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Governor Carcieri’s Horrible Plan
By BrianHull | January 10, 2009
“Good evening, my fellow Rhode Islanders…â€
With these words, Governor Don Carcieri started his address to the state on Wednesday night. With these words, he spoke to all of us about the profound difficulties our small state is experiencing. With these words, he offered his disastrous solutions:
- Changing the retirement age of all municipal and state workers and teachers to 59 regardless of their current contract.
- Eliminating Cost of Living Adjustments which account for increases in inflation.
- Enacting a “Defined Contribution†retirement plan.
- A 6% cut in local city and town aid, essentially ensuring cuts to police, fire, and garbage collection.
- Changing the delivery of Medicaid-supported social services (aid to seniors and RIte Care).
We need to make sure that our elected Representatives hear from us. Rhode Island needs a fair budget solution that will include additional revenues gained by rolling back the tax breaks to given RI’s wealthiest individuals and families, and by closing corporate tax loopholes.
The House Finance Committee looks as if it will start holding hearings on Tuesday regarding the supplemental budget for this fiscal year. Let’s tell them what we think. We are organizing a phone bank on Wednesday, January 14 at 5:30pm. We will meet at the SEIU Local 1199 Office at 55 Cedar Street in Providence and will focus our calls on the districts of the House Finance Committee members (Reps. Caprio, Ehrhardt, Giannini, Mattiello, Melo, and Silva).
None of the Governor’s solutions are fair to the hard working men and women, the elderly, or the children of Rhode Island. A very large part of the problem we are facing has to do with the recession, caused in large part to unwise state and federal tax cuts skewed to benefit the wealthy and lax regulations on the financial and banking industries (which then received $700 billion of taxpayer money), but what was most striking about the Governor’s proposal was the absence of even the slightest pretense of shared sacrifice. These budget cuts, again, will be borne almost entirely by the middle class, the poor, and the elderly. There was no discussion about rolling back the tax cuts that benefit the wealthy, no discussion about job creation programs or economic development, no discussion about closing corporate tax loopholes, and no discussion about a more equitable tax system that will realign the tax burden.
We must respond! Anyone able to make phone calls on Wednesday, please contact Brian Hull @ brianhull@ripda.org or 401-580-3321.
Topics: Economy, Rhode Island |
January 14th, 2009 at 11:27 am
Brian,
Wednesday evenings won’t work for me, but I can be available other times…
Thanks for this post and please consider adding the Grace Paley Blog to your list of blogs and news…
Best wishes,
Nomi