Following an OpEd battle in the Providence Journal, the Center calls for a rigorous debate on this highly controversial issue. Do Rhode Islanders want local housing and land-use decisions being made by un-elected bureaucrats in Washington, DC … or by locally-elected officials?
[button url=”https://rifreedom.org/propertyrights/” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ] Read more here [/button]Originally published in the Providence Journal, October 20, 2014
– Read Governor Chafee’s OpEd Response
– Center/Stenhouse Response – Related Media Release
See public comment letter submitted by the Center
The American Dream once meant ownership of land and a home, with a white picket fence around the yard, as a symbol of independence and a step toward prosperity. To others today, that dream is being reduced to living in a multi-use tenement building, with a rail around a small balcony, in a socially-engineered collectivist society.
It was the design of our nation that each state should be an independent laboratory, largely free of centralized control. It is widely held that local government is better government — most reflecting the will of the people it serves. Similarly, it is understood that land-use and zoning decisions are best made by locally elected officials. These core principles are the basis of our American society.
Urban planning can be an effective tool in providing for growth of population and services, in maintaining these core principles, and in advancing local values and traditions. Conscientious planners should attempt to balance public benefit against potential loss of property rights. To manage these issues, we understand that related decisions are best made by local officials, accountable to their community.
However, the federal government has recently been pushing and funding a centralized approach, often referred to as “sustainable development.” In creating regional planning entities funded by federal grants, and run by unelected ideologues accountable to no one, this approach turns the local planning process on its head.
In 2012, Rhode Island became the first state to formally cede a major portion of its economic development and planning rights to the federal government when it accepted grant funds from the Department of Housing and Urban Development to create a so-called economic development plan that advances a “social equity” agenda that considers private-property ownership to be unfair. This agenda incorporates radical elements from the environmentalist and “social justice” movements, even to the extent where racial quotas could be implemented to determine who will be allowed to live in certain cities and towns.
In the Ocean State, a little-known plan is being aggressively advanced behind the scenes: It is called RhodeMapRI. While its cozily worded claims of benefits may seem attractive, experience with similar plans has shown that serious unintended — perhaps intended — consequences have undermined core principles that Rhode Islanders hold dearly. Urban planning should never supersede the rights of private citizens or the authority of local governments.
The goals of this movement are to force development of high-density “walkable” communities that meet radical social equity standards and that, ostensibly, reduce carbon emissions. By positioning its suggested reforms in attractive “affordable housing,” “social equity” and “environmentally responsible” language, the true intentions of the movement, also called “smart growth,” may severely limit levels of private property ownership and related property rights.
By focusing only on professed benefits, and covering up high costs and many pitfalls, regional sustainable planning acolytes often slip their agendas through, before local officials and residents realize what is going on. It is then often too late to do anything about it. Just Google “Westchester County Agenda 21.”
Among the many unsustainable problems created by RhodeMapRI could be:
•States and counties ceding their sovereignty to federal government agencies.
•Municipalities giving up much local authority to newly created regional non-governmental entities.
•Wasted money spent on an overly-idealistic urban agenda that would further depress our economy.
•Blocking paths to property ownership and infringing on rights of property owners.
•Transportation restrictions discouraging the use of private vehicles.
•Social equity and radical environmentalism as the standards against which future land-use proposals will be measured.
•Over-aggressive affordable-housing mandates that result in reduced and inequitable local property tax levies (as is happening now in Woonsocket and Barrington).
•Oppressive zoning statutes and liberal eminent domain laws that decrease property values.
RhodeMapRI is not an economic development plan. It is a ruse. It is an extreme social-engineering scheme that will serve to throttle economic growth at a time when the Ocean State can least afford it. Property owners, beware.
There are more questions than there are answers about RhodeMapRI and all Rhode Islanders are encouraged to voice their concerns at one of the upcoming public hearings on Oct. 27 and 28.
Who are these people who have written this massive and intrusive plan? Certainly not elected officials from Rhode Island!
