Certainty.
The business community should know it’s going to be a top priority for the Chafee administration for 2011 and beyond, according to Richard Licht, the incoming governor’s director of administration.
Licht said the certainty will come in the form of a balanced state budget and one that closes the structural deficit that has plagued the state in recent years. Taking those steps, he said, will pay dividends.
“Businesses want to plan ahead. They want to know where they are. They want to know that rules won’t change on them, that their [governmental] costs won’t change,” Licht said. “They’re going to know they can count on moving forward and that they can do what they best, being entrepreneurs or running their businesses.”
Just how Gov.-elect Lincoln D. Chafee, an independent who was scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 4, is going to close the structural deficit isn’t clear.
Licht, a former lobbyist at the Statehouse for big businesses, said the Chafee administration is moving forward with a proposal for a 1 percent sales tax for currently exempt items.
Licht says the business community should not be concerned the sales tax plan will open the door to other taxes.
“There will be no tax creep,” he said. •
