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Gary Sasse Op-Ed: Not Only Wrong, Not Constructive


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Gary Sasse is generally an honest actor and sometimes a smart economist, but his piece in today’s Providence Journal displays neither of these attributes.

Sasse argues that because the governor did not follow the bad advice of right-wing think tank he used to lead that, “Rhode Island leaders are denying economic reality.”

Not only is this not true, it’s also a deconstructive way to conduct public discourse.

One can completely accept economic reality AND think that RIPEC’s report on why we should dismantle the EDC and replace it with an “commerce czar” is a bad idea. First off, Sasse falsely claimed that Chafee asked RIPEC to author this report when, in fact, the opposite is actually true. This was a project RIPEC wanted to take on, not one the governor asked them to take on. It may seem like a trivial point, but I think it matters much to the framing of the issue.

Moreover, he neglects to mention that a component of the switch was to make the Department of Environmental Management a subsidiary of the proposed commerce czar – an idea that had exactly zero chance of becoming reality in Rhode Island and, furthermore, isn’t rooted in any sort of economic wisdom whatsoever … other than that the interests of the environment should be subservient to those of business owners!!

Indeed, one might argue just as easily that such a policy is to deny economic reality.

Sasse’s track record here in the Northeast is anything but stellar. His claim to fame, other than running RIPEC, is being Governor Carcieri’s chief economic adviser, whose tenure had no demonstrable positive effects on Rhode Island’s economy. Unless, of course, you consider tax cuts for the wealthy and cuts to the poor as positive economic effects in and of themselves.

In spite of these blunders, Sasse is a good guy to have in the debate about how to improve Rhode Island’s economy. But he does himself and the state a disservice when he pretends that to disagree with him is to deny economic reality. Rhode Island needs to work together to improve our economy, not bully around those with whom we disagree.

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Progress Report: Gary Sasse Considers State House Run, Caleb Chafee Grows Up, Teen Pregnancy in Central Falls


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Gary Sasse, the architect of the Carcieri tax cuts, is thinking of running for Bob Watson’s seat in the state House of Representatives, reports my alma mater EG Patch … Sasse is smart and likable but his singular obsession on finance makes his focus a little narrow to serve the General Assembly well.  We’ve already seen where Sasse’s fiscal policies did for the state when he worked for Carcieri – together, they cut the state workforce at the expense of the state’s pension obligation and lowered taxes on the wealthy at the expense of the struggling cities. Balancing a budget on paper is one thing but governing is something altogether different and more complex.

Besides, the rumor around town is that he has already told the local GOP committee he won’t run, and if he does he won’t even campaign … I hear local conservatives are practically begging him to throw his hat in the ring because they know what a strong candidate Democrat Mark Schwager is. The doctor and former town councilor is a fiscal moderate and a social liberal.

Big time congrats goes to my good buddy Matt Allen, of WPRO, who broke the story of Caleb Chafee having a party at the family farm in Exeter. Matt is one of the hardest workers and deepest thinkers in the local marketplace of ideas – and while I don’t agree with him philosophically, he’s got a moral compass that would make George Washington jealous. That said, we are talking about an 18-year-old having a party. This isn’t a scandal, it’s called growing up.

Best line of the week: “There’s no crying in taxpayer-backed video game development!”

The Projo the other day misreported the percentage of teens who get pregnant in Central Falls. The actual number is 8.5 percent but the Journal reported that it was 85 percent. 85 percent? How could anyone think  – for even a brief moment – that almost 9 out of 10 teens in Central Falls get pregnant? Would this mistake have been made if we were talking about Barrington?

Did you know you can see giant wild sea turtles in Barrington this time of year? Me neither.

Here’s what Rhode Island’s constant complaining about taxes has gotten the Ocean State: the worst bridges in the country and the second worst roads next to, yep, Alaska … I’ve never been the Last Frontier, but I’m pretty sure I want our public infrastructure to be way better than it is there.

More on RI public sector pensions, this time The Economist weighs in.