For such an elaborate plan that will impact future decades for our state, why just two public sessions in the final week of a major election campaign? What are they trying to hide?
Mike Stenhouse is CEO for the Rhode Island Center for Freedom and Prosperity, a nonpartisan public policy think tank.
Public forums for the RhodeMapRI plan will be held on Oct. 27 at 6 p.m. at the Powers Building, One Capitol Hill, Providence; and Oct. 28 at 6 p.m. at North Kingstown Senior Center.
July 22, 2014
Providence, RI – Calling it “a shameful failure of public policy and political leadership”, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity today published a List of Lasts RI, based on its revealing 2014 Report Card on RI Competitiveness, which was released last week. The List of Lasts documents (19) distinct categories where the Ocean State ranks last, either nationally or regionally, in various national performance indices, as of the spring of 2014.
“Our elected officials keep telling us how they’re moving our state forward, yet we’ve fallen to the bottom of the class in an shockingly high number of subjects,” commented CEO Mike Stenhouse. “Rhode Island has all the characteristics to be an A+ state, yet our political class keeps failing us.”
National Lasts:
New England Lasts: In addition to the above (6) categories, Rhode Island also ranks last in New England in (13) more categories:
NOTE: All citations and sourcing can be found on the 2014 Report Card on RI Competitiveness.
Stenhouse continued, “This November, voters should hold accountable those legislators they feel contributed to these dismal rankings. Hopefully, in 2015, we will see a new public policy culture on Smith Hill.”
Homeowners, businesses, and other property owners should be aware that a series of bills under consideration in the Rhode Island General Assembly would undermine or erode their individual property rights — the foundation of the U.S. Constitution and the free-enterprise system.
In the name of vague environmental resource benefits, three bills in particular would systematically give the state, or new state and local agencies, authority to infringe upon the rights and freedoms of local property owners.
It appears that the state is seeking a larger role in centrally planning, mandating, or influencing how local land or property may or may not be utilized. The plans are so invasive that Rhode Islanders may be left wondering whether they own their land or merely lease it temporarily from the government.
1) House Bill 6099 would create a new, quasi-public statewide Ocean State Regional Water Authority, with a board consisting of a majority of members appointed by the mayors of Providence, Cranston, and North Providence, ostensibly with the goal of ensuring that enough water is available to communities throughout the state.
Perhaps most egregiously, the new Water Authority would have the power to enter without permission onto any property in Rhode Island to examine the land and drill and dig into the ground. It would also have powers of eminent domain, to take land that the board determines it needs for current or future use. It would also set rates for water and have authority to place liens on properties of delinquent customers, as well as to shut off their water.
The bill further allows the state to purchase or lease from the Providence water system or other local organizations that currently operate such systems and to bring in water from out of state. The purchase or lease price would not be not subject to Public Utilities Commission (PUC) or Division of Public Utilities and Carriers (DPUC) approval or proceedings, and the costs would be passed on to water customers via increased rates.
“(c) Notwithstanding anything in the general laws to the contrary, and without limiting the provisions of section 46-32-11 set forth above, neither the Rhode Island public utilities commission nor the Rhode Island division of public utilities and carriers shall have any jurisdiction, authority, or other power to approve, reject, review, or in any way affect any acquisition or the terms of any purchase and sale agreement or lease agreement.”
Going even farther, the legislation explicitly prohibits the PUC and DPUC from requiring that the water authority’s purchase or lease payments “benefit, directly or indirectly… the water ratepayers.” In this case, the question of ownership is broader: In publicly held water districts, the taxpayers and ratepayers are responsible for the liabilities of their systems, but under this legislation, they would not likewise be recipients of any of the benefits of ownership.
2) House Bill 5633 and Senate Bill 696 would use state grants and matching funds to pressure cities and towns to create “community preservation committees” (with a majority vote from residents), which would research and implement land purchase and development deals in keeping with ideals of sustainable development. The legislation would allow cities and towns to impose up to an additional 3% tax (renamed as a “surcharge”) on local property that would not be counted in any calculations or limits on the property tax levy.
