- [Jim] This week on "A Lively Experiment".

It's a busy week for Governor McKee with a state of the state speech, then the release of his proposed budget.

We'll have details on each.

And Donald Trump is poised to move back into the White House next week.

What will the early days of his second term look like?

- [Narrator] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by... - Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

I'm a proud supporter of this great program in Rhode Island PBS.

- [Jim] Joining us on the panel, attorney and former prosecutor, Eva-Marie Mancuso, political contributor, Pablo Rodriguez, and Joe Larisa, attorney and former governor, and Lincoln Almond's Chief of Staff.

Hello and welcome into this week's Lively.

I'm Jim Hummel.

Governor McKee on Tuesday said that Rhode Island is quote, "Full of progress and promise," in his annual state of the state speech, which ran more than an hour.

And he offered hints of what would be in his proposed budget.

We got details of that $14.2 billion budget late in the day Thursday, and there is a lot to chew on.

Welcome.

We will get back... We will get to the budget momentarily.

Eva, let me just talk with you.

You've been on the inside and the outside.

State of the state speeches is kind of upbeat and positive.

What did you think about the speech itself?

- I thought it was terrific because when you sit down and think about the wins that Governor McKee has had since he first started, especially in areas that are on the front page today, like homelessness.

When you look at the fact that now we have homeless advocates that are there and part of the speech, you had Russ, you had Laura, you had Michelle from Crossroads as part of the McKee plan.

He's really got a lot of ground, 60% increase in beds for homelessness since the beginning of the McKee administration.

You don't stop and think about that.

You just look at, oh my goodness, we haven't gotten the 45 pallet shelters open yet and we need to have a state of emergency or we need to rush and get those done.

You don't look at the big picture on everything, but we've had a lot of success for Rhode Islanders.

Governor McKee is a roll up your sleeves.

I really, really like the line of, "I have a table, it has 10 seats at it, pull up a chair and come join me."

That's the way he governs.

He's very much an inclusive person who wants to sit down and listen to all the different... Hey, he hired me.

He wanted to hear lots of different opinions around the table.

So I think that's really important that he sits down and listens to people.

And that was the tone of it.

- And we should note, welcome Eva back.

You haven't been here for several years.

Eva was with us a long time.

She did go to work for Governor McKee.

You've been out of that office for a couple years now.

- I have been, yes.

And I ran a international trade.

I ran the Chafee Center for International Trade at Bryant for a year.

- And now you're back with us.

- And now I'm back.

- Beautiful.

- Now I'm back.

- Pablo.

- Well, I think it was his best speech in terms of how he communicated in the middle of really severe crisis.

I mean, when you're talking about the situation with the bridge, when you're talking with the situation with the state's computer, with the bridges situation, it's hard to come up with a positive speech when you have all those crises in front of you.

I think we are going to be facing some real, real trouble in the future.

The COVID money just gave us this nice little sugar high over the last few years and now we're gonna have to deal with real, real problems in terms of the budget because it's projected to grow as high as $400 million in a couple of years.

This is going to be a structural deficit, not just one that happens by happenstance.

- [Jim] And it gets worse in the out years.

- And it gets worse in the out years when you have this kind of structural deficit.

- [Jim] Joe.

- It looks like the campaign for governor is already begun with the speech.

They used to criticize my boss, Linc Almond, for being boring in states of the state speech.

We used to have a slogan for Linc to say, no, this is good.

No glitz, no glamour, but he's not in the slammer, when Buddy Cianci was back in the day.

- [Jim] I don't remember that one.

- But it's a typical state of the state speech and that, the budget and the controversy surrounding the closing of the rotunda and the no cameras, that type of stuff gets you usually in more trouble than the benefit.

So I wouldn't put it with the money... We used to have this, Eva too, there's always a deficit other than the COVID years.

There's always an out year big deficit and you start with the budget, you put in an assault weapons ban.

That's why I say you don't put that in the budget.

That's gonna be for the legislature to put in.

But politics has started and I think it was just a typical state of the states.

I mean state of the union.

- Yeah, state of the states.

Well, let's talk about, we were talking in the green room before we came out here and I think there were two things that potentially got in the way of the speech itself.

