Bob Whitcomb’s Digital Diary: Raimondo Re-Election, Elorza and Panhandling, and Assage
Thursday, October 06, 2016
Streamlining regs; a loser mogul with pushy CPAs; Needham November nightmare
"I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand, shadowless like Silence, listening
To Silence."
-- Thomas Hood (English poet, 1799-1845)
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo is rather unpopular now, as is common for a governor at this stage of a gubernatorial term in any state, let alone in one with a still sour citizenry because of the brutal Great Recession and 38 Studios. And, of course, there’s already been plenty of time for the governor (and her appointees) to make mistakes as they try to stay afloat in the churning, debris-filled flow of government and politics and life in general.
Still, my guess is that she’d be re-elected if she runs again because the state’s economy is (slowly) getting better and because she is very smart and personable. As the late British Prime Minister Harold Wilson said: “A week is an eternity in politics.’’ Or will she go to work for a President Hillary Clinton?
In any case, like the very popular (because rich Massachusetts’s economy is so strong and because of his superb political skills) Charlie Baker next door, she’s unlikely to flame out.
Meanwhile, I give her a lot of credit for trying to streamline the state’s tangled regulatory system, which is exacerbated by this tiny jurisdiction having 39 cities and towns.
Last June, she signed into law a bill she pushed that modernizes the state’s Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The purpose of the law is to reduce the burden on individuals and business needed to meet the state’s regulatory demands.
God knows the state needs this streamlining. Consider:
There are 1,531 state regulations printed on about 27,000 pages across state agencies, boards and commissions.
In a survey, a third of small businesses said they had to hire consultants to comply with regulations.
Rhode Island is the only New England state lacking an organized regulatory code.
The new law’s provisions include:
Revising the APA to use the Model State Administrative Procedures Act, a nationally recognized best-practices document.
Letting the state make better use of Web-based technology for increased access to regulatory information and transparency.
Allowing creation of a Rhode Island Code of Regulations (RICR), in which all regulations would be put into an easily searchable classification system.
A one-time provision to eliminate outdated regulations by 2019.
I hear a lot of complaints from businesspeople about Rhode Island’s regulatory red tape; the new law should cut it noticeably, boosting businesses and job creation.
Meanwhile, the public waits and waits and waits for investigators to really “get to “bottom of’’ the web of stupidity, ignorance and legal and/or illegal corruption that led to the 38 Studios debacle as they also wait and wait for shoes to drop in the interminable and mysterious investigation of ex-Rhode Island state Rep. Ray Gallison. Why so long?
xxx
Let’s hope that Providence Mayor Jorge Elorza doesn’t compound the problems caused by his failing to crack down on panhandlers, vagrants and vandalism by making the city a “sanctuary city,’’ such as New Haven and Hartford, which discourage municipal cooperation with federal immigration officials on illegal aliens. It’s tough enough to run U.S. immigration policy without cities establishing their own foreign policies.
"Don't tax thee, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree!"
-- The late Louisiana Sen. Russell Long
On Donald Trump’s tax avoidance and business failures:
Donald Trump has often been a terrible businessman except later in his career, when he turned himself into a TV star. Far from being a “genius,’’ as described by Rudy Giuliani, who is displaying as many signs of serious mental illness as is Mr. Trump, much of the latter’s real-estate and casino career has been one disaster after another. What launched him was his father’s connections and money and what kept him going was an impressive amorality and narcissistic drive.
The nearly $1 billion loss he reported on his tax forms (but hid from the public) in the early ‘90s showed him as a grossly incompetent entrepreneur and executive. Given his record of pathological lying, it could be that the losses then were even worse. And since he has hidden his tax returns, one suspects his later losses could be huge, too.
But his accountants and tax lawyers (not Mr. Trump) had the ‘’genius’’ to know how to very aggressively game the tax code to near its breaking point to avoid paying federal or state income taxes even as his lenders put him on a monthly “budget” of $450,000 to maintain his show-off lifestyle.
For many years, lobbyists have bribed Congress (mostly controlled by Republicans in the past couple of decades), and presidents of both parties have gone along, to give astounding tax breaks to such favored groups (and big campaign contributors) as real-estate developers. These breaks let them protect their personal assets even if their projects collapse and their creditors are stiffed.
