A Progressive with Reason to Smiley

Progressives want big government that’s involved in our every transaction and life decision because they want to help, right?  Sure, maybe they’re woefully misdirected, but that’s their objective, isn’t it?

Yeah, about that… GoLocalProv has been tracking the financial dealings of Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo’s Chief of Staff Brett Smiley, who ran as a progressive for mayor of Providence last time around:

Brett Smiley, the failed 2014 candidate for Mayor of Providence, is today Governor Gina Raimondo’s Chief of Staff. He also owns a political consulting business that represents clients including Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza, and he has hired his consulting firm’s former staffers to work in the Governor’s office. Smiley earns more than $170,000 per year in his role for Raimondo.

This month, Providence City records show that he and his husband Jim DeRentis sold their house to Brown University for $1.1 million — 30% more than the assessed value of the house at $843,600.

The story has multiple angles.  According to GoLocal, Smiley was a high-up officer with the City of Providence when it assessed his house 6% below what he’d paid for it two years earlier, during which time houses in his area had gone up 20% in value.  That implies a 21% discount in the assessment of his house, implying something like a $4,400 discount on his property taxes each year.

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Now he’s collecting money from the mayor of Providence through his consultancy at the same time that he’s a higher-up with the governor of the state, who implicitly negotiates deals with the mayor.  At the same time, he’s sold his house to a university that is also involved with deal making with the governor.  (Even if Brown is paying Smiley what his house is worth, it simply proves the point of the too-low assessment.)

Big, intrusive government, in short, creates a giant funnel, at the point of which already-wealthy progressives can position themselves for enrichment.  This is the inevitable chemical reaction when one mixes human nature with a lack of freedom, whether it comes in the form of dictatorship, communism, socialism, or progressivism.

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