Taxes – Page 3 – RI Future

May 2, 2012May 2, 2012

South County Chamber Gets the Nod – Budget Passes

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The South Kingstown Town Council, in a session often resembling a scene from a junior high lunch table, passed the Town budget for fiscal year 2012 – 2013 in total. In a 4-0 vote, with one recusal, the budget was adopted – inclusive of a contentious $7000 line item allowance to the South County Chamber of Commerce.

Refereeing council members and town residents, Council Chair Ella Whaley urged all to stay on task in getting issues resolved and the budget passed.

From the outset, the meeting was heated as Council member Polly Eddy was asked to recuse herself from the vote, due to her position on the Executive Committee of Thundermist Health Center. Eddy who presently sits on the Executive Committee of the private non-profit organization, has held the position of President of the organization in past years, as well as sitting as a senior member of the South Kingstown Town Council.

In anticipation of the budget adoption, which in accordance with the Town Charter has to be completed by May 1, town resident and democratic committee member, Deborah Bergner submitted a letter requesting the removal of $7000 from the preliminary budget, slated for the South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to the petition she garnered, already an agenda item, Bergner’s letter received just prior to the meeting, repeated her ongoing contention that the South Kingstown Chamber of Commerce was acting in dual capacities, as a chamber and a political PAC.

“I feel that no taxpayer money should be given to a political organization. By forming a pack with little or no separation from the chamber itself, and becoming actively involved in local politics, they forfeited their right to receive money from the taxpayers,” Bergner corresponded.

Rebutting the contents of the letter on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce was Richard Pike, Chair of the South Kingstown Political Action Committee, explaining that the PAC operates separately from the chamber, was adamant that any funds appropriation from the Town would not be seen by the PAC.

“The $7000 – I can assure you, not one penny would go toward the political action committee.” Pike went on to add. “Anybody that thinks it’s not a good idea really needs to wake up and listen to some of the [things] that are going on. Businesses are hurting. They need help.”

In a tete-a-tete battle between council members and residents alike, the sometimes pathetic posturing of a political battle to come was revealed.

Supporting Bergner’s position was Maureen Martin, also a town resident, admonishing the council’s bantering in deciding the fate of Bergner’s petition and the Town’s budget before them for passage. Referencing councilman, James O’Neill’s comments with regards to the petition, Martin spoke.

“As I sit here as a citizen, I feel totally disrespected already. To refer to the petition that several South Kingstown residents signed as pathetic, is in and of itself, pathetic.” In addressing the petition before the Council in opposition to the Chamber expenditure, Martin expressed her belief that the funds were not appropriate for an organization not deemed non-profit.

“I do not think that the taxpayers of South Kingstown should be footing the bill for administrative costs of an organization that does not provide services to the needy, but instead participates in lobbying activities.”

Challenged by Carol Hagen McEntee, Council Vice President, Martin was asked to answer why the expenditure had never been questioned in the past. “Last year at this time we gave the $7000 unanimously. By your own admission, you have been a resident for [many] years. This has been going on for 21 years and you have never come forward and felt that this appropriation should be challenged. Why this year?”

“A couple of things – one is I didn’t know,” responded Martin. “I admittedly have not been actively involved in local politics. Had I known, it may have been different.”

After 2 hours, two motions were presented to the Council. The first, a motion to deny the resident petition in opposition to the Chamber appropriation, passed in a 4-1 vote, with member Polly Eddy the sole nay. Council member, Kathleen Fogarty, in a surprising turn of events, voted in support of the line item for the Chamber.

The second motion, the Town’s annual budget adoption, passed in a unanimous action, with Mrs. Eddy’s recusal on record.

At the end of it all, Town Manager, Steven Alfred was pleased with the outcome. “We have adopted a budget that supports our ability to provide for the Town and residents based on the financial situation before us. We are providing residents with the maximum benefit we can.”

April 25, 2012April 25, 2012

Budgeting for Disaster: How Budgets Are Cut

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I was at the hearing at House Finance last night, talking about tax cuts for rich people. The remarkable thing about all the tax cuts we’ve given over the past 16 years is not that we’ve given them, but how we’ve paid for them.

As we saw in the last installment, the story of the past 16 years has been relentless cuts in state income taxes on the top 1% of taxpayers. The cuts have come in several different forms, but the result has been the same: dramatically lower taxes on the top end, much smaller changes for everyone else.

That’s bad enough, but the real tragedy of the tax cutting of the past 16 years is that not a single one of the tax cuts passed by the General Assembly was paid for. The income tax cut of 1997, the car tax cut of the same year, the capital gains tax cut of 2001, and the flat tax cut of 2006 were all “phased in” to avoid having to make the tough decisions people are always talking about.

But the reduced state revenue had to be made up somehow. How did we do it? Over that time, we haven’t cut any major programs. So does this mean that government was too fat? Do we owe a debt of gratitude to the Almond and Carcieri administrations for finally starving the beast down to an affordable size? I’d like to share with you my observations of the five different ways to cut a budget, only the first of which has any claim to being a hard choice:

Terminate a program or benefit.
Supply a program or benefit in a more efficient fashion.
Supply a program or benefit in a shoddier fashion.
Borrow to hide the shortfall.
Foist the cost onto somebody with another source of income.

In my review of state budget cuts over the past decade, I find very few examples of the first method, though there are some. Certainly the Medicaid program is somewhat less generous than it was a decade ago. We cut services for legal immigrant children and pregnant women, for example. But how many other examples are there? I don’t support Governor Chafee’s proposal to terminate funding of WSBE television, but I applaud him for having the temerity to actually propose ending a fairly popular program.

For the second method, there are a few good examples. The recent reorganization at DMV might qualify. Though it also required some new personnel, they are now providing better service with not too many more people. DOT’s proposal to get designs and buildings from the same contractor has promise in this regard, and the construction of the new train station in Wickford seems to have turned out well.

Unfortunately, too many of these border on examples of the third category: just doing a shoddier job. The General Assembly has, over the years, been not at all deferential to the judgment of department heads and experts about what is actually possible within the budget constraints presented, with disaster or shoddy service frequently resulting. The transfer of 17-year-olds from the Training School to the ACI a few years ago is an example, and last year’s cut to BHDDH funding is another. A couple of years ago, delays in food stamp processing were so great that the state lost a class-action suit on the issue.

The Department of Transportation’s shameful neglect of maintenance is still another example. Seventeen homes and four businesses in Tiverton are gone today because DOT didn’t maintain the Sakonnet Bridge adequately and they were in the way of the replacement bridge. Nor are they alone in their neglect of maintenance, as any visit to a state facility will attest. A few years ago, URI estimated the cost of deferred maintenance on their campus to be over $400 million, not so much less than a year’s budget.

Category four is excessive borrowing, and DOT has been a prime offender in the category, and so have the colleges, creating fancy new buildings while cutting back on the staff and projects that should be filling them. Governor Chafee has proposed cutting back the DOT borrowing.

It’s probably the fifth category that has seen the most exercise. In the drive to cut taxes on rich people, the state has cut funding to: municipal governments and school departments who have to make it up with property taxes; to colleges who have to make it up with tuitions; to Medicaid recipients who have to make it up with co-pays; to everyone who fishes, drives, or runs a hospital who have to make it up with increased license fees, and to many more. We’ve even taken it from prisoners, for heaven’s sake, with parole fees, home confinement fees and medical co-pays. Property tax payers, students, poor people, and prisoners have paid for the tax cuts of the last 16 years.