The state would provide matching funds up to 100% of the additional surcharge, with the money coming from (among other places) an additional $20 fee on all real estate recording instruments (e.g., deeds).
In creating these new local committees, these bills would provide a new path for “affordable housing” or other “green” projects to be approved and funded locally. This presents two potential issues for existing property owners.
First, it is not unusual that the resulting subsidized developments are taxed at lower rates than most others — while existing property owners are subject to higher rights, even surpassing existing caps. This tax level disparity would make it significantly more expensive to live in unsubsidized areas.
Second, these committees, in furthering their preferred land purchase and development deals, may exempt projects from local zoning ordinances. In contrast, the way the legislation is constructed, the state government could impose requirements that the towns would have to follow. (One example already in the bill is a ban on “artificial turf.”)
While existing local governments would technically have to pass related projects and mandates, it isn’t clear whether the legislation permits them not to do so.
Unelected officials, coordinated and trained via a statewide infrastructure with its own agenda, would have new powers to determine local land use that would create disparate and inequitable tax structures. That all Rhode Island property owners would be forced fund this questionable activity via fees on standard transactions and new, renamed property taxes is clearly a program that infringes on property rights.
3) House Bill 5801 would require any “greenhouse gas emissions source” (as defined by the state Dept. of Environmental Management) in or doing business in Rhode Island to increase its tracking and reporting to the state, as well as impose direct fees on them for use of the DEM. The legislation would also make greenhouse gas emissions a focus of state economic development activities.
By charging commercial property and business owners additional fees or causing them to incur unnecessary expenses for conducting or reporting normal business activities, the state would be infringing on the rights of those owners.
Further, the idea that restricting or charging for greenhouse gas emissions can somehow be considered a serious part of an economic development activity is preposterous. Such fees would only be a further detriment to an already weak state economy that has been hampered by similar dubious statutes in the first place.
The RI Center for Freedom and Prosperity submitted the following pieces of testimony to the appropriate House and Senate committees regarding proposed 2013 pieces of legislation.
As an IRS approved, 501-C-3 nonprofit organization, the Center is not allowed to openly advocate ‘for’ or ‘against’ a specific bill, however we can provide testimony with regard to research and perspective relative to the underlying issue contained within the bill.
May 15 (H5365) – Stenhouse, Katz and expert panel present the entire case to bring the sales tax to Zero.Zero%
Capitol TV Video of the Hearing (Stenhouse @ 18:00 mark; Katz @ 56:00 mark) .
Stenhouse-Written Testimony-H5365
May 8 (H5751 & H5805) – Justin Katz on proposals to raise state income tax rates. Written testimony and live excerpts at the ehearing. katz-testimony-housefinance-taxtherich-050813; See video from the hearing (19:25 mark)
May 8 (H5321) – the Center on proposals to modify Rhode Island’s litigation laws to ensure that defendants are liable ONLY for their percentage of fault. Written testimony only LegalClimate-H5321
Download a PDF of the 2013 policy brief here ; related Senate Bill No. 414; related 2012 policy brief
2014 GoLocalProv Article – on “Dumb” Providence ordinances
2013 GoLocalProv article – on “50 Dumbest” RI Laws
The rapid expansion of criminal laws in modern day jurisprudence requires a default mens rea (criminal intent) provision to ensure innocent citizens are not given serious criminal penalties for conduct outside the realm of traditional criminal laws.
Every state should be careful when seeking to convict its citizens of crimes without the government proving that he or she intended to violate a law or knew that his or her conduct was unlawful. Many states are moving to protect its citizens from unjust punishment because of ambiguous and poorly-drafted criminal offense statutes.
Nationally, there are fourteen states that have a default mens rea provision similar or identical to that found in §2.02(3) of the Model Penal Code: Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah. Four other states facially require a mental state without a default mens rea.
1) It is a fineable offense, with no requisite mental state, to use the terms “fresh eggs,” “strictly fresh eggs,” “new-laid eggs,” or similar words or descriptions when selling eggs, unless the eggs are consumer grade A or better. R.I. GEN. LAWS §21-17-10, §21-17-6.
