Watch Gina Raimondo’s full speech to the Manhattan Institute
January 6th, 2012 at 4:40 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
Treasurer Gina Raimondo’s speech on Thursday accepting her award from The Manhattan Institute is worth a listen for close followers of state politics. While much her discussion of how the pension law passed will be familiar, her broader philosophy of government is interesting to hear.
“There’s entirely too much debate about the size of government,” she said. “The question should be, is government working?” You can watch the whole video here.
Update: Thanks to Anchor Rising‘s Justin Katz for informing me the embedded video didn’t work. I’ve replaced it with a link to Raimondo’s speech instead.
Tags: gina raimondo, manhattan institute, pensions, raimondo-chafee
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
The embedded video isn’t there, Ted, although I started watching it on the Institute’s Web site. The guy introducing Raimondo noted that “before the reform” 10 cents of every public dollar was going to pensions. What he didn’t go on to say is that the amount hasn’t decreased. He also noted (to audience reaction) that the state was predicting 8% returns on investment while receiving 2%. What he didn’t say was that the “courageous” act of the treasurer was to lower it to 7.5%.
The question I continue to be left with: Will anybody still recall these days well enough in five to 10 years to admit that they were snookered by a phoney reform?
I’ll watch the rest of the video later, but I’d wager that I will not see any variation of the following, in Raimondo’s speech:
“And we ensured that the General Assembly will never have to revisit this issue again by placing complete control of future pension adjustments and reforms, however substantial they may be, in the hands of an unelected board populated with 7 of 15 members directly appointed by unions.”
The union members on the Retirement Board aren’t appointment, they are elected by the constituents of the pension system–teachers and state workers.
Sorry. Friday night linguistic carelessness. I used “appointed” to indicate that they do not receive their positions as representatives of the general public or with accountability to the general public. They are elected by the group of people who stand to gain from the retirement system, but not the group of people who have to pay for it while receiving no benefits.
I still don’t expect to hear Raimondo explain that portion of the reform to the Manhattan Institute.
Those who stand to gain from the pension system are workers who pay almost 10% into it, their employer pays in as well. The employer has half the representation on the board.
That depends how you look at it and who’s in office (and who put them there). Not for no reason have the assumptions been (and remained) unreasonably optimistic, and now this board has the power to tell the state legislator what reforms it must pass.
Be that as it may, my point was that the right-leaning reformers who have gone all weak kneed over the implementation of a hybrid plan (as inadequate as it ultimately turned out to be) might rethink their approval if the removal of power from democratically elected representatives (of the general public) had gotten anywhere near the play that it deserved.
Can someone answer this question, are State workers contributions into the pension the highest in the country . I never realized they had so much taken out 10%
Oh Justin……….look, what was that over there…I thought I saw another conspiracy……..
Yes, teachers and state workers in Rhode Island pay one of the highest amounts into their pensions. Teacher pay 9.5% and state workers pay 8.75. Although we pay one of the highest rates, we now have one of the worst pensions.
Actually, now the teachers will be paying 8.75%, as well, and 5% of all of their payments will be going into defined contribution plans owned by the employees (with another 1% of pay kicked in by the employer), all of it entirely off the table when the recent reform proves, once again, to have been inadequate.
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Crowley,
It’s not a conspiracy. It’s politics as usual. However, that the protestation comes from you makes me think that there might, in fact, be something deeper that might count as a conspiracy.
Question: shouldn’t you be asking the same questions I am, albeit for different reasons? I mean, members of your union ought to have even more concern than the average Rhode Islander that the pension system is still lacking billions of dollars to pay their benefits and still relies on an expected return well beyond what the fund has experienced.
Or are you so confident that the new powers of the Retirement Board to force future adjustments to the system will turn out in your members’ favor that you don’t want people looking too deeply into the mechanics of the reform?
The real problem, as I see it, is going to present itself if the unions win the pension lawsuit. Justin, as you say, teachers will be paying less next year with 5% going into an individual retirement account. What happens when the original percentage is no longer collected from workers paychecks, but the state now owes the pre- 2009 pension payments to workers not yet retired? Workers will now have individual retirement accounts AND the pre-2009 pensions, while the state had been simply collecting 5% from workers paychecks, not the higher percentage, to pay for it all. big problems ahead…
Do you mean “simply collecting 3.75% from workers paychecks”?
Yes, sorry, I meant 3.75%.
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