One important point about these categories, is that numbers three and four are only the illusion of cutting costs, and generally make things more expensive in the long run. And number five doesn’t cut costs at all, either. If you want an explanation of why government in Rhode Island is expensive, look here.

Let’s be clear: courage is not foisting costs off onto others, nor is it insisting the state do its job badly. It is not borrowing to hide shortfalls or pushing costs into the next year. Calling for efficiency is laudable, but it is not courage, either. (Nor should it be confused with actually finding efficiencies.)

Courage means honesty. It means assessing with honesty our past policies, and not hiding behind some claim that we have to wait and see the effect of tax cuts we’ve been waiting for over a decade to see. It means honestly assessing claims that rose petals will fall from the sky if only we can avoid asking rich people to pay their fair share. It means honestly assessing what our state needs to do and finding a fair way to raise all the revenue with which to do it. Honesty is hard, the reason it’s equivalent to courage.

So listen skeptically when you hear someone — a member of the legislature, an anti-tax activist, or a friend — talking about making those tough choices. Are they talking about categories two through five? Those aren’t tough, so don’t let them hide there.

April 24, 2012April 24, 2012

Budgeting for Disaster: Taxing History

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Is it really too soon to modify our tax code?

In the discussions of taxes at the State House, one line you hear a lot this year is that our state’s new income tax code is new and we should give it time to see how it works out. That’s what House Speaker Gordon Fox has said, and I’m hearing that it’s the line of the day on Smith Hill, available from any of the House or Senate leadership.

This is, of course, a silly point to make. The tax changes made last year basically just baked in the low taxes on rich people offered by the “flat tax” alternative. It used to be that a rich person could choose whether to pay tax under the tax code everyone else uses or using the flat tax limit, and now the flat tax limit is part of the code everyone else uses. This part may be new, but the overall “strategy” at issue — lower taxes on rich people, expect economy to get better — has been the order of the day in Rhode Island for a long time. To illustrate what’s really been going on in Rhode Island tax policy, I put together the following graph.

The blue line is the effective RI income tax rate on a fairly typical taxpayer in the top 1% over the last 16 years, with the various cuts that taxpayer has received indicated. These cuts don’t count tax credits like the film production or historic structures credits, which are typically only available to high-income individuals and which make the effective rate even lower. The black line indicates the effective tax rate on the median taxpayer (the 50th percentile). You can see a slight decline in the 1997-2002 period, but the other changes didn’t do much of anything for them.

The unemployment rate, of course, has nothing to do with the tax rate, except as a rhetorical club used to beat people about the head and neck. There is no evidence that it has any causal relationship with the state tax rate (in either direction), but the relationship between taxes and “job creators” is commonly invoked to persuade lawmakers to support lower taxes. I’ve included the unemployment rate on the graph as a service, so you can see how little is has to do with the movement of taxes.

One more thing you should know about this graph. There is some evidence available that the 2012 tax changes raised taxes substantially on the middle percentiles of taxpayers. Unfortunately, it’s premature to say more than that, since the data won’t be available until later this year, at the earliest.

The House Finance Committee is holding a hearing on several bills designed to raise taxes on the top 1% Tuesday afternoon at 4:30pm in State House room 35. Rep. Maria Cimini (D-Providence) is the prime sponsor (with 36 co-sponsors) of a bill to raise the taxes on people earning more than $250,000 per year by four percentage points, with that top rate coming down as the unemployment rate also goes down. Think of it as a “pay for performance” clause for rich people. There are also bills by Rep. Larry Valencia (D-Charlestown, Exeter, Richmond) and Scott Guthrie (D-Coventry) that will have more or less the same effect, though the income limits and tax changes are slightly different (neither of those bills have the unemployment clause).

April 23, 2012April 24, 2012

Ontario Poses Conflict for Conservative Ideology

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OK, I recently spent some time in Ontario.

Which, is part of Canada, but it’s only a part. I cannot speak about Canada as a whole, but I can speak about Ontario.

Ontario has a much higher tax burden than any state (including RI and NJ) in the USofA. Gas costs more than $5 per gallon. It has universal health care. The minimum wage is $10.25 per hour. Union density remains very high. Factory jobs pay well. The regulatory environment makes California look like a Libertarian paradise.

IOW, it’s a socialist heck-hole.

If one listens to RW ‘economists’, these conditions mean that the economy of Ontario has to–HAS TO!!–be in the tank, right? According to every RW pundit and crank and know-nothing, all of those conditions mean that the economy has to–HAS TO!!–be creeping along at a negative growth rate. It’s a law of nature. Taxes, regulation, unions, high minimum wage, any one of these are job killers. The whole group of them must be–MUST BE!!–Economy Killers.

Right? Right! Ayn Rand said so!

Guess what? The economy of Ontario is booming. There was no financial crisis. Why not? The regulatory environment didn’t allow the banking system (or shadow banking system, which pretty much doesn’t exist north of the border) to play Russian Roulette the way banks here did.

The high minimum wage means that even people working low-end service jobs have money to spend. And they spend it. Which stimulates the economy. Just like Henry Ford said would happen.

The universal health care means less time is lost to sickness, and that sick people get care before they end up in the emergency room, and cost 5-6 times what it should cost to treat them. Costs which uninsured people pass on to the rest of us. So their health care system produces comparable results at about half the cost.

(Ah, I can hear it: but but but you have to wait six months for a hip replacement!! Yeah. What’s the point? Hip replacements are elective. Yes, they make people’s lives better, but they aren’t generally a matter of life and death. And, who gets most hip replacements in the US? Folks with single-payer health insurance. Except here we call it “Medicare”.)

My point is that, according to Ayn Rand, and Paul Ryan, Charles Krauthammer and the WSJ (and too many others to name), the economy of Ontari0 has to–HAS TO!!– be dismal. In fact, it’s great.

How is that possible? Could it be (gasp!) that RW ‘economics’ is actually an ideological position, completely divorced from the way the real world actually works?

That’s exactly what it means. The stuff that RW ‘economists’ claim is actually an ideological belief that has nothing to do with how the economy in the real world actually works.

Don’t believe me? Go to Ontario. Look at the cranes in Toronto, the spanking-new factories along the highway, the huge numbers of houses being built in London, the industry in Sarnia.

April 18, 2012April 19, 2012

The Tax Foundation Can’t Help Themselves

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I see the Tax Foundation has some issues with disparaging comments I made about their data the other day. Scott Drenkard, one of their analysts, published a kind of defense, but managed to completely miss my point.

Here’s the story. The Tax Foundation, a DC “think tank”, put out a press release listing “Tax Freedom” dates for all the states. In their telling, you’ve been working for the government since January 1, and you only get to keep the money you earn after Tax Freedom day. In Rhode Island, that was April 15. In Massachusetts, it won’t be until April 22, and so on.