What about a farm stand owner who sells “fresh eggs” but doesn’t know to check if they are consumer grade A or better?
2) It is an offense to own a billiard table without a license, and no intent requirement is included. The fine is either $20 or three months of imprisonment. R.I. GEN. LAWS §5-2-12.
What if a bar owner puts a pool table in his facility without knowing of this requirement?
3) It is an offense to sell footwear which has been imported from a foreign country without notifying each person purchasing or intending to purchase that footwear that it has been imported, by displaying in a conspicuous place, in letters at least as large as the figures indicating the price of the goods sold, a sign marked “Imported goods.” If the goods have an individual price marking, they shall also be marked with the words “Imported goods” or the country of origin. This offense carries penalties up to $500 or three months imprisonment, or both. R.I. GEN. LAWS §5.41.1, §5.41.2, §5.41.3.
What about garage or yard sales?
4) It is an offense to own a snowmobile or ATV without “a muffler in good working order which blends the exhaust noise into the overall snowmobile or recreational vehicle noise and is in constant operation to prevent excessive or unusual noise. The exhaust system shall not emit or produce a sharp popping or crackling sound.” The penalty is $100 or 90 days imprisonment, or both, for a first offense. R.I. GEN. LAWS §31-3.2-8, §31-3.2.10.
Does one single pop or crack create criminal liability? What if someone isn’t aware the muffler is required to “blend the exhaust noise” adequately?
George Norris, a resident of Houston, Texas, imported orchids as a part-time business. In 2003, federal agents raided his home and seized his belongings. Norris was prosecuted and imprisoned because he imported a few legal orchids into the United States with improper paperwork. Because Norris unknowingly committed this “crime,” he not only spent 17 months in prison, but he lost his business, retirement savings, and trust in the legal system.
Criminal laws in Rhode Island today cover a wide range of otherwise innocent behavior, from trading workout tips to transporting poultry, in statutes and administrative regulations.
Such criminal sanctions to regulate behavior sometimes do not include a requisite culpable mental state, opening up innocent actors to serious criminal sanctions for behavior that is not inherently wrong.
Enacting a default mental state provision would ensure that criminal sanctions are levied against the guilty while protecting citizens from unduly burdensome regulations and criminal laws. It would not alter any Legislative pronouncement of a requisite mental state, but merely supply the answer when the Legislature has not already specifically addressed it in codification in a particular criminal law.
This policy recommendation is not about letting violent, career criminals off the hook – this model is about reining in government’s zealous regulation and protecting innocent, hardworking Americans from the destruction of their businesses and livelihoods.
The Criminal Intent Protection will:
1) By protecting citizens from unjust charges or conviction:
2) Protect freedom and liberty for individuals and small business:
3) Strengthen our criminal justice system:
A default mental state would prevent unjust criminal sanctions for innocent behavior. It would protect citizens from oversights in legislative drafting and provide peace of mind for those taking part in wholly innocent and blameless behavior. It would not restrict the Legislature, but instead encourage it to speak clearly as to the guilty mind it thinks must be proven to obtain a guilty verdict.
Rhode Island citizens are currently without recourse if charged with a crime that should have a mental state included in its language but does not. A default criminal intent provision would restore the protection afforded to Americans for centuries.
Related Links: WJAR-10 TV Story; GoLocalProv Story; Pew Research Center: national data backs up our findings; CBO – nonpartisan federal agency echos job loss projections (2014)
2014 Wall Street Journal story confirms Center’s position
As an update to prior studies of the effect of increasing the minimum wage on Rhode Island’s employment situation, the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity estimates that proposed increases could cost the state hundreds or even thousands of jobs.
Legislation passed the General Assembly in 2014 that will increase the minimum wage in 2015 to $9.00 per hour, from its current $8.00, which was itself a new increase from $7.40 2 years ago. When all is said and done, this jump from $7.40 to $9.00 will wind up costing the state hundreds or thousands of jobs, the lion’s share affecting teenagers.