All this is yet another display of how America’s profoundly corrupt tax code favors money manipulation over honestly earning money, the latter by, for example, making, growing and inventing things and providing useful services. Unearned income trumps (so to speak) earned income.
The tax breaks granted to real-estate developers encourage them to build big projects, and then let the corrupt ones like Donald Trump walk away from their creditors and others scot-free if the projects don’t work. This helps explain in part why there are so many windswept abandoned shopping malls.
Which brings up another question:
Given Mr. Trump’s long history of dishonesty, why would anyone honest want to do business with him? So how much of his money is from the shadows? We know he has had friendly relations with Mafia-connected folks; we know he has had close business connections with Russia. Where else?
By the way, Donald Trump’s campaign tax program would give people like him even more tax breaks.
I don’t particularly like the Clintons, with their endless pandering to various groups, relentless truth-trimming (and sometimes good old-fashioned lies), excessive insiderism and mixing of government, nonprofit and for-profit work in a rich conflict-of-interest stew. But at least they have paid a lot of income taxes and at least their foundation has given away a lot of money to good causes.
It is a testimony to the coarsening of American culture that millions of people, in their wishful thinking and willful ignorance, have voted for a man as sleazy as Donald J. Trump. (But I also wish the Democrats had nominated somebody other than Mrs. Clinton.)
All this is yet another display of how America’s profoundly corrupt tax code favors money manipulation over honestly earning money, the latter by, for example, making, growing and inventing things and providing useful and honest services. Unearned income trumps (so to speak) earned income.
xxx
From a New York Times review by Michiko Kakutani of Hitler: Ascent (1889-1939), by Ullrich Volker:
“Hitler was often described as an egomaniac who ‘only loved himself’ — a narcissist with a taste for self-dramatization and what Mr. Ullrich calls a ‘characteristic fondness for superlatives.’ His manic speeches and penchant for taking all-or-nothing risks raised questions about his capacity for self-control, even his sanity. But Mr. Ullrich underscores Hitler’s shrewdness as a politician — with a ‘keen eye for the strengths and weaknesses of other people’ and an ability to ‘instantaneously analyze and exploit situations.”’
• “Hitler was known, among colleagues, for a ‘bottomless mendacity’’’….
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Expect more nasty revelations about Hillary Clinton soon from Wikileaks’s Julian Assange, who works for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, a Trump favorite.
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Rory Stewart, the British international development minister, noted the other day that a new American isolationism and Russian aggression had led to the “world order getting out of control’’ and “unimaginable things happening.’’ And he reasonably forecast that nothing will really change until the next U.S. administration.
Still, some nations are addressing the threat. Consider Sweden, which has joined NATO’s Strategic Communications Center and is remilitarizing its biggest island, Gotland, in the face of Russian threats in the Baltic region.
xxx
“The next time you see one of those squirrels go near my putting green, take a gun and shoot it!’’
President Eisenhower, to his valet in frustration over the White House squirrels who buried acorns in his new putting green. (from Upstairs at the White House, by J. B. West, former Chief Usher of the White House.)
If you think that the oaks are dropping more acorns this year, after our hot and dry summer, you’d be right. While getting hit on the head by acorns is not very pleasant, it is cheery to see the squirrels so busy.
You also might be right if you thought that this coming winter will be stormy. The warmer-than-normal ocean temperature south of New England will encourage the storminess: When cold Canadian air hits the warm moist air off the southeast coast, you often get storm development. But who knows for sure? The meteorologists at this writing (early Monday) have little idea where Hurricane Matthew will be in five days. Long-range weather forecasting is perhaps best done in Vegas.
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Take cover! As part of a bridge project, Route 128 will be closed from the night of Nov. 4 through Nov. 6 in Needham, with traffic to be rerouted through local roads. Even though this will be on a weekend and with plenty of official warning, expect chaos! With all the whining about the MBTA, thank God that Greater Boston, unlike many U.S. metro areas, at least has a fairly dense mass-transit system to take pressure off the roads. If only it were denser.
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I’ve been reading a biography of Wallace Stevens, The Whole Harmonium, by Paul Mariani and am struck yet again by the ability of some people to maintain more than one vocation – in Mr. Stevens’s case senior insurance executive in Hartford and (great) poet. Charles Ives, the American composer, was also in the insurance business.
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