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October 31, 2010

A Potential State Representative, on the Chafee Promise on Behalf of the General Assembly that They Will Pass His Sales Tax Increase

Carroll Andrew Morse

Responding via the comments section to the public assurance that was put forth by independent candidate Lincoln Chafee during Friday night's WJAR-TV (NBC 10) Gubernatioral debate, that the state legislature will go along with his proposal to extend the Rhode Island sales tax to items currently not taxed...

If the governor is leading the way on a tax increase...the General Assembly is going to go along. That's the governor's leadership. That's his plan and they can go along with it. That's going to happen.
...District 15 candidate for State Representative Jim Quinlan (Cranston) offers this statement...
Mr. Chafee has another thing coming to him if he believes that we, the reformers of RI, would ever support his tax increase on exempt items. When elected to the House I will fight this with my entire being.

What Mr. Chafee is counting on is that passive RIers rule the polls on Tuesday and fail to make the changes that we need in the GA. Let's not let that happen.

Comments

Keep in mind that "The Missing Linc" only needs 38 in the House and 20 in the Senate to say yes.

And without a funding formula yet, it's easy to say that he'll send more funding to the "yes" and less to the "no" districts, then let the dissidents go back to their local mayors and explain why they're not getting as much money.

Posted by: Patrick at October 31, 2010 12:57 PM

I think you have it wrong, Patrick. Budgets and tax bills originate in the House, not in the Governor's office. So Chafee would need majorities in both houses to pass anything he advocates before he can sign it.

Posted by: BobN at October 31, 2010 8:23 PM

What do I have wrong? The budget is originated in the Governor's office and is rewritten by Gordon Fox and his finance chair.

Chafee and Fox can certainly work it out that they will only fund districts that vote in favor of the new tax.

What part of that did I get wrong?

Posted by: Patrick at October 31, 2010 8:28 PM

BobN, you may be thinking of Congress. (Which should get interesting if the House goes Repub and the Senate stays Dem.)

In Rhode Island, the Gov proposes a budget and sends it to the General Assembly. The G.A. then shreds it, remakes it in their own image and blames the Gov for all of the destructive and/or unpopular articles that they added.

Posted by: Monique at October 31, 2010 9:00 PM

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Posted by: Toney Getting at May 6, 2012 1:36 PM