Organizing some thoughts

Conservative view:

• The free market is the best, most efficient way to allocate resources. The best ideas succeed, others fail. The best people succeed, others fail. Government should stay out of the way and let markets work because they have produced the most successful and powerful nation in history.
• The government has no business deciding how my earned money should be allocated. Politicians pretend to be concerned about the people but they act in their own self interest - to get reelected is their highest priority.

Liberal view:

• People are neither commodities nor resources and should not be treated as such by market forces, which will neglect (even abandon) the weakest among us. Governments are necessary to insure the welfare of those who might not have the resources or ability to succeed.
• If social decisions are left to individuals, the least productive, least powerful face neglect. Government must make these decisions and allocate resources to protect the weakest.

I see truth in each position. Will a battle for dominance of one philosophy over the other result in the best outcome? I don't think so.

Free Speech

I too, strongly support the First Amendment but Ed Achorn's Commentary, Feb 2, 2010, on the recent Supreme Court's First Amendment decision seemed to me to miss the real point of the controversy. The question before the court was whether corporations enjoy the same protections of the First Amendment as people. In other words, are corporations the same as people? The court decided yes in the case of First Amendment protections.

However, can a corporation be subjected to the death penalty? Can a corporation even go to jail?

I submit that corporations are not the same as people and therefor are not automatically conferred with all of the same rights and protections as people by the US Constitution.

These differences needed to be considered when applying Constitutional protections to corporations and I believe that the Court was wrong in its recent decision.

Term Limits

Edward Fitzpatrick's piece in the Providence Journal ("Here's something for which to be thankful", Jan. 14, 2009) is on target. The judiciary must be independent of external forces and make judgments based on law and not be influenced by outside interests.

It seems to me that those very laws themselves should be also be made with the same principles in mind.

To paraphrase Judge Bruce Selya and Mr. Fitzpatrick, if a legislator has to stop and think, every time he or she decides an issue, about how that decision is going to play with the voters, that's got to be a substantial and negative influence on the decision making process. What's more, elected officials often raise campaign funds from lawyers and others with a vested interest in the outcomes of legislative deliberation which can be a corrupting influence that we really don't need.

It seems we have a huge challenge here. How can we remove the corrupting influences from democratic elections? Is it possible? Is it time to have a serious debate on term limits?

Not Pretty

BURRILLVILLE , CENTRAL FALLS, EAST PROVIDENCE, JAMESTOWN, JOHNSTON, LINCOLN, LITTLE COMPTON, NEW SHOREHAM, NORTH KINGSTOWN, NORTH SMITHFIELD, PROVIDENCE, SCITUATE, SMITHFIELD, SOUTH KINGSTOWN, WARREN, WARWICK, WEST WARWICK, WESTERLY

These are the Rhode Island towns that had revaluations in 2009 and will tax their property owners on their reassessments in 2010.

Since Governor Carcieri has announced major reductions in state aid this year in an attempt to balance the state budget, these unfortunate property owners will be facing a double whammy; not only significant tax increases because of reduced state revenue but because revaluations produce their own dramatic shifts in tax burdens regardless of what happens to municipal budgets and tax levies.

In a typical revaluation year, from 1/2 to 2/3 of owners face tax increases far greater than necessary to fund the tax levy. It's an unjust and unfair system that lawmakers can fix if we and they are serious about being fair to Rhode Island property tax payers.

You can read more at the RIGHTTAX website: http://righttax/org

Makes religion look bad

I'm not a religious guy but for those who are, I'd suggest that if you accept as evidence of a supreme being a sort of weird cross on the shell of a chicken's egg or on a heifer's forehead your standards are pretty low. Do you think so little of G_d to believe he'd show his presence in such trivial ways? C'mon now.

But if you do need proof, the story Bob Kerr wrote about in the Providence Journal about someone giving his coat to a man wearing only a sweater pushing a shopping cart along the street on a cold winter day, or the story about the three men who pulled a fourth from icy water at Waterplace Park might provide far better evidence for you. I hope so.

Those Pesky Averages

Imagine you're asked to put one finger in each of two substances whose average temperature is 52°. No problem, right? But what if one glass contains boiling water at 212° and one contains dry ice at -109°? Would you accept this as a fair request?

Averages can be misleading.

