EDITOR’S NOTE: In 2010, Tom Sgouras
announced his intention to run for Treasurer before Raimondo did but later
withdrew in her favor. Tom was, far and away, my first choice, and that of my
then colleagues on the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee. We also bought
Raimondo’s bill of goods and have regretted it ever since. - WC
Almost four years ago, I endorsed Gina Raimondo to be Rhode
Island’s General Treasurer. Since then, a lot of water has flowed under the
bridge, and now a new election campaign is before us. Gina, the fundraising
juggernaut that she is, is now facing better-than-decent odds in a quest for
the Governor’s office.
Four years ago, when Raimondo first ran for office, she had no
record at all to judge. Anyone who voted for her was voting for a promise, or
maybe an image. Though lots of voters will always go for the image regardless
of the reality, it is no longer necessary. We have three years of record with
which to judge her. So what do we learn?
When I first sat down with Gina in 2010, she said that the issue
that concerned her most was income inequality. She said it without hesitation,
almost the first thing after “Hello, how are you?” (and in front of a witness,
too). Well, fine; creating an economy that is good for everyone is one of the central
economic issues of our time. But when did she speak out on the subject in
public? Was it before it became popular to do so this year?
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| Raimondo's famous fist in the air moment at a right-wing, Tea Party rally supporting cuts to public workers' pensions. |
One component of doing something about inequality in the economy
is to address the declining value of the minimum wage. As part of her campaign
platform, Raimondo has come out in favor of increasing the minimum wage. This
is all to the good, but our legislature saw efforts to increase the minimum
wage in 2012 and 2013, too. Do you remember her speaking out on the issue when
it mattered then?
A strong stand on the minimum wage will be important for her in
a contested Democratic primary. But it would have been important for the rest
of us for her to mention that support some time ago.
The minimum wage, however, is only a small part of what needs to
be done to address the inequality that plagues us.
For example, tax cuts for
rich people — at the state and federal level — have been a key part of making
inequality worse. During Raimondo’s term as Treasurer, the legislature made
permanent the income tax cuts for the rich awarded a few years before, making
them much more difficult to repeal. Gina, a wealthy individual whose background
in finance and degree in economics gives her plenty of clout on economic issues
inside the state house, was silent on the issue.
There are a host of other issues, of course, such as predatory
financial services. To her credit, Raimondo has spoken out against payday
lenders who charge 290% interest for loans to the poor and desperate. However,
it was not very long ago that interest rates a lot lower than that were
considered loan-sharking, exclusively the province of heavy-set guys with
baseball bats.
It’s hard to see speaking out against 290% as brave, even if
there exist profiles in courage at the General Assembly that still refuse to do
so.
Of course all these issues are minor compared to the big one she
embraced: pension reform. In 2011, the threat to the state and all the school
departments was that employer payments made into the pension
system were scheduled to rise by more than 50% in 2012. And yet payments from the pension system — the actual pensions — were
only expected to rise by a few percent, a rate that was actually declining each
year, largely due to three previous rounds of pension
reform in the preceding six years.
By refusing to question the accounting rules that created such a
huge disparity, Raimondo guaranteed the outcome: that the state’s employees
would take the brunt of the cuts, and that they would be very painful to them,
without relieving our cities and towns of much burden at all. That, of course,
is precisely what happened. (Or what might still happen, depending on the
still-pending court cases.)
She saw the situation as a dilemma: a choice between two bad
options, but it was a false dilemma. There were other choices, but they would
have required her to stand up to the accountants and financiers who insisted
there was no choice. Instead, she followed their rules.
To her credit, I believe Raimondo has acted in a moral and thoughtful
way within those rules. Our state can do much worse than that, and we often
have. However, the sad fact is that these rules — the ones we all play by — are
stacked against ordinary citizens, and I’ve seen little acknowledgement of that
from her.
From taxes that weigh most heavily on the poorest while exempting the
wealthiest, to laws that punish criminals for stealing cars but don’t punish
banks for stealing houses, to accounting rules that are unnecessarily
destroying public pension systems and squeezing municipal budgets across the
country, our nation is beset with rules and laws made to benefit the powerful
and wealthy, at the expense of the rest of us. Our state is no different.
Sadly, a great deal of harm has been done to our nation and our
state by well-meaning and morally upright people who refuse to question the
rules of the game. To date, Gina Raimondo has been a proud part of that sad
tradition. Hard work and determination are virtues, but so is judgment.
A leader must be much more than a resume. No one needs a leader
who only follows direction well, who simply keeps her crayon inside the lines
of the coloring book better than her classmates. Leading means rejecting the
coloring book and drawing a picture or finding a path no one else saw.
History’s great leaders, from Moses to King, rejected the consensus and led a
new path. If you don’t do that, you’re not leading, you’ve only maneuvered
yourself to the front of the pack. There is a difference, and it’s a big one.
At this point, it’s pretty clear that the Raimondo campaign is
relying on the same strategy that won her the Treasurer’s office in 2010:
minimal information and lots of money. Where there is policy information it’s
like her minimum wage stance: late or non-controversial. There is vague stuff
about funding school construction and roads, but little to say how she would
ultimately pay for it.
There are, however, lots of warm fuzzies: pictures of
family, stories about dinners with her parents, meatloaf recipes, and so on. We
know from 2010 that this is a working strategy. Perhaps you’re pleased with how
this worked out last time. In that case, you have nothing to worry about.
Tom Sgouros
is a freelance engineer, policy analyst, and writer. Check out his new book, "Checking the Banks: The
Nuts and Bolts of Banking for People Who Want to Fix It" from Light
Publications.