Additionally, legislators in the U.S. Congress are advocating for an increase to $10.10 per hour or higher. That change, we estimate, would destroy 3,466 Rhode Islanders’ jobs.
Minimum Wage Changes in Rhode Island
The very next session after the Rhode Island General Assembly voted to increase the minimum wage from $7.40 to $7.75, the legislature will consider bills moving it up again, to $8.25. The elected officials who made H5079 and S0256 among the earliest legislation to hit the State House, this year, surely see the move as a campaign to help struggling families. But the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity sees it as a continuing assault on the state’s economy and especially those most in need of upward mobility.
Last July, the Center found that Rhode Island’s move from $6.75 to $7.40, from 2005 to 2011, likely cost teenagers in the state 397 jobs. The increase to $7.75 destroyed an estimated 200 more.
Based on the work of the economists who performed that study, David Macpherson (Trinity University) and William Even (Miami University), with a review of the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey for 2011 and 2012, the Center estimates that, overall, the move from $7.40 to $8.25 will eliminate 432 jobs, 204 of them among teenagers.*
Who Is Affected?
According to the study, 24,846 Rhode Islanders currently have jobs that pay them at a rate of $8.25 per hour or less. The “typical” profile — using the highest percentage by each demographic quality — is of a white non-Hispanic high-school graduate, 21-years-old or younger and with no college experience, who lives with his or her parents and works 20-34 hours per week. The following chart shows how dominant each of these qualities is in the under-$8.25 population.
Simply put, the image of low-income families struggling along at minimum wage is mostly false. The average family income of Rhode Islanders who make $8.25 per hour or less is $61,299. For these families, the minimum-wage job provides only supplemental income. As the following table shows, even two full-time minimum-wage incomes would barely amount to half of this average.
|
Annual Income Earned for Different Minimum Wages by Hours Worked per Week ($) |
|||
|
$7.40 |
$7.75 |
$8.25 |
|
| 20 hours |
7,696 |
8,060 |
8,580 |
| 34 hours |
13,083 |
13,702 |
14,586 |
| 40 hours |
15,392 |
16,120 |
17,160 |
Notes: The percentages of minimum-wage-earning Rhode Islanders in each hours category is as follows:
Results assume 52 weeks of work per year. Source: U.S. Census, Current Population Survey, 2011 and 2012 |
|||
The following chart illustrates that only a small minority of families rely entirely on a minimum wage income for support, even among households with some minimum-wage income.
What’s the Effect?
We estimate that the increase of the minimum wage from $7.40 to $8.25 per hour will result in a loss of 432 minimum wage jobs in Rhode Island. This total assumes a lower effect on better educated and older workers. That’s a 1.74% reduction of employment available to people currently earning less than $8.25. Of those losing jobs, 204 will be teenagers.
The focus of advocates for higher minimum wages is very often on the plight of people striving to live on such low salaries, but most workers at that pay rate do not fit the profile. Most of them are bringing in relatively small amounts of supplemental income — many as discretionary spending cash for teens and young adults who are still largely supported by their parents.
In the view of the RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity, the loss of employment opportunities for Rhode Islanders in this group outweighs the relatively small increases in take-home pay. At young adults’ formative age, the connections, habits, and general experience that come from working at any pay scale are vastly more valuable than the small increases that legislators are able to mandate through minimum wage laws.
At the National Level, a Bigger Hammer
This morning, Rhode Island’s two representatives in the U.S. Congress, Jim Langevin (D) and David Cicilline (D), jointly announced their support for the “Fair Minimum Wage Act.” The act would increase the federal minimum wage — and, therefore, Rhode Island’s minimum wage — to $10.10 per hour.
The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity estimates that this move would result in a loss of 3,466 jobs for Rhode Islanders, or 4.1% of the total number who currently work at or below that rate of pay. Moreover, even with this broader net, the number of affected families that are subsisting on minimum wage income alone would still be just 17% of all households with at least one member earning that amount.
* Going back to the prior minimum wage rate of $7.40 was necessary because measuring the change from the current rate of $7.75 to $8.25 produced insufficient sample sizes.
Related Links: Oct 11 Press Conference Event & CEO Stenhouse Extended Remarks, Prosperity Agenda for RI,
Podcast: ALEC's Jonathan Williams discusses with Dan Yorke on 630WPRO
Video: Mike Stenhouse remarks at Press Conference
The state of Rhode Island requires significant public policy reform to unleash a private-sector economic engine fueled by the creativity, investment, and energy of businesses and individuals. What is not needed are more of the same subjective and politicized tactics that benefit chosen business sectors, favored political constituencies, limited geographical regions, or specific business ventures.
Rhode Island does not have to reinvent the wheel. Three proven steps are required to embark on a new path to improve Rhode Island’s economic fortunes:
1. Embrace the free-enterprise system as the means to restore prosperity
2. Follow and learn from successful economic policies implemented in other states
3. Design and implement public policy reforms reflective of the above, applied evenly and universally
In seeking to provide assistance to too many people, in caving to special-interest-group concerns, and by doling out special favors to the well connected, the state of Rhode Island has created dozens upon dozens of legislative barriers to success. These barriers have restricted economic and individual opportunities and incentives, resulting in the worst business climate in the country, loss of out-migrating taxpayers, a slew of Fs and Ds on the state’s Competitiveness Report Card, and the most dismal jobs outlook of any state in the nation. Prosperity can only be achieved if those barriers are systematically torn down and we move decisively on a new economic path.
That proven economic path is the free-enterprise system. Even President Obama calls it the ‘genius of America’, yet Rhode Island has sharply departed from its principles. Free-market concepts must be re-embraced and recognized as the economic engine that has proven to be the most effective machine ever devised to raise people out of economic misery and into a higher standard of living. This means our state must enact policies that lower taxes, reduce regulations, and cut spending. The benefit will be increased economic activity, more jobs, and positive state-to-state net migration. In contrast, government redistribution polices have failed the very citizens they intend to help.
Before we undertake the task of implementing specific policy reforms that dramatically roll back laws that hinder economic growth, a long-term commitment to economic freedom must be established. Removing certain barriers while erecting others will get us nowhere. Adherence to free-market principles is required. But, as a state, we must also be willing to work through our political and cultural differences.
Contrary to our popular notion of polarized politics, the free-enterprise system is not a political philosophy. It is a well-delineated economic philosophy predicated on a culture of success. As a people, we must overcome our disdain of the successful and resist the temptation for government to serve as referee in tilting calls to favor groups it perceives to be in need. This is not the proper role of our uniquely American form of government; it interferes with the efficient mechanics of the free-market system and it provides disincentives to achieve and prosper.
We must accept that a paycheck is better than a welfare check and recognize that a growing economy that provides job opportunities is far more desirable than a stagnant economy that breeds dependency on government services and impedes upward mobility. We cannot have it both ways. We must also understand that it is a morally preferable that free people should strive to be self-sufficient and maintain the rewards of their own hard work. Government policies should create incentives for the pursuit of individual happiness, not hinder that pursuit.
The main strategy to unleash Rhode Island’s economic revival should be to learn from and follow the successful policy reforms enacted in other states; namely, creating an attractive business climate, with free competition, so that all laborers, entrepreneurs, and businesses can have more opportunities to work, to innovate, to grow, and to prosper.
Our RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity has researched and developed an initial set of policy reforms that are consistent with these goals – our Prosperity Agenda for Rhode Island: a set of taxpayer-friendly, worker-friendly, and business-friendly reforms that reduce burdens on employers and provide more freedom of choice for individuals; proven reforms, successfully implemented in other states, that will start to move the Ocean State down a new path towards economic growth.
MEDIA
Cranston Herald: Study shows free-market enterprise is path to prosperity in RI
Teen Employment and Weekly Hours worked are steadily dropping in RI
See our “Teen Employment” policy brief here …