First, I would say in a speech like that, leave them wanting more and not less.

I think an hour probably was a little bit long, but that's his call.

It's his.

The networks had to cut out a little bit 'cause he went over eight o'clock.

As to the protestors, let's talk about what we were talking about in the green room.

There was some criticism that they didn't get to be in the rotunda.

There was a media issue with cameras, which I think probably was a miscommunication.

But your thoughts on the protesters?

- I totally agree with that decision.

I don't think- - [Jim] To keep them out of the rotunda?

- To keep them out.

So first of all, the reason you protest is if nobody's paying attention to the issue.

Everybody's paying attention to the issue.

As I said, the governor has been hands on.

I recall two and a half years ago when I accompanied the governor on one Saturday all day and we went and we visited homeless encampments and we went and visited shelters.

And not only was he warmly received, but he's empathetic.

He understood the plight and tried to participate.

He's really a mayor at heart so he wanted to get out there with the people.

The only thing those people were going to do was scream and yell and interrupt the speech.

I watched it happen when we had the Christmas party.

We had kids and I remember 'cause it was Cranston, which I went to school and the kids were singing and there were people screaming and yelling during the course of them singing.

So it was going to be disruptive.

Even what they were saying, "Let's just clear a state of emergency," that's now the new buzzword.

"Oh, if he's not declaring a state of emergency, it means it's not important."

Come on.

That's not what we're talking about.

Everybody knows that homelessness is a problem.

We have to start building permanent housing now, not 45 pallet shelters.

Yes, that's a good short term problem to have...

Resolution of the problem.

We need more housing, affordable housing.

Where I would be protesting, I can tell you right now, would be in Johnston.

The mayor of Johnston wants to have single family homes.

Basically what he's saying is, if you make $130,000, you can live in my town.

Well, you know what, mayor?

That doesn't make sense, right?

I mean, you're shaking your head, Pablo.

It doesn't make sense.

- What about the way it was handled?

- Yeah, yeah, I think that Eva's right.

You don't want the speech to be completely disrupted by protestors, but they do have a point.

The reason we have more beds is because we have more homelessness.

So the problem is becoming bigger and one thing that we didn't hear during the speech is talking about zoning and the fact that you can throw all the money you want at the problem, and we have thrown a lot of money to the problem, but we still have not been able to catch up with the need for housing in Rhode Island.

The only way we're gonna do that is if we change our zoning laws.

If we are able to build high density homes in areas that right now have four or five acres.

- Right.

The speaker did a great job in the last legislative season with changing a lot of the systematic problems, but it still resides in the cities and towns, and the cities and towns are still making their own decisions.

And the not in my backyard and like I said, the most glaring is really Johnston, with the mayor coming out saying, "Listen, we want single family homes."

- The protest, you could argue it was viewpoint discrimination.

If you're worried about the disruption, then worry about the disruption.

Don't let it get disruptive and tell the protestors not to disrupt.

But if there was a pattern of closing the rotunda in prior speeches, okay, there wasn't.

This came out of the blue, nobody knew it was going to happen and everybody knew why it was happening.

We didn't want the homeless protestors in this location at this time.

And you really can't do that consistent with the First Amendment.

- In terms of the palace shelters have gotten a lot of the buzz, I've heard the governor and the state fire marshal say, "Well, we don't want another station nightclub fire."

It's apples and avocados as far as I'm concerned.

What is wrong with saying, look, to get this thing done, we have 24 hour people on site.

We have smoke detectors.

The chances of something happening, what's more dangerous?

To have them out in the cold, potentially freezing to death or the possibility of a fire?

Why not say I'm gonna issue a limited emergency order just to get this thing open and then it solves the problem.

- It's a slippery slope, Jim.

And that's what I'm concerned about.

- [Jim] But limited.

- I mean, remember, remember I was one of the lawyers on the Station Net club fire.

- [Jim] Yeah, I get it.

- And I watched, when we looked all of the codes over the years, that's what happened.

It's a slippery slope.

And the bottom line is you have rules and you have laws for a reason.

I don't think now, from what I'm seeing, and the discussion now is it's not even a zoning issue or a fire marshal issue right now.

