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With Rhode Island facing a $450 million state deficit, a softening national and regional economy, and a far-flung foreclosure crisis with widespread effects, this hardy old New England state should be able to cope with a little snow, right?
Not so much.
As 2007 made its final approach for the record books, the gridlock that choked the Ocean State on December 13, thanks to the first significant snowfall of the season, perfectly symbolized our collective inability to get out of our own way.
No matter that the storm had been forecast days in advance, the burst of winter weather was enough to roil traffic and temperaments, leading to an ongoing blame game on the talk-radio airwaves. That no serious injuries resulted, and that Massachusetts endured similar woes, got mostly overlooked in the mix.
Still, if this is what results when we experience a fairly routine seasonal occurrence, it sure doesn’t bode well for the looming storm represented by the more serious stuff described in the first sentence of this story.
To echo the forecast offered by Clubber Lang, the Rocky Balboa opponent played by Mr. T in Rocky III, Rhode Island’s outlook for 2008 is best summed up by one word: pain. And since past is prologue, 2007 will justly be remembered as the year of impending doom.
On a more personal level, it was there when Ralph Papitto’s name was wiped off the law school he helped create at Roger Williams University in Bristol. While Papitto — the 80-year-old founder of a Fortune 500 company — set this in motion by uttering the word “nigger” during an RWU board meeting, his attempt to paper over the controversy made his fall from grace from inevitable.
In a wholly different way, the precipitous force of unexpected change burst forward when Alexandra Svoboda, a 22-year-old transplant from Nebraska, marched with like-minded members of the Industrial Workers of the World in North Providence. One of Svoboda’s legs was broken during an ensuing clash with police; the details remain disputed. Yet the grotesque nature of the injury points to the tensions sometimes unearthed when opposing ideas come into conflict.
Crisis and opportunity
An old Chinese proverb holds that in crisis, there is opportunity. So will the state’s $450 million budget deficit prompt a long-overdue reinvention of how state government operates in Rhode Island?
The early results make you wonder. On separate occasions, Republican Governor Donald L. Carcieri and Representative Steven M. Costantino (D-Providence), chairman of the powerful House Finance Committee, each used the most ambiguous of details to outline initial plans to enhance efficiency in government.
While the governor moved ahead with a reduction by hundreds of the state workforce, the fate of Costantino’s recently unveiled concept (similar to Carcieri’s) to merge human-service agencies remains unknown for now.
The typically upbeat governor continued to talk a good game whenever he got the chance, pointing to heightened educational standards, economic investment, and his lonely fight, as he puts it, against the political status quo. Yet as Carcieri approached the end of his fifth year in office, the question of whether he has learned how to manipulate the levers of government power was increasingly present in 2007.
“The governor understands the power of the bully pulpit,” says Brown University political science professor Darrell West, who expects 2007 to be an incredibly difficult year for the state, because of the painful cuts that will be required to balance the budget. “He’s good at getting media attention for the message that he wants to deliver. The problem is actually getting things through the Democratically-controlled General Assembly. It’s tougher — more of an inside versus an outside game — and it’s really been his biggest obstacle.”
At the same time, as West notes, Carcieri has diluted his message while taking part in side battles over issues like state-funded interpreters and the relative personal responsibility of single mothers. While these stances appeal to the governor’s supporters, they win less favor from other Rhode Islanders and can get in the way of focusing on the budget.
For a taste of how state officials handled a challenging, yet less serious budget deficit this year, consider the move to try 17-year-olds as adults. The General Assembly undid the approach when it became clear that the initial change offered not just what critics condemned as a dubious policy, but also greater costs for taxpayers. Just as troubling was how, before putting forward the proposal, the Carcieri administration didn’t consult with Department of Corrections director A.T. Wall — the state official most able to offer an informed viewpoint about it.
The Democratic-controlled legislature also deserved a share of the blame for the state’s ongoing budget woes. Displaying a renewed fondness for questionable one-time fixes, the General Assembly helped underscore the lack of long-term planning that got us into the problems posed by a staggering structural deficit.
The good news, such as it is, is that the looming budget deficit will force state officials to make hard choices, potentially consolidating government and making changes that will save money down the road. Yet the difficulty, says West, “is that a lot of the savings from those types of activities come in the out years, so it doesn’t help them with the immediate [budget deficit] problem,” making broader changes somewhat less likely.
Scott Wolf, director of the anti-sprawl group Grow Smart Rhode Island, has made the case, pointing to an array of state assets (historic charm and quality of life; infrastructure improvements, including investments in health-care and tourism; a large and vibrant higher-educator sector; and a thriving marine and financial-service companies, among others) that Rhode Islanders shouldn’t be overcome by an exaggerated sense of doom and gloom. The state needs to focus, as he argued in a recent Providence Journal op-ed, on capitalizing on its strengths while dealing with its weaknesses.
This is true, of course, but also something of a perennial refrain; upon taking office in 2003, Carcieri, for example, talked of his desire of turning Rhode Island into the gem of New England.
Five years later, some supporters of the long-struggling Rhode Island Republican Party can only wait and hope that the state’s budget problems will deliver a reordering of the political landscape.
In 2010, the state’s budget difficulties could potentially help a self-styled reformer like former Cranston mayor Steve Laffey to claim the governor’s office. On the Democratic side, a busy field is assembling, with the presence of prospective gubernatorial candidates Frank Caprio, David Cicilline, Patrick Lynch, and Elizabeth Roberts. In one way or another, the painful cuts of 2008 can be expected to cast a long shadow.