It’s an effective way to illustrate the point, which I suppose is why they do it, but there are some serious problems with their analysis. Topping the list, the state taxes included in their analysis count taxes you pay to other states. Rhode Islanders pay sales taxes in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and gas taxes that wind up in Alaska, and presumably income taxes to whatever states they happen to earn wages in if they work somewhere else. Fine. Maybe this is interesting to someone, but the point of information is to inform. If I want to know whether my state government is making good decisions, how will this help me? It won’t, because whatever decisions my state makes are mixed up with decisions other states have made.

And this isn’t even the end of it. Here’s more:

The taxes we all pay are dominated by federal taxes. Because that federal tax is still somewhat progressive, the Tax Foundation analysis makes it appear that wealthy states have heavier tax rates than poorer states, just because they collect more money per person. Looking at their data, you might think that Massachusetts is more heavily taxed than Rhode Island, but in truth you can’t learn that from their data because there are multiple reasons why Massachusetts might be higher on the list. Their information has failed to inform about the very question you might consult the list to answer.
The Tax Foundation data pretends to be for the current tax year, which is silly. The tax year 2012 isn’t even half over, and the most of the relevant data won’t be available until late 2013, at the earliest. Some components of those data will see multiple revisions before 2014. Municipal tax rates for half the year haven’t been set yet. The Tax Foundation is just guessing. Here’s the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities on how they’ve done in the past in this guessing game:

For example, the Tax Foundation’s 2002 report claimed that since 2000, tax burdens had risen in 38 states, fallen in five states, and not changed in seven states. When the Census Bureau released its data for 2002, it found that only four states’ tax burdens had risen, while tax burdens in 43 states had fallen (burdens were unchanged in three states).

In other words, the information is likely wrong, but we won’t know until late next year.
The Tax Foundation analysis completely overlooks the distribution of taxes. “Taxes” are not one thing, they are many things. Poor people pay more sales and property taxes proportional to their incomes than rich people do. Rich people pay more income taxes proportional to their income than poor people do. Are these among the reasons states differ? The Tax Foundation data can’t say. The same tax rate pulls in far more money in rich towns than in poor ones. Which one is more heavily taxed? The Tax Foundation information can’t tell you.
Tax Foundation property tax estimates don’t differentiate between areas with lots of vacation homes and those without. Block Island has a tiny tax rate because it has many multi-million dollar homes owned by people who don’t have kids in their schools, and most of whom don’t even live there. Much of the states of Maine (“Vacationland” says their license plates) and New Hampshire are in a similar situation. The tax assessor of Conway, NH told me once that almost half of their property tax bills are sent out of state. Are low taxes there a function of town policy or factors beyond their control? The Tax Foundation statistics can’t say.

An analysis that overlooks all these factors is a waste of pixels that could be better used to portray a kitten. These are numbers whose only legitimate use is to refute their own use. This is not scholarship. It is what Richard Hofstadter called, in his epic 1964 takedown of the intellectual style of the American right wing, the “apparatus of scholarship, even of pedantry.” It might look like scholarship, but the merest peek under the covers gives the game away and you discover vast tables of well-documented but unreliable numbers that don’t tell you what you think they might.

Sadly for our nation, the Tax Foundation has a reputable address and lots of money. They can afford a substantial staff who all wear nice ties in their pictures. (The women don’t, but there are only two of them, a law clerk and the senior fundraiser.) This is enough to garner respect in some quarters, and so their press releases are reproduced in our nation’s newspapers and state and federal legislators talk about their lists. And despite the many ways in which their lists are inadequate guides to policy action, that is precisely the way they are routinely used here in Rhode Island, to our detriment.

Because of the use their numbers get and the respect their address and funding earn, I’ve been checking out Tax Foundation data for almost two decades and have learned something about them. To their credit, they have voluminous footnotes — part of that “apparatus of scholarship” — where they amply document the strangeness of their analysis. What I’ve learned from those footnotes over the years is never to use their numbers. Like the example above, I can always trust their numbers to be right — about the wrong things.

Here’s the point: rankings are simple, but taxes are complicated. If all you know about taxes is where your state falls on a Tax Foundation list, you really don’t know much. Enjoy their lists — I certainly have had great entertainment from them over the years — but for heaven’s sake don’t use them.

April 17, 2012April 17, 2012

Learning to Love Taxes

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Instead of bemoaning Tax Day, we ought to celebrate it as a national holiday. It’s the day we chip in to pay for the services we all rely on to live our lives.

After all, who among us doesn’t benefit from taxes? Anyone who drives certainly does. Anyone who likes to spend a hot summer day at the beach does too. We’ve triumphed in wars due in no small part to outspending our enemies. And find me the person who thinks the United States would be better off if it didn’t have public schools and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t understand how the world works.

Here in Rhode Island, we have a particular problem with seeing taxes as a good thing. Consider this: a bill that would inject $40 million into our public schools is known as the meals tax because it would add $2 to every $100 dinner at a restaurant or 40 cents to every $20 lunch or breakfast. Why doesn’t the media call this the education investment bill? Similarly, a bill that infuse our health department with $45 million is called the soda tax because it would add a penny onto every ounce of sugary beverage.

Elizabeth Warren, Senate candidate in Massachusetts, once famously said of taxes: “You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.”

But despite the preponderance of evidence showing that taxes are, in fact, a good thing, Americans still love little more than to complain about their contribution.

Though I think this outlook is inherently bad for society, I can understand why people feel this way. For one, the United States was literally founded on the idea of paying lower taxes. Your high school history teacher may have told you it was all about freedom and democracy, but it was just as much about not ponying up to throne. Thus, it has become ingrained in our cultural understanding that taxes are bad, and if you don’t begrudge them you must, therefore, be opposed to freedom.

But, in truth, and most rational people will agree, that taxes are good. Some, fiscal conservatives in particular, just think we pay too much of them. In other words, they want to pay taxes for the services they use, but not for the services they don’t.

However, there is a fundamental flaw in this line of reasoning and it can be summed up as simply as the old saying, “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.”

We’re actually seeing this play out live in Rhode Island right now. Our underfunded urban areas giving the entire state a bad name from coast to coast. In fact, just last week, Colin Kane, testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, said investors are afraid to invest in Rhode Island bonds because of the situation in Central Falls.

And just think how much better off our state would be if all school districts were as wealthy as East Greenwich and Barrington – this state would be cranking out job creators like nobody’s business!

One of the most important takeaways from the Occupy movement is that when society becomes inequitable, as it has increasingly become, people will take to the streets. The more inequity there is, the more people will take to the streets. Trust me, the very last thing the affluent class wants is for the lower and middle class folks to be taking to the streets. Indeed, most social service programs were instituted to insulate the job creators rather than to coddle to the job seekers.

Hating taxes is a completely outdated notion that may have worked when our country was still growing and flush with natural resources. But now that neither of those things are necessarily true anymore, we need to start seeing taxes as the societal good that they are.

So the next time you safely drive to the beach while your kids are on summer recess, you can say to yourself: but for our collective contributions, I wouldn’t have it nearly so good.

April 16, 2012April 18, 2012

Celebrate Rhode Island’s Taxes

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Did you know you live in a low-tax state? According to the Tax Foundation, average taxes per person in Rhode Island are lower than in any other northeast state besides Maine, and lower than Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Delaware, and Virginia.

