive political power to effect real, positive change.

February 5, 2016

House Prayer Breakfast well intentioned, but dangerous

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2016-02-04 Prayer Breakfast003 — Bishop Knisely

When Representative Robert Lancia (R District 16, Cranston) announced that he was hosting the first House National Prayer Breakfast on the floor of the House and thanked Speaker Nicholas Mattiello for his support in making it happen, I knew I had to attend.

Prayer and religion are very important to many Americans and their elected representatives, but our country and Rhode Island in particular was founded on a secular vision of governance that allows each person to bring their convictions to the discussion, but not impose those convictions on anyone else. An official House of Representatives sponsored event blurs the lines between church and state, even when the event being held strives mightily to be “interfaith,” inclusive and welcoming to all.

Lancia said that he sees the prayer breakfast as an opportunity to network, a chance to bring together the political and religious community. He hopes this will be the first of many such events.

Guest speaker Bishop Nicholas Knisely of the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island concurred with Lancia. He also hopes that this event might be the first of a series of such breakfasts, a chance to bring legislators together not as government officials, “but as people who have a commitment to a spiritual life.” Such connections, said Knisely, “maybe cannot be made in any other way.”

Yet I was there when business leaders directly petitioned government leaders in January at the 2016 Rhode Island Small Business Economic Summit held at Bryant University, and I was at the Convention Center the day before the prayer breakfast, with Rep Lancia and dozens of other legislators at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce luncheon. This year’s legislative agenda was shaped by these events where the business community told the legislature what it expects to happen this year.

I was at the State House when the Rhode Island Interfaith Coalition to Reduce Poverty presented their legislative ideas to Governor Gina Raimondo, Speaker Mattiello and Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed. The fact that the business community will get most of what they ask for and that the religious community will not tells us a lot about the way religion is used by our government, and why we should be wary of mixing church and state.

This year I have watched every session of the House and Senate and every session begins with a prayer. So far this year the legislature has prayed for nearly 15 minutes, loudly and publicly, even as they largely ignore the ideas of the Interfaith Poverty Coalition when drafting and passing their legislation.

At one point during his prayer breakfast talk Bishop Knisely pointed out that the Pilgrims left England to get away from the religious tradition he represents. (And I’ll note here that Roger Williams founded Rhode Island to get away from the Pilgrims, who were no better in respecting religious differences.) Knisely talked about the ways in which “religious and language differences were used by the mill owners [of New England] to make sure mill workers did not organize.” This is the danger of religion and state becoming too close: spirituality becomes a weapon against the underclass.

When religion is used to provide a sheen of morality to the exploits of government officials and business leaders, people do not prosper, they are instead righteously exploited. The prayers that begin each legislative session may mean something to the legislators bowing their heads, but the deeper purpose is propagandist. They are invoking the name of God to justify their power, not the will of the people, and doing so in defiance of democracy.

To those who value their religion, the prayer breakfast may seem like an innocuous idea, but to those who do not pray, or to those who find little of value in the ideas of faith, spirituality and God, these events are exclusionary and even a little frightening.

I don’t want my government engaged in prayer, and really, no religious person should want that either. Every religious tradition has multiple stories of being persecuted by governments under the sway of a rival religion. Today we might be praying to the Gods and enacting the religious codes you believe in, but tomorrow may bring strange Gods that don’t have your best interests in mind.

Best to keep church and state separate.

2016-02-04 Prayer Breakfast002 — Rep Michael Chippendale

January 15, 2016April 30, 2016

The Estate Tax is a solution, not a problem

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At the 2016 Rhode Island Small Business Economic Summit (Summit), Grafton H. “Cap” Wiley IV told Governor Gina Raimondo, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and a room full of government officials and small business owners that “it would be great if we had enough revenue to get rid of the estate tax” or if we don’t have enough revenue, “look at an increase in the exemption.”

“That’s something I’ve got my eye on,” said Mattiello, offering to collaborate with the business community to do something about it.

The idea of reforming the estate tax came out of a previous Summit, said Wiley, and the important thing, he continued, looking towards Raimondo and Mattiello, is that, “you guys are listening.”

“Rhode Island ends up at the bottom of a lot of the ratings of taxes and business climate,” said Wiley, and though he did not specify to what ratings he was referring, two annual business climate rankings, the SBEC (Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council)’s Small Business Policy Index and ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council)’s Rich States, Poor States, include the mere existence of a state level estate tax as a negative in their questionable formulas for determining a state’s ranking.

The problem, says economist Peter Fisher, is that “the estate tax – which is paid only by the ultra-wealthy – doesn’t affect economic growth.”

Fisher says that Rich States, Poor States author Arthur Laffer, “and his co-authors devote an entire chapter to estate and inheritance taxes, incorrectly tagging them as ‘job killers’ that ‘strangle economic growth.’”

