FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 20, 2017

Negative Measures Outweigh Positive Steps

State Would Have Been Better Off Had Lawmakers Stayed Home

Providence, RI – Capitulation to the harmful progressive-Democrat agenda was enough to turn what might have been a positive special fall session of the state’s General Assembly into a net negative. This according to the nonpartisan Rhode Island Center for Freedom & Prosperity, the Ocean State’s leading pro-family, pro-business research and advocacy organization.

While the package of Justice Reinvestment bills that the Center backed are now heading to the Governor, and while evergreen contracts for government workers and invasive tracking-cameras on highways were temporarily defeated, other negative measures, advanced by the state’s union-progressive wing, far outweighed these positives.

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“Many Rhode Island families and business will suffer from the intrusive new free-time-off mandates imposed last evening on employers,” said Mike Stenhouse, CEO for the Center. “Another hit to our state’s already dismal business climate, along with fewer good paying job opportunities, will be the result.”

Also according to the Center, in a step backward for constitutional rights, legally exercising one’s first-amendment rights can now lead to termination of one’s second-amendment rights. Further, local property taxes will increase under overly-generous new pension disability guidelines, offsetting the local automobile property tax relief enacted earlier this year.

As the Center recommended over the summer, Rhode Island families and businesses would have been better off had the General Assembly not reconvened this year, after prematurely shutting down in June.

In June, the Center published a full analysis of the 2018 budget, which additionally discusses:

• The Center’s call for the state to fulfill its promise to cut the sales tax rate to 6.5%
• How major portions of the progressive agenda are advanced in this budget
• Per capita spending comparison with our better performing New England neighbors
• Other deceptive patterns observed in the budget process, including “scooping”
• Other positive and negative provisions in the budget and impressions of the overall 2017 legislative session

The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is the Ocean State’s leading voice against the wreckage caused by our state’s progressive agenda.

As the state’s leading research organization, advancing family and business friendly values… the mission of our Center is to make Rhode Island a better place to call home – to raise a family and to build a career.

While progressives value government-centric, taxpayer-funded dependency… our Center believes in the value of hard work and the free-enterprise system.

We understand that in order for more Rhode Island families to have a better quality of life, that more and better businesses are needed to create more and better jobs.

Your donation will help us fight the union-progressive movement and, instead, advocate for pro-family, pro-business policies and values.

Please make a generous, tax-deductible gift to support our Center today!