Issue Position: Economy
Issue Position
Rhode Island continues to struggle with high unemployment, loss of revenue and an overwhelming deficit. We must focus on getting people back to work in order to meet the basic needs of our constituents. As one of Rhode Island's more than 70,000 unemployed for almost 9 months, I have been able to see first-hand how our constituents are dealt with and the areas that need to be corrected to get people back to work. The RI Dept of Labor & Training recently instituted an electronic filing system for unemployed workers to file weekly for unemployment benefits, making the system more efficient while making sure those most in need have access to the those critical benefits. This new system is light years ahead of the "phone-in" system used for many years and I commend the RIDLT for their progress. The thinking used to increase the efficiency in this one department needs to be expanded and used throughout the State system--in all departments. We need to find ways to efficiently, and effectively, get people back to work, while we continue to support all of the basic needs of our constituents. The focus remains JOBS, JOBS, JOBS.
We also need to make Rhode Island competitive with our neighbors. I introduced bills this year to lower the sales tax in one of two possible ways:
Move from a 7% tax to a 4% tax, matching what our largest neighbor, Massachusetts, has targeted or,
Lower the sales tax to 3% over the course of 4 years decreasing 1% each year while broadening the items that are taxed excluding food, clothing and medicine.
These are two ideas to explore. The simple fact is, we need to do something, like revising the State Income tax which I co-sponsored and eliminate the corporate tax, another bill I co-sponsored. Taxes need to competitive with our neighbors which reducing the highest tax rate from 9.9 to 5.99 did. RI went from being one of the highest to dropping below 25 other states.We still need to reduce the cost of State Government which is why I introduced the bill to de-criminalize marijuana this past session. This one piece of legislation would save the taxpayers between $1 million and $4 million each year by keeping offenders out of the ACI and open up space in the courts for more serious crimes.
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