“Only an
outsider can fix what’s broken here,” said Barrington businessman Ken
Block during last night’s first Republican debate for governor.
His
opponent, Cranston Mayor Allan Fung, may want to paint Block as a opportunistic
flip-flopper, but to me he sounded a lot like the last affluent private sector
executive from the suburbs to preach the “outsider” gospel.
And
we all know how that turned out.
He wasted huge amounts of
time opposing economic growth, like a deep water port at Quonset and a casino,
both of which came to fruition, albeit late, after he was gone.
His economic
coupe de grace, of course, was his very publicly courtship of Curt Schilling
and 38 Studios.
He also ordered state troopers to raid a Narragansett Indian
tobacco store when the tribe claimed a tax exemption.
Whatever folly one
associates with Carcieri, it’s fair to say he’s a third rail for Republicans, a
whipping post for Democrats and an embarrassment for everyone else.
And
before being elected to office, his political resume looked a lot like Ken
Block’s.
Carcieri
is from East Greenwich while Block is from Barrington. Carcieri ran a business
called Cookson while Block runs one called Sympatico. Both built effective
bully pulpits through favorable treatment from right-wing media like WPRO and
the Providence Journal editorial page.
They
have similar policy prescriptions, too. Both believe very strongly that
welfare inefficiencies substantially hinder economic progress. And both
suggest shrinking government is a growth strategy.
Both believe private sector
experience translates into public sector effectiveness, even though the Ocean
State has seen scant evidence of such ever since Democrat Bruce Sundlun left
office.
The
problem for Block is that Carcieri, Rhode Island’s most recent GOP governor,
has more-recently exemplified how terribly wrong the CEO-governor model can go.
Carcieri’s Big Audit mentality may have succeeded in shrinking the size of
government, but that has harmed the overall economy and exacerbated
unemployment.
What then will be the unintended consequences of Ken Block’s goal of eliminating
$1 billion in government programs. A business person can eliminate
expenses, but a governor can only redistribute them.
Governments, wrote House GOP leader Brian
Newberry in the Valley Breeze last week, “are, in the end, not a
business.” His submission was about 38 Studios, the most famous failure of the
Carcieri Administration.