Each year, you see, the tribunes of wealth and privilege who run the Tax Foundation calculate the date of “Tax Freedom Day” to make a point about how much our nation pays in taxes. The idea is that your pay from January 1 until tax freedom day goes to federal, state, and local taxes and the rest of the year is for you. It’s a perfect expression of our national tax allergy, since TF day comes without a trace of a mention of what we get for that money. Nope, the Tax Foundation is all about the price of government, not about its value.

But put that kind of scoffing aside, what do they show? According to their calculations, TF day comes on April 15 in Rhode Island, compared to April 22 in Massachusetts, May 1 in New York, April 11 in Texas, April 23 in Wyoming, April 17 in Utah, April 17 in Delaware, and April 18 in Nevada. The only state north and east of West Virginia that has an earlier TF day is Maine (April 8). Hooray for low taxes!

Of course my experience with the Tax Foundation says that you can trust their numbers, but it always pays to read the footnotes so you know what those numbers actually are because they are seldom what you think. In the footnotes and cross-references, you learn, for example, that their calculations of state taxes usually include the state taxes you pay to other states. No joke. For example, some small fraction of the gas you buy comes (or could come) from Alaska, some small fraction of every dollar you spend on gasoline winds up funding the State of Alaska Permanent Fund. And people from Rhode Island often pay sales taxes to Massachusetts or Connecticut when they shop there, so that counts, too.

This gets to the heart of my complaint about the Tax Foundation. When I’m looking at economic or tax data I don’t just want information. I want information relevant to the decisions before us. The Tax Foundation specializes in information that isn’t relevant to any particular decision. Why do I care how much of my money goes to other states when I’m discussing tax policy in Rhode Island? And why do I care about average taxes paid per person when I know very well that there aren’t any average people? The taxes we pay vary according to your wealth and according to where you live. Over the past 20 years, we’ve shifted the load from people who have money and live in the suburbs to people who don’t have much money and who live in cities. To think that some kind of overall average can capture that dynamic is absurd and makes this kind of comparison with other states not just meaningless, but counter-productive.

What is useful about this kind of report is that it puts the lie to claims that there’s anything especially egregious about the level of Rhode Island taxes. We don’t live in a “tax hell,” more highly taxed than other states. We live in a place where inadequate understanding of the economics of taxation has led our leaders to make some really bad decisions about who can afford what, and the result is perpetual cuts in taxes on rich people and increases in taxes on less rich people. That’s all.

As an aside, there’s also an interesting chart on the tax freedom page (look for the heading that says “Historical Tax Freedom Day”). It shows movements in taxes versus movements in the deficit, and you can see from it that before 1980 the two tended to move in sync and since then they’ve moved in anti-sync. I wrote about a chart very much like that in 2006, when the late director of the Cato Institute, William Niskanen, wrote an article to say that low taxes do not lead to a decrease in the size of government and that real conservatives should stop pretending that they do. Find that article here.

The Tax Foundation had some comments to make about this article, and I responded to them. Find a link to the Tax Foundation’s comment and my response here.

April 11, 2012April 11, 2012

VP Candidate Talks Politics, Race, Music at RIC Friday

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There is room at every election for new voices – including the ideas of former communists and those of modern-day socialists. That’s my premise and I’m sticking to it. Well actually, I’m doing more than that this Friday at a panel discussion I’m facilitating at RI College called “Race, Politics and Music: A Look at Rhode 2 Africa and Election Year 2012,” which includes Yari Osorio, the Candidate of Party for Socialism and Liberation.

The panel is part of “Diversity is a Way of L.I.F.E,” which is a statewide conference that happens annually at RIC “to bring together educators, students, artists and community-based activists.” My session will run on Friday at 4:00 PM in Alger Hall, and Osorio will speak alongside Jim Vincent, President, NAACP Providence Branch and television host of the Jim Vincent Show; Erik Andrade, a spoken word artist and community/youth activist from New Bedford, MA; Talia Whyte, a Boston-based freelance journalist with over ten years experience reporting on social justice, media and technology; and Marco McWilliams, a RI-based educator, activist, lecturer, and published writer (including here on RIFuture.org) who covers the African Diaspora.

The entire conference kicks off at 11:00 AM, and directly following the conference there will be dinner, a poetry open mic, and performances that are part of Bilingual Poetry Festival I organizing at sites across the state.

Below is more information about the panel; updates will also be posted on www.Rhode2Africa.wordpress.com and on Twitter (follow me @rezaclif). Learn more about the conference here on Facebook or register by clicking here.

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Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012 (R2A 2012), is a documentary and multimedia project being produced with the primary aim of motivating diverse constituencies to vote in November and engage in political conversations at the local, national, and global level. The project does this through conversations with emerging and established Black musicians, community members and leaders, political experts and scholars, and media professionals – including those involved in or knowledgeable about alternative parties and platforms and underrepresented issues. The exploration of these topics is based on a very simple principle: there is room at every election to hear and examine new voices and ideas, and this year is no different.

Furthermore, as protesters part of Occupy Wall Street, and break-off movements like Women Occupy and Occupy The Hood have demonstrated, citizens across this country have grown tired of never hearing from the variety of voices making up the “99%.” Still, if you pay attention to major news outlets, you would think that the only people engaged and to be targeted for the November elections are the (now) all-white Republican candidates and their party followers. However, one place in which you can hear alternative voices and views on politics is within the music community. Besides being heads of households, tax-payers, insurance-holders, and voters, there are many performers who play at political events, directly and indirectly endorsing candidates; hip hop artists who “rap” about reform and rebellion; and emerging and established artists who’ve performed at The Whitehouse. R2A Elect the Arts is about sharing the voices of Black and multicultural musicians engaged in this type of work and providing election 2012 coverage and awareness through conversations on race, politics and music.R2A 2012 is currently in-production, but on Friday, April 13 at 4:00 PM, R2A Creator/Producer, Reza Clifton facilitates a panel discussion called “Race, Politics and Music: A Look at Rhode 2 Africa and Election Year 2012.” In addition to opening the conversation up to the Diversity is a Way of L.I.F.E. statewide conference at Rhode Island College, Clifton will bring in tech/staff to film the discussion and question and answers for inclusion on the documentary. Attendees who attend and stay for the session are automatically consenting to be recorded and included in the final project.Facilitator:
Reza Clifton, Award-winning writer, multimedia producer and cultural navigator, Creator/Producer of Rhode 2 AfricaConfirmed Panelists:

Yari Osorio, Vice Presidential Candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation
Jim Vincent, President, NAACP Providence Branch and television host
Erik Andrade, spoken word artist and community activist from New Bedford, MA
Talia Whyte, Boston-based freelance journalist with over ten years experience reporting on social justice, media and technology
Marco McWilliams, RI-based educator, activist, lecturer, and published writer who covers the African Diaspora

***

MORE BIOS:

Reza Corinne Clifton is an award-winning writer, producer, digital storyteller and cultural navigator whose work blends and examines music, identity and global consciousness. She was acknowledged in 2007 and 2009 with Diversity in the Media awards for multimedia projects that she published or launched on her flagship blog, RezaRitesRi.com – including the first Rhode 2 Africa project, which was a four-part interview series and concert series held in Providence. Clifton has also been recognized for written work and direction as health editor a regional women’s magazine and for leadership as a young professional and community organizer in Providence, RI. In 2011 alone, she was named “Most Musical,” a “Trender,” and “Most Soothing Voice” due to her work sharing music and art in the community and on radio – through WRIU and BSR. She remains an active blogger on VenusSings.com, RI Future.org, Rhode2Africa.wordpress.com and on RightHer (a blog from Women’s Fund of Rhode Island) and she sits on the board of Girls Rock! RI, an organization that uses music to empower girls and women in RI.

