Brian Hull has been doing a great job with RIFuture since he started managing it a couple of months back. He has a comprehensive post which responds to the new RIPEC study on taxes, and the really counterproductive, absolutely false, notion that RI is out of whack in terms of revenues it collects. In fact, we have a below-average reliance on sales taxes, average reliance on income taxes, way below average fees and fines, and a very high reliance on property taxes.
That last tax is levied by the cities and towns, which are forced to raise it every year because the state provides them with a paltry amount of revenue. And the blind “taxes suck!” rhetoric helps compel them to do it — nobody wants to raise any taxes, so the state punts to the cities and towns, where the buck has to stop. Instead of raising progressive taxes at the state-wide level, we hike the vicious property tax, which throws urban centers into death-spirals of high tax rates and disinvestment.
Yesssss.