They were having trouble hooking up the electricity, and the supply chain issue.

All I'm saying is that still 45 beds that we're talking about.

And to me, that's a distraction from what the real problem is.

And the real problem, as Pablo said, it's zoning.

It's municipalities that are still putting up the not in my backyard.

It's not the state and it's not money.

It's people.

It's people saying, "We are not gonna have..." How about some of the people saying, "We're not gonna have a South providence in our backyard.

We're not gonna have a Chad Brown."

God forbid.

- [Jim] What about a limited emergency order just to get the thing open?

- The trouble is, and we will speak about this more on the national level with Trump, the bureaucracy, like you were saying, if you wanna get it done, you can focus and get it done.

If it's fire, you have somebody 24/7 with fire extinguishes to stop it.

If it's certain code thing, this is not a station nightclub fire.

That was a surprise thing that came.

We know the issues.

If Eva says these are the issues, supply chain, that's a tough one.

But the other one, you can focus government around it and get it done.

I don't know if an...

I've done 100 executive orders myself for the governor.

I don't know if you need to go to that extent, but you do.

You can do a limited one just to solve this precise problem.

Or you can solve it by telling the bureaucracy, let's sit around a room, let's figure out what these issues are and let's get it done in a short period of time.

- [Jim] And maybe you've done that last May while it was still... - And if you need to waive something, then you specifically waive it for that purpose for a short period of time.

- Just quickly on this.

- Yeah, the codes are not written in tablets, by the finger of God, okay?

I mean, they are created by people to try to deal with an issue.

I agree.

I agree with Joe that if you can put a firetruck, at least for this winter part.

Even for a couple of weeks just to get the place going because it's really, really cold.

It's very, very hard for homeless people to be out on the street.

- Okay.

On Thursday, as we had said, the governor announced a $14.2 billion budget.

Joe, I don't even want to think about it, what it was back with Governor Almond.

I know five years ago, it was just over 10 billion and it's gone up 40, 50%.

Pablo, let me begin with you, what you like, what you didn't like about the budget.

I think the one good thing is it's only going up 1.8%, which I think is a big departure from what we've had the last couple of years.

- Well, obviously as a doctor, I mean, I was happy to hear that primary care, the absence of primary care in Rhode Island, a shortage of primary care providers is taking some kind of importance.

Because if you try to get a primary care provider in the last few years, you can't find one.

And we expect to have 100 deficit, 100 primary care provider deficit by 2030.

- [Jim] But they're not changing the reimbursement rates.

- Exactly.

Yeah, and it's all about the money.

The doctors in Rhode Island are the lowest paid in the country, and pediatricians, primary care providers cannot make ends meet.

So when you come outta medical school, you come out with medical school with an average debt of $263,000, and yes, we're gonna increase the loan repayment, but you just told me for $400,000, that covers two people.

- [Jim] Take care of two people.

- It's not enough.

We have a serious problem for primary care and for healthcare in the state, and we need to take it very seriously.

- [Jim] First watched the budget, what do you think?

- Yeah, so primary care, and I'll leave that to the doctors and to the economist to try to figure that out because it's true.

I mean, we need to get rid of the bureaucracy in the middle so that we can make sure that doctors get paid.

Because if not, it's just the numbers don't add up, right?

I thought that the budget was very disciplined as it's been in the past.

If you look at the COVID money and what the priorities were, they were one time big payments.

So it's not like we've been very...

When I say we, I shouldn't even talk about it that way, but I worked on three budgets, and what we looked at was the fact that we're not gonna start all these new programs, but we're going to put money into the rainy day fund, make sure that we properly fund the nonprofits that are doing the work and going from there, and then pulling back on those that are not using it.

If you're not using the money that's there, then I like the recall.

If you're not using the money, put it back in and put it somewhere else.

- Redistribute it.

There was a RIPEC report that came out though that said exactly, the speaker many times we've talked about on this show.

And the governor, to a lesser extent said, we want to invest, we don't wanna spend.

Meaning we wanna make the one time.

RIPEC said they did exactly the opposite, that there were ongoing things written into the budget that are coming back to bite them now.