Yari Osorio is the 2012 vice-presidential candidate of the Party for Socialism and Liberation; he has been a member of the New York City branch of the PSL since 2006. Born in Cali, Colombia, Osorio immigrated to the United States at age three with his mother and older brother. He is now a U.S. citizen, but grew up undocumented. The harsh anti-immigrant policies in the United States propelled Osorio to become an ardent advocate for social and economic justice, and for equality. Osorio received a BA degree from John Jay CUNY in Forensic Psychology and later became a New York State certified Emergency Medical Technician. He is an active anti-war and social justice organizer in New York City, and is a volunteer organizer in the anti-war ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).

Jim Vincent is the President of the the NAACP-Providence, a position he was elected to in December 2010. Prior to taking on the role of president, Vincent had spent many years serving the organization as Second Vice President, and serving the community in general through his work doing housing and community development in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. In particular, he has worked since March 1998 as the Manager of Constituent Advocacy for Rhode Island Housing, where he provides outreach and technical assistance to underserved communities among other duties. Vincent has also served on many boards throughout RI that serve the state’s African American, Cape Verdean, and Hispanic communities, and is a former President of the Urban League of Rhode Island. He may be best known for his role as the Producer and Host of the award winning, Jim Vincent Show .

Erik Andrade is a spoken word artist and community activist from New Bedford, MA who is featured in Rhode 2 Africa: Elect the Arts 2012. He works with New Bedford youth through People Acting in Community Endeavor (PACE) YouthBuild New Bedford and as co-facilitator of the organization’s Sustainability, Leadership Development and Social Justice Workshops. Andrade is also a founding member of La Soul Renaissance, a local spoken word and hip hop venue which focuses on social justice issues and spirituality, and of the Overflowing Cup Project – an artist circle that works to encourage, recover and inspire creativity through a collective process. Andrade recently ran for the New Bedford School Committee, hoping to bring the voice of at-risk youth to the committee and to issue a call for systematic reform.

Talia Whyte is a freelance journalist who has reported on issues related to social justice, media and technology for over 10 years. Her work can be found in the Houston Chronicle, The Progressive, theGrio.com, The Boston Globe, MSNBC, PBS, and Al Jazeera, among many other publications and sites. She is also a leader within Global Wire Associates, a new media consulting firm that promotes innovative communication for advancing social justice. Whyte is co-author of “Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change.”

Marco McWilliams is a Pan-Africanist intellectual, published writer, and lecturer whose ideas can currently be read at Voxuion.com and RIfuture.org. McWilliams is also an adult literacy instructor for Amos House and English for Action, two organizations based in Providence, RI. As founder of the Providence Africana Reading Collective, McWilliams is known for his rigorous scholarship on social justice and for creating a “progressive learning community dedicated to the interruption of normative narratives of oppression through a critical examination of the emancipatory thought chronicled in the canons of Africana literature.” He will pursue a Ph.D. beginning in 2013.

March 19, 2012March 19, 2012

Budgeting for Disaster Part VII: Quasi-appropriate?

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Trick question: Why is Rhode Island’s housing policy not made by the state government? How about economic policy? Why do we have two environmental agencies? Two elections agencies?

The questions sound unrelated, but they have very similar answers, and they’re all related to the state’s bevy of “quasi-public” agencies—whose budgets are in Volume I of the budget.

The Airport Corporation is here, who runs all the state’s airports, including Green. The Economic Development Corporation is also here, along with Rhode Island Housing, RIPTA, the Narragansett Bay Commission (sewers in Providence and Pawtucket), the Resource Recovery Corporation (runs the central landfill), and several others.

Truthfully, it’s more correct to say the outlines of their budgets are in Volume I [B1-331-366]. There isn’t much information there about some very important agencies, and in some cases this was part of the point of keeping them separate from the regular parts of the state government.

Some of the quasi-publics were formed when the state took over existing private corporations. RIPTA, for example, was formed to save the last private bus company. Others have a separate existence for legal reasons. The Turnpike and Bridge Authority, which maintains the Pell and Mt Hope Bridge, was formed to issue bonds against the toll revenue collected at those bridges. But many quasi-publics—along with some other agencies less quasi and more public—were formed out of power struggles between the legislature and the governor.

The Coastal Resources Management Council, for example, our extra environmental agency, was originally formed in the 1970s so that powerful members of the legislature could circumvent new DEM coastal regulations on behalf of their friends who owned waterfront property. Rhode Island Housing (technically the RI Housing and Mortgage Finance Corp.) may have originally formed to access some federal HUD funding, but it was also a creature of the legislature, witness the mortgage scandals of the 1980s. Later, under a stronger Governor, the Economic Development Corporation was created out of the Department of Economic Development to give the Governor Lincoln Almond more control over economic policy (and to pay its executives more like the corporate executives they lunch with).

EDC has another distinction. When it was spun out of the government into a quasi-public, it took over the shell of the RI Port Authority. Why? Because after Bruce Sundlun effectively put the Public Building Authority out of business (it was a campaign promise), the Port Authority was the only agency with unlimited authority to borrow money without voter approval. And boy have they used that authority. EDC now owes debt used for the Fidelity campus in Smithfield, the Shepard’s building in Providence, the Masonic Temple hotel across from the state house, the I-Way boondoggle, the Sakonnet River Bridge, and much more. Subsidiaries owe the debt used to build the airport and renovate Quonset.

Under Ed DiPrete, the PBA’s record of borrowing without voter approval was considered a minor scandal and contributed to his election loss in 1990. But none of these subsequent projects got voter approval. Don Carcieri managed to double the state’s debt, and almost all of it was unapproved borrowing, so it’s difficult to remember why it was such a problem for DiPrete.

There will be more to say about this borrowing when we look at the Capital Budget document. For now, let’s look at one of the quasi-publics that spends a lot of time in the news lately over its budget.

RIPTA

The state’s public transit authority was formed when the private bus company that ran transit in Providence and vicinity went under in the 1960s. It wouldn’t be correct to say it has had an untroubled existence until recently, but it did not always have the persistent deficit it has now.

What’s happened to the agency in recent years is a few things. First, like the rest of the state, it is a victim of our crazy health care system. Ten years ago, employee benefits were $10.5 million for a $28.7 million payroll. (For union employees, pension payments are a fraction of the health care costs, though their growth has tracked the health care costs fairly well.) In 2013, we’re looking at $24.8 million in benefits for a $45.8 million payroll [B1-355]. The cost of health care is going up almost two and a half times faster than payroll costs.

Second, transit for disabled people has taken a tremendous number of resources. Paratransit services between 2001 and 2011 more than quintupled, from a cost of $1.8 million to $9.1 million, and there are other categories of service that provide more or less the same function.

