Economist Richard McIntyre of URI states of the tax breaks for the richest of RIslanders at the expense of working class RIslanders:
Steal from the poor and give to the rich has been the operative policy in the US for the last quarter century except for a few years at the beginning of the Clinton period. See the recent NYT article for recent trends:
For those who want a good summary of the successful class warfare waged by the overpaid and overprivledged against the rest of us I recommend the first few chapters of David Harvey's "A Brief History of Neoliberalism." When candidates whip up concern on an issue that voters have not previously paid much attention to we call these people political entrepreneurs. When evidence shows that these candidates are demonstrably wrong on the evidence we call them demagogues. We have seen over and over that tax cuts for the rich do not benefit the rest of society but that they do put pressure on critical public services. Yet all the Republican candidates for President support further regressive tax cuts and the "Democrats" in the Rhode Island General Assembly have passed such cuts here in the name of "growth."
Public institutions like this university are now put in the position of begging for money from people who used to pay taxes. We rationalize this in all kinds of ways to feel better about what we have to do but this is the sad truth.
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