- I don't know.

I look at it, especially when you look at things like municipal roads, right?

I mean, something that is just- - [Jim] Yeah, that's a great program.

- Pretty boring, but so important, because again, I drive over that same darn road every day and I hit the potholes, right?

And go from there, and what do I do?

I first blame the state, but 80% of the roads are run by the municipalities.

So yes, it's building.

It's investing in infrastructure.

When we look at the Learn365 on education, where again, we're trying to attack the problem, but attacking it from a different way.

It's a multi-pronged approach to a problem that's been there.

Instead of saying, we're gonna put...

Which would be great to put more teachers in the classroom and have smaller class sizes and what have you.

If you don't have the teachers coming out of school, you can't do it.

So what do we do?

We try to build in the infrastructure within the cities and towns to do that through the Learn365.

- But also the student population's declining and we're still spending the same amount of money.

- It's declining, but it's not declining the same way that we have teachers declining and people going into education, you know?

We say the same thing.

We want teachers to look like the kids in the classroom.

That means we have to invest more in our minority population.

We have to support more, the hope scholarship, all the things that we're doing.

We are doing a lot of things at the same time to try to attack these different problems.

And that's something that I think we should be proud of.

- What happens here, Jim, and you mentioned just one part, we've got increasing teachers, increasing spending, and fewer students.

All we talk about in the state is spend, spend, spend.

There's nothing like this happening at the national level with cut, cut, cut.

Live within your means, lower taxes on people.

Rhode Island can't keep spending like this.

There's no cuts in the budget.

In fact, there are increased taxes.

We need an auditor general easy fix to at least start the problem of, let's look at this systematically.

Let's get somebody who's totally independent of everybody in there who can take a look at these areas of government and make some recommendations in a way that we haven't had, and make sure that everything's on the up and up.

All we talk about is in spending, which to the left is investing.

Nobody's talking about cutting anything, which makes our tax burden super high.

And just one of the issues, we've got a lot fewer students, you don't see spending per pupil going down.

You see it going up and you see the results not improving at all.

We got to focus on austerity at some point in the state.

- (indistinct) - I just don't agree that we have the type of spending problem that was going on before Governor McKee.

I think that we have a situation- - [Jim] The budget's gone up 40%, - But the 40% was COVID money, - [Jim] Right, so now that the COVID money's gone, why didn't the budget go back?

- But it did go back.

It went back to- - It didn't.

- It went back to... Well, you got to put inflation in - In one of the debates, governor McKee, you were there when he was debating against Ashley Kalus.

They said what do you think the budget's gonna be when we wash all the money out?

And he said, 11 and a half, maybe $12 billion.

You know what it was?

13 plus, so that COVID money, it got built in somehow.

- We also have to put inflation in there as well too.

I mean you're not...

It's not a dollar for dollar over the last three or four years, but without getting into just the economic piece of it in terms of not spending and not investing, and I think that there is a lot of restraint that's happening.

He has really kept the workforce in the state down.

He's not putting in new jobs and new positions and what have you.

He's cutting out the middle management and trying to get more money into the programs that are working.

- [Jim] Last thought on the budget?

- I don't think we're spending enough.

I think we actually need to increase taxes.

I think that- - [Jim] You and Joe can have your own show out.

- Absolutely.

- Set you up in a ring and let you go.

- If there's a group called Revenue for Islanders that is proposing a 3% increase in the tax for millionaires, and that would bring $128 million into the coffers.

These are people that already got a tax cut here in Rhode Island, I think it was 10 years ago, 15 years ago from eight to 5.9%, got the Trump tax cuts.

And if Trump gets his way, they're gonna continue those tax cuts today.

So millionaires are doing very well.

2,000 people can pay 128 million.

- All right, that's a great segue into our next topic.

We're taping this Friday.

On Monday we will have a new president, actually back to the future.

President Trump will be inaugurated for his second term.

Joe, we had you on right after the election.

So we have talked off camera about what do we see on day one, what do we see the first 100 days.

What's on your wishlist?

- Well, as President Obama said, elections have consequences.

And we are gonna find that out.

For progressives like Pablo, it's a sorrowful morning in America.

