One of the key ingredients in
this year’s impending proposed budget from the House Finance Committee will be
how to pay for existing services that have already been cut to the bone in
recent years.
There’s the governor’s
proposed 1 or 2 percent meals tax increase, which would raise some $20 to $40
million for education. There’s also Rep. Edith Ajello’s proposed soda tax,
which would net another $40 million in revenue.
But the most talked-about
revenue-increasing mechanism debated this year has been increasing income taxes
on Rhode Island’s richest residents.
The Miller-Cimini bill would raise state income tax
rate on Rhode Islanders who make more than $250,000 a year from 5.99 percent to
9.99 percent, but the percentage would drop with every one percentage point
decrease in the unemployment rate.
Rep. Larry Valencia’s
proposal would
make a similar increases without being tied to unemployment.
House Speaker Gordon Fox, who
pushed for tax cuts for the wealthy as majority leader when former Gov. Don
Carcieri first proposed the idea, doesn’t want to touch the
tax rate this year, but Majority Whip Patrick O’Neil has
signed onto the Miller-Cimini bill.
Fox has told lawmakers he
doesn’t want a floor amendment on a tax increase during the budget debate.
Some speculate that a
compromise put forward by local fiscal guru Gary Sasse of raising the rate
slightly and earmark those additional funds to economic development.
“I don’t think anyone in this
room could really defend the difference between 5.9 and 6.2 percent among
certain levels of income,” he told the House Finance
Committee on April 24. “My conclusion is there’s some room to
make a modest increase to the top rate.”
Whatever happens, Rhode
Islanders for Tax Equity, a group made up of community activists and organized
labor, knows well this is the time of year the bill is being scrutinized the
most. So they’ve flooded the marketplace of ideas with advertisements. In
addition to buying space with RI Future, the group also put together a radio ad
and a TV spot.
The TV spot was only seen on
ABC6, though … that’s because WJAR and WPRI didn’t air the ad. WPRI didn’t,
according to a source familiar with production of the spot, because it
prominently features their news staff. WJAR, the source said, didn’t because it
prominently features WPRI’s news staff. Sales reps for both companies could not
be reached for comment.