The RI Center for Freedom & Prosperity is releasing, today, its Spotlight on Spending report which goes through the governor’s proposed budget and pulls out a first-pass $225 million that the state should not have to spend. A more thorough review would, we’re confident, find much, much more.

If there is one lesson of the document that I hope people will absorb, it’s that these things — funding, for example, objectionable art and a nuclear reactor as a tourist destination — are legislators’ priorities.

Last week, expressing skepticism that the new leadership of the Rhode Island House of Representatives would be able to find the money to cut taxes, Rep. Teresa Tanzi (D, Narragansett, South Kingstown) told AP reporter David Klepper, “It’s nice to say ‘Oh, it’s only $25 million.’ But after years of cuts, there is just no more fat to cut.”  When people hear such remonstrations from legislators and other elected officials — when they hear threats about cuts to vital services and infrastructure — they should think of all of the things that the government funds:

• Tens of millions of dollars in overtime payments to state employees.
• Armies of advisors and assistants, aids and liaisons.
• An under-utilized convention center.
• Projects that the federal government used to fund, but the state decided to carry on.
• Pit stops for boating races.
• Initial build-it-and-they-will-come investments in an inn on a college campus.
• Handouts to friends, associates, and other insiders.
• And on, and on, and on.

With a few weeks of work, Drew Johnson and I were able to find enough money to reverse proposed tax increases, drop the sales tax to 3%, eliminate the estate tax, cut the corporate income tax, and eliminate the tolls not just on the Sakonnet River Bridge, but the Newport Bridge, as well, with plenty of room for error or other priorities left over.  Imagine what government officials could do, with their inside access and legions of analysts!

If they really wanted to.

New House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello (D, Cranston) has said again and again that the legislature’s emphasis will now be on “jobs and the economy.”  If those are really the priorities (as they most definitely should be), finding the resources within the state budget is no problem at all.