Should Rhode Islanders Join In with Insider Optimism

I wish I could be as optimistic as this Ted Nesi article makes it sound like I should be.  Apparently, political leaders and “business leaders” (defined, it appears, as being in attendance at the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce annual legislative luncheon) think this could be the year that the annual promise to focus on the economy actually turns into something, what with a new, more-business-friendly Speaker of the House and Mrs. Big Investment in the governor’s office.

Maybe my cynicism meter just hasn’t gone back down since the commission to study elimination of the sales tax meeting at which a Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce representative said it would be “a crime to threaten” a government revenue stream.  To be sure, the high reading on the cynicism meter was reinforced when RI Hospitality stepped forward to defend a government expenditure of which it gets a healthy chunk and a Greater Cranston Chamber of Commerce leader proclaimed himself in favor of a move toward socialized healthcare in Rhode Island.

Something about “business leaders” who speak out against the free market produces a red flag, for me.

Put simply, it would be reasonable to suggest that workaday Rhode Islanders should be highly pessimistic about a political environment that makes the people in that room feel optimistic.  House Minority Leader Brian Newberry (R, North Smithfield, Burrillville) provides the beginnings of the proper attitude when he suggests merely a “note of caution” that we might see “rent seeking” (i.e., insiders manipulating the system to benefit themselves).

As I’ve spent a good part of this week arguing (start reading from here), Rhode Island’s already built to consolidate the economy and preserve the lifestyles of insiders for as long as possible, no matter how many opportunities that solution allows to pass by.

And so, we’ve got the Speaker of the House wanting to give a tax break to people who are on their way out of the workforce (or already out) while the Senate President takes a more directly labor-union-friendly approach of emphasizing apprenticeship programs and shoveling more money to government-run schools, and the governor wants to make it even more explicit that state policy is to make economic decisions from the top down, even if it means giving away land to preferred organizations.

Please tell me there was somebody in that room who felt like screaming, “Oh, come on now!”

 

ADDENDUM:

The apprenticeship and education emphasis is especially telling, given my review of business openings and closings in the state.  If motivated self-starters are finding it difficult to build their dreams in Rhode Island, then most of the government’s investment in training and education either is preparing us to be cogs in somebody else’s machine or will go out out the window when our young go-getters go get it where it actually exists to be gotten — somewhere other than Rhode Island

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