Richardcyoung.com

The Online Home of Author and Investor, Dick Young

  • Home
  • How We Are Different
  • About Us
    • Foundation Principles
    • Contributors
  • Investing
    • You’ve Read The Last Issue of Intelligence Report, Now What?
  • Your Survival Guy
  • The Great Reset
  • COVID-19
  • My Rifles
  • Dividends and Compounding
  • Your Security
  • The Swiss Way
  • Dick Young
  • Debbie Young
  • Key West
  • Paris
  • Dick’s R&B Top 100
  • Liberty & Freedom Map
  • Bank Credit & Money
  • Your Survival Guy’s Super States
  • NNT & Cholesterol
  • Work to Make Money/Invest to Save Money
  • Your Health
  • Ron Paul
  • US Treasury Yield Curve: My Favorite Investor Tool

Your Retirement Life: Choosing Where to Retire: Part II

May 6, 2019 By E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

By Syda Productions @ Shutterstock.com

Last week I explained the seriousness of choosing where you live during retirement. The political decisions in the state you call home could have a major effect on your standard of living. Choose the wrong state, and you can wind up paying high taxes, receiving sub-par service, and suffering a lack of freedom through what should be your most enjoyable years.

Rhode Island is proving itself to be a picture perfect state to avoid. After current governor, Gina Raimondo, won on a pledge for moderate, business-friendly leadership for the state, she has found herself slipping ever leftward to appease the Ocean State’s growing progressive faction. The Wall Street Journal’s Allysia Finley reports:

During her first two years, she resisted calls to raise taxes and wooed businesses to Rhode Island with government handouts and a promise of fiscal stability. But as her party lurched left, she began to tiptoe that way too.

In 2017 she signed bills raising the state minimum wage to $10.50 an hour from $9.60 and requiring businesses to give workers four paid sick days each year. She also championed two years of free community college. These gestures helped her beat back former Secretary of State Matt Brown in last year’s primary despite irking public unions again by vetoing a bill to allow “perpetual” collective-bargaining agreements.

Unions hoped to gain more bargaining power by enshrining the terms of labor agreements even after they expire. This would ensure that unions never have to make concessions. “Current Rhode Island law protects the taxpayers from being obligated indefinitely for contract provisions that, in the future, may not be affordable,” she wrote in her veto message. “The proposed legislation before me extinguishes this existing protection.”

But since winning re-election, she has marched left. Staring down a $200 million deficit, Ms. Raimondo has proposed extending the state’s 7% sales tax to Netflix subscriptions, iTunes purchases, interior decorating, shooting ranges and other services. She also wants to impose a 10% payroll tax on businesses whose workers enroll in Medicaid even if they offer comprehensive health coverage.

Many low-income employees sign up for free Medicaid rather than pay a fraction of the premium for plans offered by their employers. Ms. Raimondo’s tax would punish businesses that hire less skilled workers, like fast-food restaurants and retailers. These businesses operate on slim margins and have been struggling under the state’s increased minimum wage and paid sick-leave requirement. Rhode Island lost 1,500 jobs in leisure and hospitality over the last year.

The Medicaid employer tax would raise about $20 million annually, which would pay for Ms. Raimondo’s proposed expansion of free tuition to the state’s four-year Rhode Island College. Only about one in five of free-tuition recipients are on track to earn associate’s degrees in two years, but the program has drawn more federal dollars to community colleges by increasing enrollment of students who receive Pell Grants. The state pays tuition costs that aren’t covered by Pell Grants.

The Democrats who control the Legislature have other priorities. This week the Senate passed a package of bills backed by public unions, including a new version of the legislation Ms. Raimondo vetoed in 2017 mandating that the pay and benefit provisions of expired labor contracts remain in effect indefinitely. Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns have implored Ms. Raimondo to exercise her veto again because the bill would tie their hands in collective bargaining. “Contract continuation essentially walls off 40% of a municipal budget from reductions, which will inevitably lead to property tax increases and cuts in other public services,” the Rhode Island League of Cities and Towns executive director Brian Daniels told the legislature.

Read more here.

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy. 

Related Posts

  • Your Retirement Life: Choosing Where to Retire: Part IV
  • Your Retirement Life: Choosing Where to Retire: Part III
  • Your Retirement Life: Choosing Where to Retire
  • Author
  • Recent Posts
E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998.

E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH, NH, where he completed course-work in Practical and Defensive Handgun, Conceal Carry Pistol, Shotguns, Precision Scope Rifle and Kidnapping Prevention.

E.J. plays a Yamaha Recording Custom drum set with Zilldjian cymbals. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris.

Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com

Click here to sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
Latest posts by E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy (see all)
  • Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s - February 2, 2023
  • Reagan’s America Remembered by Your Survival Guy and More - February 1, 2023
  • Tom Brady Retires, Again. Should You? - February 1, 2023

Dick Young’s Must Reads

  • America’s Silent Army with 423M Guns
  • What a Way to Make a Living: New Hampshire #1
  • Protection While Traveling in France
  • TROJAN HORSE: “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” is Critical Race Theory in Disguise
  • Why Some Kids Won’t Go Back to School, Ever
  • FARM AMERICA: New York City’s Finest Cheesemongers
  • Marry Compound Interest, Divorce Market Timing
  • Rich Grandchild, Poor Grandchild
  • The Case for Individual Stocks: Now More than Ever
  • Yes! Money Can Bring You Happiness

Our Most Popular Posts

  • Will Western Tanks Be a Game Changer in Ukraine?
  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • Europe Should Protect Itself
  • “I Will Veto Everything They Send Me”
  • How to Fight Wokism Idiocy
  • US Debt Now Exceeds Annual GDP?
  • The Neocon Russia-Hoaxers of Hamilton 68 Must Be Held Accountable
  • Why Don’t These Mayors Seem to Care?
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?
  • Pfizer CEO Terrified of Real Questions About His Vaccines

Disclosure

RSS Youngresearch.com

  • Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s
  • Do You Trust This Rally?
  • Reagan’s America Remembered by Your Survival Guy and More
  • What Happens if the “Fed Put” Is Over for Good?
  • Tom Brady Retires, Again. Should You?
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?
  • Warren Miller: If You Don’t Do It This Year, You’ll Be…
  • Are the Realists Winning the Debate over the Future of EVs?
  • CATO: Global Freedom Is in Sharp Decline
  • Biden Administration Destroying Retiree Fiduciary Protections

RSS Yoursurvivalguy.com

  • Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s
  • Treasury Bonds Ready to Rock and Roll
  • Survive and Thrive February 2023: 4 Life Changing Words: “You Should Try This”
  • Tom Brady Retires, Again. Should You?
  • Reagan’s America Remembered by Your Survival Guy and More
  • America’s Unprecedented Debt Problem
  • Iran’s Ballistic Missiles Could Give Russia the Edge in Ukraine
  • What Kind of Life Are You Investing For?
  • Why Don’t These Mayors Seem to Care?
  • Tactical Laser Weapon Achieves “First Light”

Breaking News: Reform at New College, Sarasota, Florida

German Opposition Leader Denounces the Country’s “Insane Drunkenness about War”

Early Advice from Her Dad on Tipping at Charlie Trotter’s

What Is Trump’s Argument for Election in 2024?

Powell Slows Fed Funds Rate Increases

Canadian Grain Harvest Drives Railroad Income Gains

Copyright © 2023 | Terms & Conditions | About Us | Dick Young | Archives