Forbes on the Raimondo Speech

Forbes was in attendance today in new York as Treasurer Gina Raimondo accepted an award from the right-leaning Manhattan Institute for Public Policy Research for her work in overhauling the state pension system.

The magazine's Tim Ferguson noted that Raimondo preached transparency: an unrelenting effort to educate the public on the nature and depth of the pension crisis, such that a broad constituency would "own the problem" and embrace reform.

A bit of cognitive dissonance, Ferguson noted, in New York, where Governor Andrew Cuomo recently won widespread praise for working out a key bit of tax reform behind closed doors:

In many political environments, any significant loser group is able to stop or muddle a reform, even one aimed at avoiding public bankruptcy. Thus it was, in the minds of many, an artful act when New York‘s Cuomo sewed up tax legislation that surprised upper-earners with increases in their tax rates and presumably closed a revenue gap in the process. In so doing, and with another artful use of an expiring surtax as cover, Cuomo fundamentally ditched a campaign promise not to increase taxes.

An argument, here, for backroom politics. Have no fear, Mr. Ferguson, that practice is alive and well in Rhode Island.