Not much different with property taxes after revaluations. Data often deals with averages. The RI law called "S3050" sets the annual limit for local tax levy increases. When it drops to 4% (in 2013) it means that the when all the taxes of all the property owners are combined, the average increase will be 4%. Looks good - on paper.

The reality is that in town after town, despite the 4% limit, about a third of taxpayers get increases much above 4%, some as high as 100%, while others actually pay lower taxes. That's right, lower taxes, even as the tax levy just increased. In reality there are two kinds of taxpayers: those who pay too much and those who pay too little.

Until this unjust distribution of the local tax burden is acknowledged and fixed, all the posturing, the complaining about assessments, about the 'greedy' public employee unions, about graft and corruption, will produce little relief for those who have to pay the bills based on market values.

We must convince our legislators to discuss a new paradigm, where taxes for existing property owners are based on a system of "taxable" values producing tax bills directly related to budgets instead of the marketplace, where new owners will receive their first tax bill based on the market value of their purchase, instead of after a two year wait for revaluation, and where the limits on tax levy increases will apply to individual tax bills as well.

Please visit http://righttax.org for an in depth discussion on this most important issue. Please talk to your legislators and ask that they at least think about this proposal. If you do, they might listen and we can get fair and just property taxes, at last.

Are we too stupid?

The highway signs informing us that "Texting" while driving is illegal made me smile. I can see it now:

Judge: "Mr. Jones, you have been charged with texting while driving. How do you plead?"

Accused: "Not guilty, your honor."

Judge: "Officer Smith says he watched you texting on your cell phone for several minutes before stopping you"

Accused: "Officer Smith was mistaken. I was not texting. I had just filled up with gas and was using my phone's calculator to figure out how much mileage I was getting. That's not texting, your honor. "

Judge: "Case dismissed".

Maybe we just need a few more laws, like "Crocheting while driving is against the law" or "Spreading mayonnaise on a tuna sandwich while driving is against the law".

A police officer should use his or her judgement to determine if one is not driving with appropriate skill, attention and equipment. This is beyond silly.

We're Too Lazy

Facts can be deceiving at times. Recently the Providence Journal had a front page article about Rhode Island's high property taxes. Being fourth highest in the country isn't anything to be proud of . But what if our student performance were the best in the nation? Those property taxes would be a real bargain and a source of pride, as I see it.

The point is that spending (or any one single thing) in itself is not the only consideration when we form our opinions about our taxes or government or anything for that matter. There are often other, equally or even more important considerations which should be considered.

It's so easy to be lazy when we read the headlines and form our opinions and we pay a terrible price for this laziness.

Maybe it's just me.

Are you with us?

Laura Lederer, adjunct professor at Georgetown Law Center should know better. In her letter in the Providence Journal, November 16, "Defeat for prostitution" she writes, "while others (more than one might think) are anti-trafficking and pro-prostitution". She characterizes those who would legalize indoor prostitution as PRO prostitution.

Ms. Lederer makes the same mistake that so many of us make, that everything can be viewed as an either-or position. "You're either with us or against us" might have done more harm to our society than we will ever know. Can she not see that one could favor legalization of an activity between consenting adults and not therefor advocate or promote it?

Might I prefer that a woman have the legal right to decide on an abortion and still prefer that she make a different choice? Is it too hard to imagine that I could favor equal treatment for homosexuals and not, at the same time, personally prefer heterosexual relationships? Can I not personally avoid alcohol yet allow others to legally indulge?

The legislators who voted against the recent anti-prostitution law did not do so because they advocate prostitution and to suggest otherwise is an example of the same old canard, "You're either with us or against us". A law professor should know better. We all should know better.

3 Questions

One would have to have been asleep for the past few years not to know that Rhode Island has a money problem - we spend too much and receive too little. It is laudable therefore that the General Assembly will have a conversation in December to talk about these problems.

With regard to the high property tax issue (5th highest in the nation) I would urge the legislators to consider the following questions:

1. Do changes in one's property taxes always reflect the changes in the tax levy of their community?

2. Do new owners always pay taxes based on the value of the property they have purchased?

3. Do all owners always receive a limit on their tax increases the way S3050 limits the growth in the tax levy?

The answer to these questions should be a solid "yes" but sadly, the answers are "no".

Until this is addressed, controlling local spending alone will not produce the beneficial results for the taxpayer that it should.

Replace the property tax with an Owners' Tax and we will be able to answer "yes" to all the above questions and save some money too.

Read more at http://righttax.org