Raimondo on Smith Hill: A Preview (or Premonition)

Rhode Island's 75th Governor, Gina Raimondo

General Treasurer Gina Raimondo was sworn in as Rhode Island’s 75^th Governor, and the first woman to occupy the office.
 

One resident offered the following condolences:

Can I puke now?
 

Identity politics is peaking in this country. Could it peak in Rhode Island, at least? Following the first black President, black people are worse off, unless they switched partiesfor a Republican or a conservative. Still, activist progressives have checked “black president” off their wish-list, and now itch for “woman president”. Rhode Island has its first woman governor. And? I had suggested Gina Raimondo, who bested two other challengers in a tight three-way race, could be the next President (or at least VP).
 

Now that the Ocean State has its first true-blue (female) progressive on Smith Hill, how will she govern over the next four years?
 

Considering her website wish list, she has adopted key portions of US Senator Elizabeth Warren’s Eleven Commandments of Progressivism, which include forcing the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour, along with demanding equal pay for women. Oh brother. She should have posted “Increase unemployment, promote wage discrimination, and expand societal decline.”
 

Raimondo’s alarm about climate change will find a home in a state sponsored program. To her, the climate change issue is “poised to impact Rhode Island in a big way. With more than 400 miles of coastline, looming rises in sea levels could be devastating to our cities and towns.”  Big way”: how scientific, much like all the discredited evidence support global warming alarmism. By the way, a Yale University professor affirmed that Tea Party members are more scientifically literate than their progressive, liberal counterparts. One of their representatives in Washington, Senator Jim Inhofe, could not agree more.
 

To educate Rhode Islanders about her heightened concerns about climate change, Raimondo offered:
 

That’s why I’m proposing the creation of a Rhode Island Green Bank and Clean Energy Finance Authority.
 

In other words, cap and trade (really, tax and scam), plus  more green-tech cronyism. Joy! One can hear the marching carbon footprints of RhodeMapRI pounding on single-family homes, too.

Putting aside the lukewarm, centrist campaign rhetoric, Raimondo, with full encouragement from President Barack Obama and a slightly larger plurality than predecessor Chafee, will seek a sweeping, statist agenda, a la New York City mayor Bill de Blasio or recently re-elected Dannell Malloy of neighboring Connecticut.
 

Like under NYC De Blasio, crime will spike in Rhode Island, and police will fear for their lives. Public safety is taking hits with fewer peace officers on the streets. How many will feel safe walking Rhode Island streets with Governor Raimondo in charge?
 

Expect the governor to sign off on drivers’ licenses for illegal immigrants, a pet cause of the modern American left, along with expanding benefits for illegal immigrants at the expense of born, naturalized citizens (and veterans). Unsafe streets will be the norm, and I-195 won’t get the repairs needs, more likely because of the incessant, race-baited protesting. Public bathrooms may be converted to accommodate transgenderism, rather than expecting individuals to use the ones designated by nature and Nature’s God.
 

While Governor Chafee vetoed a “Choose Life” license plate, Raimondo will expand abortion, and enrich these programs with taxpayer dollars. Planned Parenthood is moving out of Texas, but will feel right at home in Rhode Island. Let’s not forget that Wendy Davis, the spectacularly failed Democratic gubernatorial candidate, was born in Rhode Island, and her sentiment of abortion at any time lives on in her home state.
 

Health Source RI is on life-support, with Obamacare federal subsidies terminating this year. Instead of giving up on the failed project, Raimondo will resuscitate the government health care program, and force the state into a single-payer system. Where Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin failed, Raimondo will swear that she can succeed.
 

Instead of tackling domestic problems, her platform exacerbates political, economic and moral controversies. Raimondo will press ahead on joining national progressive causes, like overturning Citizens United, or working with former Mayor Michael Bloomberg to restrict gun purchase, access, and use. The next Democratic presidential nominee will be thriving and fundraising in Rhode Island, courtesy of the liberal governor and her bastion of public sector, secular progressive supporters.

New England may witness its regional version of President Obama’s sweeping executive order arrogance, and the deleterious consequences which follow.  Pension issues will loom large, and this time, Raimondo the Governor will make deals with organized labor, to the hurt of her state and its municipalities. The fate of Central Falls will fall upon other cities teetering on the brink. I anticipate Providence will go bankrupt during Raimondo’s first term.
 

Corruption will remain a Rhode Island mainstay, and Wall Street’s well of influence will overflow Rhode Island borders.
 

Without relatively conservative  House Speaker Mike Mattiello (D-Cranston), Raimondo would have a near-tyrannical legacy at her fingertips. Because of the relatively executive weakness of the governorship, plus the historical precedent of legislative preeminence, Rhode Islanders will witness more conflict between legislature and executive.
 

Hopefully, after a near-toxic dose of unadulterated liberalism, Rhode Islanders will spew out Raimondo and give a Republican (however moderate) a shot at governance.