R I Taxes -- Taking Responsibility

 As the election season heats up here in Rhode Island and the candidates stake out their positions and false promises, I find it interesting as each competes to become the new Wizard of OZ. They attempt to lull voters into their "vote" trap with the smoke of "political weed."  The smoke is the promises designed to cloud the mind of the voting public and to get their vote.


Of course, the average RI voter will take the promised bait and end up on the hook for the cost, one way or another. However, I think there is one candidate, Lincoln Chafee, who is being honest when he proposes how we might pay for those promises of jobs, etc. through a broader application of the sales tax, while at the same time lowernig the rate to 2%. At least, he has the courage to point out that "the king has no cloths." when it come to the annual budget deficit and is proposing a way to resolve the problem. 


A recent Projo a story, R.I. governor candidates trade promises at series of public forums, illustrates this point.


I have to agree with the Ethnographer's comment  that before you make promises, tell us how you will pay for it. Here is what Ethnographer had to say:

"Caprio will go out and get the money to repair the infrastructure. He is to be praised for focusing on infrastructure. Commerce in Rhode island is made expensive by the lack of good roads and dangerous/closed bridges. Commerce brings jobs. Go Frank.

However, how will he get the money? If there is no tax increase or tax restructuring to provide the money, are we going to borrow more?

Wouldn't the $75 million going to Studio 38 do more good fixing the Route 95 Pawtucket bridge rather than have business reroute their trucks around the bridge? This is a hidden tax on business and a deterrent to business coming into the state.

I'm glad to see Linc Chafee point out that you can't keep making promises and not pay for the promises. Linc is asking Rhode Islanders, all of us, to stop weaning and start thinking about the future of our children. That starts by addressing the problem of paying for our services as we go.

We (adults) made the problem by buying into the Democrat controlled GA mismanagement of the State budget. As responsible adults it is time to take personal responsibility and clean up the mess and not leave it to the next generation.

If taxes are too high, watch them go higher as we let the state's infrastructure rot away on empty promises."

When are Rhode Island voters going to overcome their denial? When are they going to recognize that there is a direct relation between the government services they demand and the taxes they need to pay to get them?


It is time for voters to give serious thought to the basic question: "What is the proper role of government?"  To answer this question they must answer three basic questions. "What do we need from government that we can agree upon? What can we afford? and, What are we willing to pay for (and what are we not willing to pay for) ?"


For example, is it fair to use public money to help the unemployed construction worker, who is a fellow citizens, by rebuilding our failing infrastructure; or is it better to invest $75 million in an outside private company with no product, no local employees and which could not convince private investors to fund it without a guarantee by the tax payers of RI?


Right now it seems Rhode Islanders want both, but Rhode Island can't afford both. The question before the local gubernatorial candidates is not "What can I promise you to get your vote?"


Rhode Island needs candidates who have the courage to explain honestly what choices Rhode Islanders face and what they will cost? Rhode Island needs candidates who are leaders with the courage to say "NO!" to ideas and practices that do not promote the common good. Rhode Island needs leaders who can help educate the public about the problems facing the State and explain what their real options are to solve these problems.


It is up to the voters to take responsibility and ask these questions of their candidates. If the voters don't or don't care, and if the media does not press the candidates for specifics, then Rhode Islanders will continue to get high on the political smoke  bleaching out of these want-a-be Wizards of Oz. And then the day after the election, the voters will wake up to the same old mismanaged reality they went to bed with..


The Rhode Island Voter should be asking themselves:

If I do not take responsibility or hold my elected representatives responsible for their promises, then WHO will?

A New American Revolution???

The American Revolution began on June 10th 1772 with the burning HMS Gaspee in Narragansett Bay in the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

As reported in a London newspaper and reprinted in the Virginia Gazette (October 15, 1772 -- note they didn't have Twitter back then)

London, July 18

From Rhode Island we received advice that one of his Majesty's ships of war, interrupting the trade of some smugglers in that neighbourhood, the people rose up, and thinking it patriotism to resist the laws of this country, burnt the ship's boats, and carried their commerce in triumph to their own habitations.

The conduct of Rhode Islanders, on the foregoing occasion, it is thought, will be productive of much disturbance in America. If our government resents it with the spirit they ought we shall have fresh exclamations from the sons of liberty beyond the Atlantic; and if they do not, the colonies are immediately discharged from their dependence upon England. The Mother country and the colonies are now come to a kind of crisis, and one or the other must necessarily give way in the dispute. Should the former, however, relax from her just authority, she may as well resign all her dependent territories, and content herself with what is merely contained in her own island.

A year and a half later on December 16th, 1773...,

In Boston, the arrival of three tea ships ignited a furious reaction. The crisis came to a head on December 16, 1773 when as many as 7,000 agitated locals milled about the wharf where the ships were docked. A mass meeting at the Old South Meeting House that morning resolved that the tea ships should leave the harbor without payment of any duty. A committee was selected to take this message to the Customs House to force release of the ships out of the harbor. The Collector of Customs refused to allow the ships to leave without payment of the duty. Stalemate. The committee reported back to the mass meeting and a howl erupted from the meeting hall. It was now early evening and a group of about 200 men, some disguised as Indians, assembled on a near-by hill. Whopping war chants, the crowd marched two-by-two to the wharf, descended upon the three ships and dumped their offending cargos of tea into the harbor waters.

This morning I awoke to read and hear that The Kennedy Senate seat in Massachusetts had been captured by a Republican, Scott Brown, a relatively unknown.

Later I went to a breakfast meeting sponsored by the RISC (Rhode Island Statewide Coalition)for Small Business. The agenda was to unveil a strategy for the small business owners in Rhode Island to become a political force equal to their economic presents in the state. Small business represents 97% of the businesses in the state and employs 57% of the state's workers, according to RISC.

Underrepresented in the General Assembly, over-taxed and easily dismissed by the traditional powers that have ruled Rhode Island for close to a century, small business is stirring. RISC, founded in 2003, as a grassroots organization is inviting small business to flex its muscle.

This morning we witnessed a presentation of strategy and the tactical approach for small businesses to become politically active. The crowd of small business owners who attended the meeting are being asked to participate in a program designed to win back the General Assemble over the next 9 months. for the core of Rhode Island producers and employers. In turn, this will set the stage to bring about fundamental change in the state's economic policy. In turn it was suggested that this would set the state back on a course of positive economic growth and development.

Today we are seeing the true beginnings of a revolution in the New England political environment. What happened in Massachusetts will have national ramifications. But what happened this morning in Warwick, RI not far from Gaspee Point, will have immediate impact on the daily lives of Rhode Islanders.

In the coming days and weeks we will be following this revolution on this blog. Stay tuned.