Laffer and company assert that states with an estate tax are losing ‘enormous amounts of accumulated wealth,’ and that this wealth would have created jobs, alleviated poverty, and increased tax revenue, but they fail to explain how this would happen. The wealth held by retirees typically is not the kind of capital normally used in job creation. The wealth that drives prosperity consists of real assets: natural resources, plant and equipment, public infrastructure, human capital, technological knowledge. By contrast, large estates typically consist of real estate, stocks and bonds, mutual funds, and other financial assets which could be located anywhere in the world. The future use of those assets is unaffected by where the person who owned them died.”

So why would Mattiello be so eager to look at an idea that amounts to both failed tax policy and a giveaway to the mega rich? As Bob Plain showed, the last time RI messed with the estate tax, the burden of public services and infrastructure was shifted onto poor and middle class Rhode Islanders, allowing the rich and the mega rich to become richer still. These policies contribute to our ever increasing wealth inequality and pervert our democracy, tilting us ever faster towards an oligarchy represented by the likes of “Cap” Wiley, if we aren’t there already.

Citing an Economic Progress Institute (EPI) fact sheet, Plain wrote, “The clear winners are a small number of wealthy taxpayers whose estates will pay less in taxes and in many cases, nothing at all starting next year. The clear losers are tens of thousands of low- and modest-income Rhode Islanders who will pay more in taxes next year. Unemployed homeowners and renters are among the biggest losers, because they will no longer qualify for property tax assistance and are not eligible for the earned income tax credit (EITC). Many of the lowest-wage workers will also be negatively impacted by the loss of the property tax refund, even with an eventual boost in the EITC.”

“SBEC’s stated mission, says Fisher, “is to ‘encourage entrepreneurship and small business growth,'” but “its lobbying activities reveal a very conservative, anti-government agenda.” ALEC, “is a mechanism by which corporations pay substantial sums of money to draft legislation benefiting them.” Neither group has the interests of state economies or average citizens in mind when they advance their agendas under the guise of “economic research.” These groups are made up entirely of the oligarchic prosperous and their servile, deluded sycophants.

Our gullible state leaders are not searching for real economic solutions to our state’s budgeting issues, they are instead looking for the excuses they need to pass the legislation their corporate masters demand.

To truly help our economy and budget, instead of eliminating the estate tax we should be increasing it.

Also, do yourself a favor and familiarize yourself with Peter Fisher’s website:

January 8, 2016

Business leaders decide issues elected officials will pursue at economic summit

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“Today is about you putting your issues on the table and [about] how you can influence the decision making process that we have in this great state,” Mark Hayward, District Director of the Rhode Island Small Business Association (SBA) told an eager gathering of business owners, lobbyists and politicians, “Your participation at this Summit will essentially decide… the direction of [economic and business] issues that are going to be critical to you over the next year.”

The 2016 Rhode Island Small Business Economic Summit (Summit) is held at Bryant University and sponsored by the SBA and the Center for Women and Enterprise. A long list of state senators, representatives and gubernatorial staff come out to this event every year. Big names include Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, General Treasurer Seth Magaziner and Governor Gina Raimondo. It took Hayward two minutes to list the the government reps appearing, and he didn’t get them all. It’s the kind of political access social justice groups cannot imagine.

The point, says Hayward, “is to provide an opportunity for members of the small business community to have a discussion with members of the General Assembly and the [Governor’s] administration and,” he says, “over the years, we have succeeded because many of the issues that are being taken up today, derive from the Summit.”

2016-01-08 Economic Summit — The sold old Summit

Hayward introduced speaker Stefan Pryor, Rhode Island’s Secretary of Commerce. Pryor painted a rosy picture of Rhode Island’s economic future, saying, “We’re beginning to see the optimism lift, we’re beginning to see the unemployment drop, we are starting to see the new projects start, and we are starting to see the pessimism dissipate.”

Pryor did not mention the cruel poverty that affects nearly 1 in 5 children in our state, but he did mention that the state is “still suffering from unemployment. We still compete for the worst unemployment rate in New England.”

Pryor did not draw a connection between the high unemployment, high poverty and what he called a “favorable tax climate” for business. “We have the lowest corporate tax rate in the northeast, a hard-earned distinction at 7 percent. In the recent session we completely eliminated the sales tax on energy, the Business Energy Tax. It’s not an easy tax to eliminate a tax entirely but it’s gone. Gone forever.”

Pryor assured those in attendance that Rhode Island will not be raising taxes on business owners. “We have not raised a major tax, corporate, income or sales, in twenty years,” said the Secretary with pride, “Think about that relative to tax stability and at the same time we’re axing taxes.

“Why do we think we can maintain that kind of stability going forward? In this past session we put the final touches on and solidified pension reform that then General Treasurer Raimondo had begun. With all your help, Medicaid reform, in a substantial way, was undertaken.

“These structural reforms will save Rhode Islanders over $4 billion dollars over the next 20 years” and “this will ensure future retirement security and future budgetary stability, said Pryor, “That’s the platform we’re building. The hybrid of generations of discipline and not raising taxes, even when times were tough.

“These are the signs of responsible budgeting and sensible fiscal stewardship.”

You can watch all of Pryor’s remark Here: