Ocean State Action celebrates
2nd Annual Health Care Policy Heroes!
Please Join Us to Honor
State Representative Ray Sullivan,
SEIU 1199,
and Nancy St. Germain
Guest Speakers to include:
Margarida Jorge, National Field Director for Health Care for America Now (HCAN), formerly of SEIU, AFSCME,
and Missouri ProVote
Jeff Blum, Executive Director of USAction
Monday, June 21st, 2010, 6PM - 8PM
Local 121, Providence
Get your tickets here.
Tell Congress: Protect Consumers and Hold the Big Wall Street Banks Accountable!
Call Senator Jack Reed Toll Free TODAY at 1-866-544-7573.
Tell Senator Reed to support financial reform that holds big Wall Street Banks accountable.
Historic health reform has passed! The bill is a victory for the American people:
- Insurance companies can no longer deny care for pre-existing conditions, charge you more if you’re sick, cap your benefits, sell you junk insurance, or raise rates with impunity.
- For the first time, Members of Congress will get their health insurance from the same system regular Americans do.
- Small business and working families will security and stability knowing they can afford good health insurance that meets their needs.
- 32 million uninsured Americans will get affordable coverage, saving over 30,000 lives per year.
Read an op-ed from a Rhode Island emergency physician explaining why we need reform.
Now write your own!
- Health Care Policy Heroes
- Flat Tax Repeal
- Finance Reform
- Health Care Reform
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Ocean State Action announced the release a new national report that shows that low- and middle-income Rhode Islanders pay a significantly larger share of their income in state and local taxes than the wealthy. The report, "Who Pays?: A Distributional Analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States" was issued by the Institute for Taxation and Economic Policy, a non-profit, non-partisan research and education organization that works on government taxation and spending policy issues.
The report shows that the lowest income Rhode Islanders pay up to 12% of their income in state and local taxes, whereas the very wealthiest pay only 7% (when including federal offsets, the very wealthiest actually pay only 5.6% of their income in taxes in RI).
"These numbers from ITEP's report just shows what we've been saying for years," Ocean State Action's Executive Director Peter Asen said. "Rhode Island's over-reliance on regressive taxes, including sales and especially property taxes, are a main reason that the low- and middle-income Rhode Islanders pay such a higher percentage of their income on local taxes."
"Our cities and towns are raising property taxes, which impact middle class and working people hardest, in order to make up for reductions in local aid and for tax cuts, like the alternative flat tax, that has gone to the very wealthiest, and corporate tax loopholes that have allowed some of the biggest corporations in the state to pay only $500 in total corporate income taxes," Asen said. "We need to maintain sufficient tax revenue to fund our schools and local services, but we should do that by asking more of the highest-income taxpayers and corporations, not middle-income families who are paying more than their fair share now."
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Visit the Rhode Island Policy Reporter at What Cheer! for up-to-date policy analysis and reports.
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