Finally, the gas tax has been a problem of its own. A portion of the gas tax is dedicated to RIPTA. The problem is that the gas tax is constituted as a number of pennies per gallon of gas. When gas prices rise, the gas tax actually falls, as people buy less gas. But when gas prices rise, RIPTA’s cost for fuel also rises. In other words, as gas prices rise, RIPTA’s ridership rises, and so do its costs, at exactly the same time that its gas tax revenue falls. Why does it seem that RIPTA is permanently in trouble? Because its funding system makes no sense, and provides falling revenue when expenses rise.

And for those who wonder what is the value of RIPTA to Rhode Island, take it from me that it’s actually pretty hard to get a seat on several of the lines I use frequently. High gas prices mean lots of riders, and also mean service cutbacks.

Unfortunately, pretty much none of the people who make funding decisions about RIPTA—its board, legislators, the Governor or his staff—actually use the system, so it turns out that RIPTA’s funding problems are thoroughly unaddressed in Governor Chafee’s budget. The documents cheerfully predict a $10 million operating deficit by June 2013 so we’ll be seeing lots of RIPTA headlines in the coming year.

March 7, 2012March 7, 2012

Flight of the Earls Mythology Debunked

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flight of earls — A sculpture in Ireland depicts the original "Flight of the Earls" during which some affluent Irish in the early 1600's left for mainland Europe to recruit sympathizers against the British crown.

You can bet that as the General Assembly debates raises taxes on Rhode Island’s richest residents, we’re sure to hear much about the “Flight of the Earls.”

In fact, almost any time you talk taxes with a local conservative you are bound to hear a story about someone moving out of state because of the high costs of living here. This false narrative, known as the Flight of the Earls, is meant to scare the state out of taxing the rich with the threat that they will simply move to Fall River or Florida if we do.

My question: Who are these foolish rich people who would so disrupt their lives and spend thousands of dollars to relocate in order to save a few hundred bucks in taxes, and why do we care if they leave? After all people who would employ such flawed economic logic can’t really be expected to create many jobs, let alone figure out how to pay their tax bill…

Of course, no one moves to save money on taxes – that would be like buying a new car to avoid oil changes – and a new report from the Economic Progress Institute proves as much.

The Flight of the Earls theory, the reports states, “ignores the fact that moving – selling a home, hiring movers, buying a new home – is very costly, even for wealthy households. And leaving a place filled with family, friends, business associates and other connections, in addition to changing schools, imposes substantial burdens.”

Authored by Jeffrey Thompson, a research professor at the Political Economy Research Institute, the report goes on to suggest that the very reason the right says the rich will leave is actually a reason they are likely to stay.

“The wealthy drive better cars,” writes Thompson, “but they drive them on public streets. Even if affluent families send children to private schools, the businesses they own hire workers who graduate from local schools. And upper-income families value the services of fire and police as much as any other family.”

His research found that so few people actually move, less than 2 percent of households between 2008 and 2009, that migration has almost no effect on tax revenue collected. “Income has only a very weak impact on the chance of moving to a different state, with the likelihood actually dropping for the highest income households,” he wrote.

Thompson cites a New Jersey study that found the wealthy were no more prone to move out of state after a tax increase than they were before.

Of course, what really happens is people decide to move for lifestyle or career considerations and if they were the type to complain about Rhode Island in the first place, they will suggest that their complaints are actually the reason for their exodus.

But even when the rich do move away, they typically sell their homes to people in a similar tax bracket. It’s the cheap homes, not the expensive ones, that are sitting idle on the market. And for the few rich folks who are fleeing Rhode Island because of taxes, we can take heart that they will likely be replaced by people who wouldn’t make such an illogical life choices.

March 3, 2012March 3, 2012

Your Tax Dollars At Work

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Check this out.

This is a really cool map of the US, showing where federal tax dollars are going. That is, to which parts of the country. It has a number of different categories, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Income Support, Unemployment, plus an overall picture.

Guess which parts of the country are hoovering up most of the federal tax dollars? Think it’s the welfare queens in NYC, Chicago, and LA?

Nope.

It’s the south. As in, the Red States, the ones most likely to support candidates who are screaming the loudest about the tax burden and the need to cut taxes.

The other irony is that the states receiving the most fed money tend to be on the lower end of state taxes. Take a state like South Carolina. SC already has a Republican Legislature, Governor, low taxes, a friendly business climate, the sorts of conditions conservatives are advocating for RI.

Guess what? They get more back from the fed government than they pay. What this means is that Blue States, like NY and California and NJ are subsidizing low taxes in the south.

I have addressed this theme before. I apologize for any redundancy, but this situation continues.

The fact is that the sorts of policies that conservatives advocate don’t work. Last I checked, SC’s unemployment rate was pretty much up there with RI’s rate. IIRC, they were one place behind us.

Look at the map, see the concentration of benefits in Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia, as well as highly rural parts of Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, Michigan, and Texas.

The problem we face as a state is not something that can be solved on a state level. It’s too big. It’s a national problem. Forbes Mag recently had libertarian paradise New Hampshire as a state facing one of the biggest budget shortfalls in the nation.

We need investment in our country as a whole. The whole country needs to address this. Cutting taxes in RI won’t solve anything. It will just make us more like South Carolina.

February 19, 2012February 19, 2012

Inventing the Internet

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I attended a fascinating conference last week in DC, the 20th anniversary celebration of the National Information Technology Research and Development program (NITRD), a 15-agency cooperative mission launched in 1992 to coordinate federal R&D around information technology. Funded as a consequence of the 1991 High-Performance Computing Act (a/k/a the “Gore Bill”), this was the funding that created the backbones of the internet, and persuaded the admins of ARPAnet and NSFnet and the other smaller networks to join in creating the single internet that we know today.

There were a bunch of interesting points passed along by the various speakers, too many to cover, but here are some highlights:

From Tom Lange, the director of Modeling and Simulation R&D at Proctor and Gamble, we learned about the challenges of creating computer models of the flow and absorption of non-newtonian fluids on a porous substrate, and why that’s important to the design of Pampers. P&G apparently funds research at Los Alamos and Argonne national labs, among others.
From Sebastian Thrun, a scientist at Stanford and Google, we saw videos of automated cars negotiating Lombard Street in San Francisco and one-and-a-half-lane mountain roads with oncoming trucks. He says that in 250,000 miles logged on California roads, they have had only one accident, when the car was rear-ended as it stopped at a red light.
From Kevin Knight, a researcher at USC, we heard about the limits of machine translation and how statistical language analysis can make increasingly good translations of text from one language to another even if it still can’t tell you what the text was about.

These were all fun, but there were two big points made that have to be passed along, too. One is the phenomenal return we’ve seen on government investment in this science (and many others, but the conference wasn’t about them). Samuel Morse’s development of the telegraph was supported by government funding, and so was virtually every aspect of the internet, computers, mobile devices, and communication technologies that have changed all of our lives over the past 20 years.

We take the internet for granted, but there is no sensible reason to do so. The people who made the decisions to make it possible were not corporate buccaneers or rich investors. The necessary investments to make it possible were too risky and too large for the private sector to take on. So the government did. They managed to find private partners to manage important parts of the result, but to imagine it would have happened without government is to live in a fantasy world. Fortunately, your government hadn’t yet been so defanged in 1991 that it couldn’t envision something ambitious (and equally fortunately, George Bush Sr. was persuaded to support it). One speaker said, after accounting for the economic impact of NITRD, “not bad for a bunch of faceless government bureaucrats,” and everyone laughed.

