Fecteau: An American Soldier’s Hope for Rhode Island

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Matt Fecteau, GoLocalProv Guest MINDSETTER™

 

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With a state motto of “Hope,” Rhode Island paradoxically offers little. In the coming months, yet again, I will deploy with the military in support of our operations overseas. While I will miss home, there is more opportunity on the streets of Iraq and Afghanistan than Rhode Island. 

I come from a hardworking, middle class family that Rhode Island should seek to protect, and retain, but fails. With several master’s degrees, and nearly ten years in the army, a laundry list of fantastic recommendations, I still have difficulty finding a quality job, and the taxes are unbearable.  

Last year, after my service to my country, including several tours in Iraq, I ran for United States Congress in Rhode Island with the best intentions. Nevertheless, I now realize, no amount of determination can change a state that simply isn’t yet ready for change. 

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Looking into the void Rhode Island has become, it shouldn’t be like this. We have the resources, the innovation, and the coastline to attract people from all walks of life.  Up till now, even our veterans are treated with distain, with a state that barely registers as a veteran conducive environment.  

Rhode Island’s income inequality is without question pervasive. The state is more appealing to the rich that can afford the high taxes, or the poor that are cushioned to some degree from destitute poverty. The middle class, however, is left with only scraps, and incentive to move elsewhere.

Rhode Island is more akin to a black hole, devouring, and consuming everything it touches, all the while fettering away critical tax dollars.  With our state over burdened by high taxes, arcane regulations, lack of business opportunity, few quality jobs, and a mass exodus of people, we hold out for a miracle.

Congress is also to blame.  Our federally elected leaders appear more concerned with bombing over countries than providing Americans with jobs they so rightly deserve, which is why Congress hasn’t passed a federal budget in six years. 

Even my own federal representative, David Cicilline, has done nothing for Rhode Island with the exception of the occasion photo op as Congressman. His coming listening lesson is merely insult to injury, only window dressing for the state he continues to fail. 

At the state level, Cicilline’s friends in the General Assembly are astute at making absolutely horrible, long-term, far-reaching decisions that reward the connected at the expense of everyone else.  There is some unmistakable irony here. The home I served to protect is being destroyed not by some foreign terrorist group that I swore to defeat, but by the people we depend on to represent us, our General Assembly.

This ludicrous PawSox stadium deal is the antithesis of what we should be doing, building an extravagant, overpriced stadium while our roads, bridges, and railways slowly deteriorate beneath us.  I want to attract business to our state, not break the bank to incentivize them to stay.

Rhode Island’s dire condition did not happen overnight.  Rhode Island’s fate is the culmination of years of failed policies crafted in the backroom of the Rhode Island state house by shady, entrenched politicians that are voted in every year like clockwork.  With so few people voting or running for office, the status quo remains unchallenged. As a result, we are at the mercy of an establishment that rewards their campaign donors.

If you are wondering who is a fault for this mess, simply look at your state representative and senators.  Chances are high they have been in office for years becoming more entrenched into the establishment that only rewards loyalty. Of course the middle class suffers, we subsidize the corruption, cronyism and incompetence that keep Rhode Island the most unfriendly business environment in country. 

With the exception of my military duty, Rhode Island has been my home, but it is becoming a ghost state.  Most of my friends and family have left seeking reprieve in Massachusetts or elsewhere. The rest of us are left with the bitter taste of stagnation. 

Wholeheartedly, I support our operations that will contain the unmitigated disaster that is Iraq, but wish more opportunities existed.  In Rhode Island, anyone not connected to the establishment that destroys this state is sadly left by the wayside. 

With any luck, while deployed overseas, Rhode Island will awake from its coma, and change its trajectory. Until that time, I will again proudly serve my country with honor, hoping to return to a state ready for change. 

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Matt Fecteau ([email protected]), of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, lost to U.S. Rep. David Cicilline in last year’s Democratic primary. He is a former White House national security intern and Iraq war veteran.

 

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