For conservatives like me, it's Ronald Reagan's beautiful, great morning in America.

We've got a divided country, but the country spoke.

We've got a huge electoral win for Trump.

Popular vote win.

And he's gonna do what he said he is gonna do.

We're gonna have executive orders.

We're going to get immigration under control.

We're gonna have deportations.

We're gonna have tariffs for countries who don't play ball and live up to what America feels is the right thing to do.

We're gonna have the end of DEI, the end of the woke culture, and Trump's gonna deliver on his promises.

And, Jim, the big thing for Trump is fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

He was fooled the first time.

He had no idea going into the deep state bureaucracy, how much resistance he was going to have.

And his administration got derailed early on with the fake Russiagate scandal.

That's not gonna happen this time.

He's got the house, he's got the Senate, he's got a program, he's gonna hit the ground running and there's gonna be a lot of great things for America.

The people have spoken, and here we go.

- [Jim] Pablo.

- Yeah.

Fool me once.

Yeah, right.

Build a wall and Mexico will pay for it.

The most important promise that he made in the first term didn't happen.

Now he's gonna end the war of Ukraine one day.

Pardons, EVE mandate, tariffs, decrease grocery prices, increased deportations, travel ban, birthright citizenship, and drill, drill, drill all in day one.

These are all false promises that he has.

He did it on the first time and he's doing it again and we are fools for believing.

- Well, he's backed off that a little bit already saying it's kind of tough with the prices.

- Oh yeah, right, exactly.

- I'm an optimist.

I'm an optimist.

I'm sitting between these two gentlemen and I can tell you, America is resilient.

We're not going to start deporting dreamers.

It's just not gonna happen.

Maura Healey's been very clear saying stay out of Massachusetts.

Dan McKee, I think will be very clear to say stay out of Rhode Island.

We're not- - It might take you four years to get to everybody, even if you were gonna try, right?

- Well, the thing is that we have priorities.

There are some things...

Listen, there are some things that some policies I like that Trump has, not a lot of them, but some of them I do.

And kudos to Jack Reed and to Sheldon Whitehouse for cross-examining some of these cabinet appointments that have the audacity to sit there and talk about the fact that they're qualified moving forward.

If Trump puts in people like that and they get in, they're gonna get zero.

Why?

Because you have all of the bureaucrats that have been there forever that are gonna have to follow the lead.

- The so-called deep state.

But you mentioned executive orders, and it's interesting, Joe.

Obama, his last term, couldn't get along with Congress.

A lot of executive orders.

They got... Because he couldn't legislate.

They pull back on that.

When Trump got in, Trump issues a bunch.

The minute the day Joe Biden came, it was like 1,000 executive orders.

The real proof in the pudding is being able to legislate.

He has the senate, the house, and the presidency.

So don't you think he has about 18 months?

- Yeah, I do, and we're talking one big beautiful bill, maybe two, to get all his priorities through.

- What would be your priority?

Legislatively, not executive order, if you would like to see someday.

- Well, he's gonna put them all in.

He's going to... We're gonna get the money funding for the deportations and we're not talking dreamers to begin with.

We're talking 1 million illegal immigrants who have been ruled that way by the courts.

So we're still in America.

He's gonna get his tax cuts through and he's going to get his policies that he's been talking about on the campaign.

- Which the tax cuts were the signature from eight years ago.

That was really the one thing that he was able to legislate.

- Why not focus on the million people that are here paying taxes that are honest law abiding citizens?

Why not with a stroke of the pen, give them citizenship?

Why not let them work?

Take the criminals and send them back.

Anybody that's committing crimes, get rid of them.

I'm a law enforcement person, but what about all the people that are doing the hard work, that are paying taxes, that are participating, that are part of the government here?

Who's gonna rebuild California?

30% of the working are undocumented.

Who's gonna rebuild those kinds of things?

So I think you're gonna find that they're going to have...

If you have that hardline Republican approach, as Joe has suggested, you're gonna have an awful hard time getting that done because of just the sheer numbers.

- I also think- - Who does the work?

- I also think President Trump in the first round, he didn't want to believe it, but there are three branches of government and there are some Republicans, old hard Republicans.