There’s a train station opening up near my house soon. Driving by it recently, I thought about how much I am looking forward to its opening and how seldom I get a chance to express some pride in the workings of our government. The people who imagine that government can do no good have had the upper hand in our politics for the past 30 years. Even when Democrats hold office, discussions of what government can do is dominated by the limitations in resources imposed by the starvation resulting from decades of tax cuts to rich people. Our ambition to use government to improve our lives has been squeezed out of public discussion. But here it is in 2012, you are reading this text electronically. While you thank one of those faceless government bureaucrats for that improvement in your life, you might also wonder what equally astonishing innovations have been squeezed out of your future by the fashionable austerity that rules our days in 2012.

What’s the other important point to make? Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn were at the conference, too. Together, they invented TCP/IP, the communication protocol that makes all this internetworking possible, and not a few other communication innovations along the way. Cerf introduced Al Gore, who gave the keynote address after lunch, and pointed out three or four different ways the internet might not have happened at all without intervention, support, and initiative from the geeky Congressman and then Senator from Tennessee. Aside from the Gore Bill itself, Cerf recounted a hearing in 1986 about the national supercomputing centers, then a half-dozen or so universities and research institutions around the country with supercomputing facilities. At the hearing Senator Gore asked, “Would it be a good idea to link the supercomputing facilities with a fiber-optic network?” According to Cerf, the question took everyone by surprise, but it resulted in a three-day meeting in California six months later where they decided the answer was “yes.” So that’s the other point: the next time you hear an Al Gore joke about the internet, know that you’re listening to someone who was taken in by press malfeasance in 2000.

How did that joke really happen? It sounds ridiculous, but this is how: Gore made a completely accurate claim in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN and a few days later, Michelle Mittelstadt of the Associated Press restated it for him, exaggerating his meaning. The restatement was restated again by Lou Dobbs on CNN, with some flourishes stolen from a press release by Jim Nicholson, the Republican National Committee chair. That was repeated and further embroidered by the press many zillion times, sometimes mindlessly and sometimes maliciously, and the result was that Al Gore lost that election — the imagination reels — and I have a joke that can make you click on this post. Isn’t history fascinating?

February 5, 2012February 5, 2012

Lucky Duckies

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One of the more reprehensible things that conservatives have come out with of late is the idea of the ‘lucky duckies.’

This is what the Wall St Journal’s op-ed page called those of our society who are ‘fortunate’ enough to make such a low salary that they don’t have to pay fed income taxes.

This is truly verging (has crossed into?) Newspeak. You know, 1984–war is peace, freedom is slavery etc…)

In most people’s minds, getting stuck in a job that makes you $20k a year is the opposite of ‘fortunate’. And if those WSJ writers think these folks are so lucky, all they have to do is quit their cushy office job and stand on their feet 8 hours a day flipping burgers.

Lucky duckies, indeed.

[ Pre-emptive strike: the idea is that these people have no ‘skin in the game’, so they don’t care about tax rates because it’s so hard to make ends meet on $250k per year, yadda yadda. Utter nonsense. Give me the $250k, I’ll pay the 39% tax rate from the Clinton years, and still be waaaaaaayyyyy ahead of where I am now. And so would most of you reading this. ]

So far, this has been standard class warfare stuff as waged by the 1%. True, people in the bottom half don’t make enough to pay fed taxes. Think about that: almost half the country, by conservatives own reckoning, don’t make enough to pay fed taxes. Is the problem that their a) tax rate is too low; or, b) that their salary is too low?

If you’re a conservative, the answer cannot be (a), because tax rates are NEVER low enough.

And yet, that’s what they’re saying. That tax rates on the bottom half of the country have to go UP. While tax rates on the top 1% have to go DOWN. Talk about internally inconsistent.

Or, it would be if they actually cared about being logical. Or consistent. They don’t. They only care about waging class warfare against everyone who’s not part of the 1%.

What truly takes this distortion to another level, and makes it reprehensible is the way it looks at a tiny sliver of the situation, cherry-picks what suits their cause, then ignores the rest.

The fact is, this lower 47% that pays no fed income tax, pays plenty of other taxes. Payroll tax, which is hugely regressive since it’s capped at around $100k (may be higher; it moves with inflation), sales taxes (also hugely regressive) excise taxes, state taxes, local taxes, and so on.

What happens when we factor all of these in?

Here’s the result:

This is a chart done by the Corporation for Enterprise Development. It shows what the total, overall tax rate is for all income quintiles by state. It shows how much of their income the poorest 20% pays, vs how much of their income the top 1% pays in each state, then shows the ratio between the two.

The median state is Mississippi. The poorest 20% pay about 10.8% of their total income in taxes. The top 1%, OTOH, only pay 5.5% of their income.

In other words, the effective tax rate of the bottom 20% is about twice as high as the tax rate for the top%–despite paying no fed taxes.

And how does RI stack up? We’re worse.

Here, the bottom 20% pays about 11.9%, while the top 1% pays 5.5%.

In other words, the bottom 20% pays a rate that is more than twice the rate paid by the top 1%.

And Mass is two spots worse, CT is one spot better, so spare me the “Oh, I could just move to Mass and save all this money” lie. And founder of a certain ‘alternative’ party, I’m looking at you.

What does this mean? The top end earners are not overtaxed. They have a great gig going. And if we elect someone named either Willard or Newt, it will only get better for them, and much, much worse for the rest of us.

Lucky duckies, indeed.

January 17, 2012

Congress Needs to Start Working to Put the American People Back to Work

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When I decided to run for Congress in 2010, I began my campaign with the conviction that no issue was more important than putting men and women across Rhode Island back to work.

For too long, national policies had left behind far too many working families in our state. In cities such as Woonsocket, factory employees who worked hard their whole lives were left to fend for themselves because of tax incentives for corporations to ship jobs overseas. Students at schools such as Rhode Island College were anxious that they wouldn’t be able to find work even after they earned their degrees. And small-business owners from Smithfield to Newport were still unable to get access to the capital they needed to support their companies.

Of course, Rhode Islanders certainly weren’t alone in their frustration — the same sentiments were held by men and women across our country. But as I begin the second year of my first term in Congress, I am struck by how little progress has been made to put our country back on the right track.

Since assuming the majority last year, the House Republican leadership has repeatedly missed opportunities to get things done and instead has focused on extreme legislation with little or no chance of passing in the Senate. Making an ideological point has trumped getting things done. Several times during the past year, Republican leaders pushed our country to the brink — bowing to tea party pressure to resist any compromise even as unemployment remained high and Congressional approval plunged to record lows.

But following public rejection of their most recent effort to end a middle-class tax cut and unemployment benefits, I hope that my Republican colleagues will recognize that the time has come to get back to work and take real steps to strengthen our economy and get Americans back to work.

There are several bills pending before House committees that would immediately benefit our economy, and the underlying goals of these bills enjoy bipartisan support.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro’s (D-Conn.) National Infrastructure Development Bank Act would help leverage public and private funding for infrastructure projects — creating jobs and enabling us to rebuild crumbling bridges and roads across our country. Rep. Dan Lipinski’s (D-Ill.) National Manufacturing Strategy Act would direct the president to establish a manufacturing strategy for our country. Rep.Heath Shuler’s (D-N.C.) tax legislation would make the research and development tax credit permanent, encouraging small-business owners to propose and commercialize innovative ideas.

