HERE WE GO again! The recent proposal by Rep. Art Handy (D.-Cranston) and Sen. Paul Moura (D.-East Providence) to “fix” the tax system in Rhode Island is a poor example of economic strategic thinking.

It is not the first time we have heard this “policy” from the class-warfare types — Ocean State Action and others — who are behind this plan. We hear this from the “new Jack Kennedy,” Sen. Barack Obama, as well. By the way, President Kennedy successfully cut taxes on the rich and not-so-rich and would not appreciate the comparison, I am sure.

Senator Obama and others, particularly in the Democratic Party, lament that the problems in our country are created by the rich who get all the tax breaks and abuse the middle class and the poor.

This is nonsense.

Could our problems have anything to do with the out-of-control spending we have seen in Washington for many years or the pork-barrel projects attached to each budget? Could it have anything to do with our national manufacturing jobs’ percentage now being under 10 percent, or the millions of other jobs we have exported to Asia and Mexico and many other countries? Could it be the military obligations we have agreed to since World War II in South Korea, Germany, Japan, the Mideast and many more countries and regions, which we can no longer afford? (Why are we depleting our wealth to defend our economic competitors?) Could it be the 30 million illegal aliens spread across this land and the associated costs to education, health care and law enforcement?

But I digress.

We have similar problems here in Rhode Island. Government is too big. We are spending too much and we are inefficient. The answer is not to “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs” — businesses, jobs, taxes, opportunity, charitable donations, which upper-income earners contribute to our state. The answer is to reduce spending, reorganize, privatize and cut the outrageous retirement and health benefits of state and municipal employees. Yes, we are going to have to break promises made by irresponsible politicians of the past.

Back to soaking the rich — let’s look at the data from the IRS analysis of the tax returns from 2005.

The top 1 percent of filers paid 40 percent of all income taxes, up from 37 percent the year before. Yet they had just 21 percent of total adjusted gross income (AGI). The minimum AGI needed to be in the top 1 percent rose to a new high of $364,000.

The top 5 percent of filers paid 60 percent of the total income tax and had 36 percent of all AGI. They had incomes of $145,000 or more.

The top 10 percent of all filers bore 70 percent of the income-tax burden. They had adjusted gross income of at least $103,000.

The bottom 50 percent of filers paid just 3.1 percent of total income tax.

As a result of this IRS study, the IRS recently announced that upper-incomers are bearing the highest income-tax burden since the 1986 Tax Reform Act was signed into law.

Although I respect Representative Handy and Senator Paul Moura — in fact, I like both of them a great deal — their proposal lacks a greater understanding of the tax burden on our wealthier citizens. It will further convince many to seek more tax-friendly states in which to operate a business, work and retire.

Let’s remember the tax lessons taught to us by Presidents Kennedy and Reagan and do what we all know we need to do to solve our economic problems.

Rhode Island state Rep. Richard W. Singleton is an independent from Cumberland.