I think that's one of the reasons Matt Gaetz was out.

There are other people, there are federally appointed Trump judges who are just like, enough is enough.

So I don't think it's gonna be the wild, wild west, but I think it's gonna be interesting next.

- I think it's gonna be the wild wild west.

- [Jim] Do you?

- Because this is a reign of terror now.

Anybody that is out of line all of a sudden immediately threatened with we're gonna primary you, Joni Ernst, who was going to be the one that was gonna carry the torch against Hegseth, the candidate for defense secretary.

As soon as they told her we're gonna primary you, oh, now he's okay.

So this is happening with the Senate, this is happening with the house.

The inmates are running the asylum and I have no doubt that this reign of terror is going to bring a lot of problems for our country.

- I'll give you the last word.

- That's not reign of terror.

That's politics.

This is coming from the side that pushed the sitting president of the United States against his will with no primary and installed the vice president as the Democratic nominee.

Some would say that was a reign of terror.

Joe Biden himself probably would say it.

The Trump administration is going to be fine.

We've got the courts.

Trump's priorities or America's priorities and let's see where this takes us.

And I think it's gonna be a good thing.

- All right, we'll have the same panel on the 100th day.

All right, let's do this.

Let's go to outrageous and/or kudos.

Eva will give you the first one this week.

- So kudos.

First of all, thanks for having me back.

It's been really fun.

- There's always an open seat.

We couldn't have you for a little while, but it's nice have you back.

- I know, I know, I know.

I love to argue with people.

It's just like...

It's what I do.

It's in my DNA.

Kudos to Colonel Darnell Weaver for firing those two state troopers that were just so disrespectful.

And to take that action now with those two troopers six months in- - And just to set the table.

- So to set the table, they went to the academy and they videotaped just an awful crime scene and then posted it, right?

I mean, I can't believe.

You go through the academy, you do all that.

I mean, such a lack of judgment.

- You can't, right?

You can't- - But he moved quickly.

- You can't teach common sense.

You cannot teach judgment.

You cannot teach empathy and morality.

And that's what Colonel Weaver did.

He said, not on my watch.

And good job, Colonel.

That's the way....

I'm a state police family.

My dad was a state trooper and police chief in Providence and I'm a law enforcement kind of gal.

And I'll tell you, I was so happy to see that to say no discussion.

That's it.

You can't teach morality.

- [Jim] Joe, what do you have?

- Kudos to American democracy and the American people, Jim.

Democracy itself was never in danger, never will be.

Peaceful transfer of power.

The people spoke.

They installed President Trump and now they're gonna get the government they voted for and if four years from now, they don't like it, they'll also switch back just like they did Trump, Biden, back to Trump.

So Democracy works was never in jeopardy and I think it's good for America.

- Yeah, and the framers were smart because they made the house every two years in the Senate sick.

So we get to decide again in just a little bit more less than two years.

Pablo, what do you have?

- I have a quick kudos to an old friend, Ed Quinlan, who passed away this year.

A good friend of the show.

That was a life well lived and we're gonna miss him tremendously.

My outreach is the fact that the Republicans in Congress and the senate and the executive want to condition aid to California, the biggest conflagration in history.

One of the biggest disasters in history, and we're trying to condition the aid for the first time in history.

That is outrageous.

- Yeah.

And they said maybe bad behavior led to this and we need to... A disaster is a disaster whether you're Republican or a Democrat.

- That is correct.

And the bad behavior is climate change.

- Okay, folks, that is all the time we have.

It's a very quick 30 minutes with this panel.

Joe, good to see you.

Eva, welcome back, and Pablo.

If you don't catch us Friday at seven or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org.

We're all over social media, Facebook, X, like to call it Twitter, and wherever you get your favorite podcast.

So take us along wherever you go.

We are into the meat of the general assembly session and will still be a lot of dissection on the budget next week.

So come back and join us next week as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

We hope you have a great weekend.

(ambient music) - [Narrator] "A Lively Experiment" is generously underwritten by... - Hi, I'm John Hazen White Jr. For over 30 years, "A Lively Experiment" has provided insight and analysis of the political issues that face Rhode Islanders.

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