Taxation-State and Local Commons^™

The Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit: History And Analysis, Andrew Boardman

Senior Honors Projects

This paper offers a comprehensive political history of the Rhode Island Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and an analysis of Rhode Island EITC recipients. It explores the history of the Rhode Island EITC, an income subsidy available to low-income workers, from its introduction in 1975 through 2018. It details the forces behind expansions and reforms and the effects of those changes. It also analyzes microdata to construct a profile of current EITC recipients. This paper concludes that the Rhode Island EITC has historically been viewed as both a poverty alleviation program and an incentive for labor market work. The Rhode …

The Role Of The Law In The Availability Of Public Transit And Affordable Housing In Atlanta’S West End, Elliott Lipinsky

ELLIOTT LIPINSKY

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation that administers federal funds and provides technical assistance for the support of locally operated public transit systems. MARTA / Atlanta metro area are part of FTA Region IV (the Southeast). FTA would be involved, for instance, in financing the federal grant monies discussed above. But actual regulation of operations (i.e., what MARTA does each day, or what MARTA will plan to do regionally) is more closely regulated by Georgia agencies.

Until recently, the Atlanta metropolitan area had no powerful central agency to coordinate regional transit. The …

Does It Hurt A State To Introduce An Income Tax?, David J. Shakow

All Faculty Scholarship

In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer argued that, since 1960, the introduction of state income taxes reduced the relative size of a state’s gross state product and its relative per capita personal income. This paper criticizes Laffer’s conclusions on a number of grounds. 1. He uses incorrect figures for per capita income. In fact, relative per capita income rose in a majority of states that introduced an income tax since 1960. 2. The results are not clear when a state’s data is compared to other states in its region, rather than to the United States as …

Urban Distress, Educational Equity, And Local Governance: State Level Policy Implication Of Proposition 2 1/2 In Massachusetts, Edward P. Morgan

John M. McCormack Graduate School of Policy and Global Studies Publications

This report examines the impact of Proposition 2-1/2 on different types of communities and the implications of this impact for state aid and state-level policies. The effects of 2-1/2, especially first-year effects in public education, are evaluated from the perspective of four general policy objectives or values: equity, efficiency, accountability, and local autonomy. The primary concern of this report is for various considerations of equity and inequality.