Gencarella: Playing Politics With Real People’s Lives
Thursday, March 02, 2017
Governor Raimondo recently admitted that the UHIP debacle ($364 million and growing) has hurt the neediest people in RI because she forced her administration to go live with a system they knew would never deliver the proper services to those most at-risk here in the Ocean State. While this was widely known more than 6 months ago, Speaker Mattiello’s mouthpiece, Oversight Chairwoman Serpa, is laying it on thick lambasting the executive branch for lying about the situation all this time. This very public crack in the Democratic party is evidence that there are backroom games going on and the end result will be that the people who need help now won’t get it and the RI taxpayer will still be paying for it.
Then there is the volleying taking place between Raimondo and Mattiello over the ridiculously politicized car tax. Sure, who wouldn’t like to see a real reduction or even the elimination of the car tax? But with the state’s proposal to foot the car tax bill, it’s nothing more than a shell game forcing the taxpayers who live outside of Providence (and other poorly run cities) to subsidize those receiving the benefit. Again, the average hard working taxpayer is on the hook as the two democrats try to score with that political football.
Now Governor Raimondo has thrown in another idea to grab the voters’ attention, and of course, their vote — free college tuition. Our elected officials couldn’t find money in the budget to repair our bridges. Speaker Mattiello said the state had $150 million in budget deficits so they had to create a new source of revenue through tolls. One year later, Mattiello now believes they can find over $200 million for his car tax phase out (or $30 million in Raimondo’s partial reduction of the car tax). Raimondo believes she can find another $30 million (to begin with) for free college tuition. More shell games with the taxpayer left holding the bag in the form of toll gantries and more taxes.GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST
Then there is the continued giveaways to bribe companies to come to RI. The most recent giveaway is to an international airline. Norwegian Air began its new routes between T. F. Green airport and Ireland recently. Elected officials hail it as a step in moving RI’s economy forward. However, according to the Journal, the RI Airport Corporation will bribe Norwegian Air with the usual $3.7million for the five new routes and the airline will also receive up to another $1.5 million from RI’s infamous Commerce Corporation (formerly the EDC), for the privilege of having them do business at Green. This on the heels of Condor Air’s decision to cut its flights between Frankfurt, Germany and Green Airport just a year after this service began. This giveaway is also on the heels of yet another decline in total passenger volume at Green.
Over and over again, elected officials play with our money looking for political gains and if the RI resident happens to benefit from their moves, so be it. Otherwise, we really don’t figure into the equation. A very sad case in point is the recent death of a 7 month old baby named Willow. Baby Willow died last week after DCYF had investigated not once, but twice in this infant’s short life and when the police found the baby, the home was reportedly in ‘deplorable condition’. It’s reported that the Office of the Child Advocate, an independent agency acting as watchdog over DCYF, is currently reviewing four child deaths and two near-deaths. And what are our elected officials doing about this ineffective and possibly underfunded agency that was created to protect our most at risk children? It would appear not much beyond reshuffling the deck.
Year after year there are reports of dysfunction in DCYF, over loaded case workers, mismanagement at the top, and ‘inappropriate’ uses of funds. An independent review of DCYF reported that ‘it’s a mess’ and the agency ‘has spent years in crisis mode.' The reason is clear why this sliver of RI life has been ignored - they have no voice and they can’t vote yet.
While our elected officials play political football, real people are hurting. We ask both the Speaker and the Governor to stop the insanity and focus on the most at-risk groups - fix the UHIP system now and fix DCYF now. Forget about spending taxpayer dollars on vote buying and help those with no voice.
Editor’s Note: For an analysis of the future for Green airport, read the comment section at the bottom of this Providence Business News article.
Related Slideshow: Winners and Losers in Raimondo’s FY18 Budget Proposal
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