Earlier this year, I introduced the Make It in America Block Grant Program Act, a bill that has garnered 37 House co-sponsors, and a companion bill was introduced by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). This legislation would make investments, administered through the Commerce Department, to help small and medium-sized manufacturers retool their factories, retrain workers and acquire the capital they need to compete. American manufacturing helped push our country ahead in the 20th century, and making it a national priority again is key to revitalizing our economy.

I return to Washington, D.C., even more mindful of the urgency of taking action to improve our nation’s economy and the lives of those I have the honor of representing and more aware of the obstacles that continue to impede progress for everyday Americans.

A willingness to cross party lines and put pragmatism ahead of partisanship has been missing for far too long in Washington. But with millions of our friends, family members and neighbors still out of work, it has never been more important for Congress to get to work so that Americans can get back to work. We can’t wait.

Rep. David Cicilline is a member of the Small Business and the Foreign Affairs committees.

Originally published in Roll Call.

January 11, 2012

Standing Together for Progressive Values

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I want to extend my congratulations to Brian and the entire progressive community of Rhode Island on getting this site back up and running. There’s never been a more important time for all of us to stand together in support of the progressive values that we know are key to putting our country back on the right track.

When I arrived in Washington with eight other freshmen Democrats last year, I knew we would have to work hard to fight against the House Republican leadership and the Tea Party rank and file. As a new member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, I was proud to cast one of my first votes against the Republican budget that would have critically weakened Medicare.

And over the past year, the Republicans have not stopped pushing their radical conservative agenda. They have taken up numerous measures that would weaken clean air and water protections, and threaten our environment – including a bill that would force the Department of the Interior to open up offshore areas for oil drilling along the Northeast coast, including Rhode Island.

Just a few weeks ago, at the close of a year in which they nearly forced a government shutdown, as well as a default on our national debt, the House Republican leadership brought us to the brink once again by threatening that they would not pass a temporary extension of the middle class tax cut and unemployment benefits – even after the same proposal passed with 89 votes from both parties in the Senate. For more than a year, Republicans in Congress have been bringing their most radical ideas up for votes on the House floor, without once considering serious proposals to get our economy moving again.

Progressives know we can do better. We know that fiscal responsibility doesn’t have to come at the expense of the New Deal and Great Society programs that made our country strong, like Social Security and Medicare, so we can keep tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. We know that putting people back to work and protecting the air we breathe are not mutually exclusive values, and that we should never put middle class families in jeopardy just for the sake of a political victory.

And as difficult as the last few years have been for our country, and especially our state, we know that standing up for these values has never been more important as we work to get things moving again.

Congratulations again on relaunching the blog – I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the months ahead and working with you to address the issues facing our state and our country.

November 18, 2011January 11, 2012

No More Caving: A Message To Super Committee Democrats

As the super committee nears its deadline (Nov. 23), it seems increasingly likely that the Democrats will cave on the issue of raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans. This is not the first time we have seen them punt on this issue, and I’m getting pretty tired of it. I hope that you will join me in emailing this message to Senator Patty Murray, the Democratic co-chair of the super committee.

You can email her here. For the topic pull down thing, select the first option “Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction.” For subject I put “No More Caving.”

Here is the message I’m sending:

Senator Murray,

As you may already be aware, many young progressives are once again becoming disillusioned with our political system. In 2008, many of us were idealistic about the potential of the shift in leadership. However, time and time again we have watched as Democrats in Congress capitulated to the obstinate Republicans. Each time, Democrats blamed the Republicans’ complete refusal to compromise. While this problem is real, it must not be used as an excuse. Instead, Democrats must be equally resolute in defending and advocating for their own principles. Just as the Republicans have their “no tax pledge,” Democrats ought to have their own pledge. This pledge should demonstrate that they are committed to a balanced approach to deficit reduction, including both spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthiest Americans.

Not only is this good policy, but it is also good politics. Every poll demonstrates that the American people support this kind of approach. The polls showed the same results during last summer’s debt ceiling debate, but unfortunately the Democrats squandered the opportunity. Polls are not the only indicator of popular support for tax increases on the wealthiest Americans. The Occupy Wall Street movement, dedicated in large part to protesting income inequality, is committed to making the wealthiest Americans pay their fair share. How is it that the Republicans are able to go to the wall for principles that are relatively unpopular while Democrats consistently cave on their principles, despite having the wind of popular support at their backs? When you read headlines about young progressives becoming disillusioned, remember that your refusal to stand firmly behind progressive principles and tendency to capitulate are major contributing factors.

Our country is in an economic crisis. The Republicans have suggested that we can solve the crisis by simply cutting regulations and spending. When President Obama and the Democrats in Congress suggest a more balanced approach including increased taxes on the wealthiest Americans, Republicans criticize them for waging class warfare and attacking the “job creators.” The Democrats have allowed the Republicans to shape the public discourse in such a way that makes tax increases on the wealthiest Americans seem un-American. This is not the case. Crises call for shared sacrifice. The notion that all Americans have the duty to help their country out of crises is inherently American. Some Americans can afford to sacrifice more than others and they should be called on to do so.

We want leaders who will act as passionate advocates for progressive ideals. As the super committee approaches its deadline, we urge you to stand up for what you believe in. Young progressives cannot stomach another Democratic capitulation.

October 26, 2011January 6, 2012

The State’s New Economy Wrong Way Run

Disturbing hints this week from EDC director, Keith W. Stokes, that the state plans to continue it’s new economy wrong way run, even possibly eliminating financing of the Slater Technology Fund, this on the heels of the positive news of a $9 million federal grant.

“The hope would be that we can continue to maintain state support consistent with past practice or, better still, increased levels of investment,” [Slater managing director Richard] Horan said. “Given the cost-effectiveness of the program … there is certainly a case to be made.”

But Keith W. Stokes, executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, says the $9 million from the U.S. Department of Treasury’s State Small Business Credit Initiative should be a major step toward Slater becoming self-sustaining. “That money [now provided annually by the state to Slater] has to go to more economic development.”

Slater currently receives $2 million dollars from the state, money well spent and an amount itself reflective of the steep funding cuts doled out by the state in 2009.

Yes, there certainly is a case to me made for the cost-effectiveness of the program. In recent years Rhode Island moved from a middling 29th to as high as 11th in 2008 in national rankings, a needed bright spot in the state’s business outlook. When we look back in a few years at where we are, will we wonder why we let Tea Party type, anti-tax gone haywire conservatism trump sound business sense?

October 3, 2011January 8, 2012

Egad! Ronald Reagan was a Socialist!

H/T Think Progress

August 28, 2011January 6, 2012

Providence Journal Losing It’s Tax Cut Religion?

With all the Huricane Irene preperation going on, maybe you missed the monumental shift yesterday in editorial policy at the newspaper of record in Rhode Island. After years of supporting tax cuts for the elite and encouraging buidgetary policy coddling the CEO class in the hopes that they would through their good graces employ the rest of us….well the Fountain Street gang may be seeing the light….maybe.

And well, since maybe there is some buyers remorse, feel free to link to the Providence Journal’s website to read the editorial.

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