Lisa Blais: Election Cycle: Pandering to Taxpayers

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Lisa Blais, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™

 

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Providence Mayor Angel Taveras is a day late and a dollar short with his Projo "commentary", believes Lisa Blais.

To borrow from Projo’s Ed Fitzpatrick’s “Are You Kidding Me?” blurbs...are you kidding me?

Why is it that elected officials suddenly speak up and speak out about community issues during election cycles? Most readers are likely thinking that this is an entirely naïve question. It is, but it is a rhetorical one much like the (disingenuous) rhetoric taxpayers hear all too often from elected officials hoping to climb the political ladder aiming to grab the brass ring come election day.

Although we are about a year away from the Democrat and Republican gubernatorial primaries and general election, we already bear witness to the political opportunism of “speaking up and speaking out” on issues, coupled with hearing the requisite political rhetoric that goes along with their proclamations; or is it their epiphanies?

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Delayed reaction

Projo ran a piece on November 12th that was presented as a commentary but in reality was a full blown press release penned by Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, along with the city’s safety commissioner and CEO of Family Services of Rhode Island. As we all know, Democrat Taveras wants to be our governor. That press release expressed disappointment with the Providence License Board for failing to “strip” the strip club Cheaters of its license to operate for employing an underage girl and soliciting for sex. Now, hold your horses! We agree as most people might with the Mayor’s position. But the question becomes, “why now, Mayor Taveras?” What’s up with the timing and why communicate in the form of a press release presented as commentary for public consumption?

Where has the Providence mayor been since the Cheaters scandal was made public? Where has he been during the years that the city’s other “clubs” offer private dance rooms, or what about those massage parlors? The content of that press release may be inarguable, but it rings wholly disingenuous in context of the timing. We know from his piece that Mayor Taveras intends to introduce one-strike legislation at the State House to rein in these clubs…but to our point, why didn’t Providence taxpayers receive the same opportunity to read a full-blown press release in the Projo from Mayor Taveras announcing his intent in the last General Assembly session to request legislators’ approval to exceed the property tax cap on city residents? It didn’t happen; the exorbitant property tax increase did but not the press release. Don’t you just love election cycles?

Full of hot air

Ah, but pandering to taxpayers in the hope that too many folks won’t pay attention but will latch onto feel-good press releases or “tell me what I want to hear” sound bites isn’t limited to partisan politics. Republican Mayor Allan Fung of Cranston also wants the governor’s seat. He is a nice man, although Cranston residents have borne the brunt of repeated property tax increases under his administration. They have felt the same financial strain as have Providence residents. Yet we hear the mayor claim empathy, in the nicest of ways, for those middle class folks slipping backward, struggling to pay mortgages while reeling from under or unemployment. Rings hollow given the fact that if those same folks don’t pay those higher property taxes then you can bet the City of Cranston will sell their homes at tax sale.

Mayor Fung’s rhetoric doesn’t start and stop with expressions of empathy. He is hoping that people will buy into his promise to create 20,000 new jobs. Some people may presume that he refers strictly to private sector jobs, however it was reported that he actually means that he will create 20,000 private and public sector jobs. That’s reason for pause. How in the world will those same struggling middle class folks who are slipping backward afford to pay for expanded government jobs along with those requisite benefit packages? And whatever happened to the notion that politicians and government do not create jobs (of course with the exception of more government jobs)? This coming from a banner Republican? Of course, it has also been reported that economists have already forecasted growth of approximately 19,000 jobs before Mayor Fung made his big announcement.

Listening to Mayor Fung is like hitting the playback button on political rhetoric that taxpayers have heard too many times over too many election cycles in Rhode Island. Taxpayers don’t need to be told one more time what we need to do expressed in broad strokes, or what we need to generally take a look at or what we need to study; we don’t need to be told that our regulatory environment is not business friendly or that the tax structure should be looked at or our public education system is important. We already know all of this and more! The Mayor of Cranston is doing nothing more than providing taxpayers with feel good sound bites that have absolutely no meat on the bones.

The cold hard truth

Despite his ”nice guy” persona, Mayor Fung was not above throwing out some lowball immaterial remarks about his Republican primary challenger, Ken Block.

Deep sigh...that’s what many taxpayers are doing, particularly those who are paying attention to the political gamesmanship that is more reliable than RI’s economy. Many of the softball remarks from Mayor Fung remind this writer of our pension debacle. Too many people were told what they wanted to hear and paid for it in the end because the people responsible for the health of the pension failed to have a plan. Neither does Mayor Fung.

I wrote this in my last article, but believe the words are worth repeating: Taxpayers need a “collective jaw-dropping, coffee spilling, halleluiah moment across our state”. That would be a good thing but it will only happen when we start by rejecting the same old status quo political messaging that is being exhibited by Mayors Taveras and Fung.

 

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Lisa Blais is a board member of OSTPA, a taxpayer advocacy organization in Rhode Island.

 

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