Donna Perry: No American Dream in RI
Thursday, October 06, 2011
It is approaching one year since Lincoln Chafee was elected Governor of Rhode Island and it seems his administration’s department Directors and top staff engaged in a retreat of sorts in recent days to note the one year anniversary, take stock, and supposedly forge a path for the second year ahead. But it may make little difference what plans, strategies and action items the administration personnel walked away with, because the hard truth is that they really have no leader.
Neither does the state of Rhode Island.
The earliest criticisms that Lincoln Chafee lacked the command of the issues, temperament and governing maturity required for the job are now being validated in vivid and almost uncomfortably messy fashion with each passing season.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe illegal immigrant policy firestorm is really only the latest in a string of high profile, off the mark controversies that have embroiled his governorship thus far. The winter of his talk radio ban that gave way to a spring consumed by an ill-conceived and widely rejected sales tax plan, was followed up this past summer with his odd, inappropriate interference with our own U.S. Attorney’s lawful transfer of a Rhode Island defendant out of state for trial because it’s a potential death penalty case. Chafee’s rationale was that his personal opposition to the death penalty propelled him to wreak havoc on layers of law enforcement procedures and attempt to block the transfer. The saga demonstrated Chafee’s inability to separate his ideological impulses from his duty to act for the greater good and, by the way, uphold the law.
So now, as we reach the fall of pension reform when he could be using his bully pulpit to keep the focus of both legislators and the public on this critical fiscal policy issue, he decides this is the moment to push his own personal agenda on statewide policies governing illegal immigrants.
As his hand-picked Board for Higher Education (BHE) staged their hearing last week to grant in-state tuition rates for illegal immigrants attending the state’s colleges and URI, there were repeated references by supporters of the policy and some BHE members to the pursuit of the American Dream.
American Dream Is Dying
Yet the critical point Governor Chafee and his BHE Chairman Lorne Adrain seem profoundly unable to grasp is that the American Dream is dying in a state like Rhode Island. There was no outrage, sympathy, or rush to a news release a few weeks ago when the data was released showing the community that leads the state in single family homeowner foreclosures happens to be in Chafee’s part time hometown of Warwick. It can’t all be blamed on the mortgage industry collapse either. The recent data reveals that unemployment and underemployment, coupled with other household fiscal pressures (high property taxes) are the driving factors for those who lose their home. The other highest foreclosure rates are found in Providence, Cranston, Pawtucket, and Woonsocket, places that were once the bedrock communities of the Rhode Island middle class.
Advocates for the illegal immigrant communities often underscore the point that there are real people behind the numbers in the wider illegal community whose individual circumstances should be taken into account as policies are developed. The same could be said for the collapsing Rhode Island middle class. There are actual people behind the foreclosed upon neighborhoods, the shuttered businesses, and the “For Sale” and “For Lease” signs that now clog commercial strips on main thoroughfares throughout much of the state. They are actual Rhode Islanders who for generations have lived in these communities, always played by the rules, paid their taxes, sent their children to local public schools, (no fancy private/boarding school options for them) and tried to run a business.
Where are the outrage and sympathy and advocacy for their plight from Chafee? It’s been exhaustively discussed that curbing the cost of the pension system is directly tied to the chance for a turnaround in fiscal health for these very communities now in a downward spiral. Chafee should be hammering that point home rather than flitting around the country, checking out what far larger border states have done to address the complexities of hosting large illegal populations, simply to satisfy his personal ideological impulses.
Coming fast on the heels of his BHE controversial vote last week, Chafee acknowledged he is looking into giving illegals special driving licenses. The Governor says he got the idea from Utah. But Rhode Island borders Massachusetts, which apparently is looking to crack down, not lighten up on illegal drivers. If Chafee has his way, RI will offer yet another enticement to illegal people seeking the benefits of legal status.
But the larger question now becomes, why would Rhode Island be a magnet?
If the approaching year two of a Governor Chafee doesn’t result in him learning to separate impulses from governing, there won’t be much of an American Dream for anyone to pursue in Rhode Island, legal or illegal.
Donna Perry is a Communications Consultant for RISC, RI Statewide Coalition www.statewidecoalition.com
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