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RI Progress Report: Sasse, Gemma, CVS, Citigroup


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First Gary Sasse, former head of RIPEC, backed income tax increases on the wealthiest Rhode Islanders. Now he’s admitting that state aid cuts contributed to the financial struggle the poorest cities are experiencing. Is Sasse becoming a progressive, or are things just that bad in Rhode Island?

Why is Anthony Gemma afraid of the media? “I’d love for the media to be part of the solution but I feel like they are often part of the problem,” he told Dan McGowan of GoLocalProv last night. You gotta love it when they blame the messenger!

Projo headline on story previewing Ron Paul event at URI today: He’s still in the GOP Race.

Insurance and gambling companies are among the biggest spenders on lobbying at the State House this year.

WPRO may not have enjoyed my Tax Day homage yesterday, but it seems the folks Mitt Romney met with yesterday are largely in agreement with me.

Add CVS CEO Larry Merlo to the long list of people smart enough to recognize that the United States desperately needs to fix its health care system. He’s also on the significantly-shorter list of people whose businesses would benefit from health care reform.

Another sign of the times: Citigroup shareholders reject company’s executive compensation plan.

Do Rhode Island a favor and donate to Rhode Island Public Radio.

 

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RI Progress Report: Reinvent RI, Receivers and OccupyURI


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The Providence Journal kicked off a great new series on Sunday called Reinvent RI in which the paper does a great job analyzing and identifying the problems with our economy. The Projo says the state’s downturn is a result of a slumping housing economy coupled with a transition away from manufacturing – not high taxes or union dominance as some would have you believe.

Kate Bramson details five priorities for Rhode Island, including taking better advantage of our ports, keeping our college graduates here in state, retraining our workforce and taking advantage of what Allen Tear of Betaspring called our “unfair lifestyle advantage, an unfair cool advantage.”

Of course, Rhode Island’s business climate was also cited as a priority, but Bramson keeps great perspective writing that RI must, “reach out to help traditional small companies and the innovative start-ups that are developing new technologies and will be future job creators.”

— Meanwhile, over on the editorial page, Darth Flanders penned an op/ed with Gary Sasse extolling the benefits of municipal bankruptcy. It read as if Flanders and Sasse were selling the idea of municipal receivers to mayors and managers across the state, even though they led off by saying, “If the reader takes one thing from this article, it is that only after exhausting all other options should financially troubled Rhode Island municipalities” consider bankruptcy. Of course the next sentence started with a big giant, “But…”

— In other financial news from this weekend, Ted Nesi made a great observation about Rhode Island’s economy. Namely that public sector unions aren’t nearly as powerful as people think, and Wall Street is much more so.

“For all the talk about labor unions’ power in Rhode Island, their influence over political leaders is still trumped by the might of another formidable institution: Wall Street. When Rhode Island’s leaders are faced with a choice between investors and public-sector union members, they consistently side with the former. The bondholders law, which explicitly protects creditors over pensioners, is one example of that; the suspension of democracy in Central Falls is another.”

— Economic inequality has become such the debate dejour that they are even talking about it in East Greenwich, home of Rhode Island’s largest concentration of the 1%. Lisa Sussman wrote a great piece for EG Patch about why this upscale suburban enclave really shouldn’t complain about Chafee’s municipal plan. Read the comments to see me get beat up for sticking my nose into the fray!

— Given all this gloomy news about the state of the state, what are we to do about it? Well, Occupy URI will be protesting at the Board of Governors for Higher Education meeting today at 5:30 at the URI Bay Campus “to object to the unrelenting diversion of funds from public education in Rhode Island, and to bring to the Board’s attention grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of those diversions,” according to a press release, which also says:

“In addition to being patently unconstitutional, the diversion of funds from education is morally reprehensible. Nevertheless, The RI Board of Governors, continuing a trend spanning decades, approved an explosive 9.5% tuition increase for the University of Rhode Island for the 2012-13 academic term. This has led to an unconscionable burden on those seeking the opportunities guaranteed to them in the RI Constitution.”