Today's Panel... and Others

Having not attended many events like this, I can only take a general sense for comparison, but I thought today's panel courtesy Operation Clean Government was particularly good and, incidentally, provided further evidence of a growing intention to be heard among Rhode Island's regular citizens. Some of that may have been an effect of the tone that Dan Yorke set as moderator, but in context of broader observations, well, it leaves room to hope.

As the event came to a close, Andrew suggested to me that a similar event for the younger set would be worth organizing and participating in, and I agreed. The prospect brought to mind a possibility that has emerged every now and then, over the past few years, of a panel that crosses ideological lines, hosted, for example, by College Republicans and College Democrats and involving Matt Jerzyk and me. Sadly, I don't believe the current leadership (especially attitudinal leadership) among our counterparts on the left to be as prone to dialogue as I've always thought Matt to be — even as we strenuously disagreed.

Our increasing prominence and the bubbling expansion of a right-of-center reform movement may be playing a role in that shift.

But to return to the subject at hand: There were some very compelling moments throughout the panel discussion, as well as some newsworthy statements. I'll be rolling out the audio as I'm able over the next couple of days.

To begin with Governor Carcieri's opening remarks: stream, download (18min 21sec).

"We've got to control the spending, so we can sustain what we have, and the other piece of the equation is we've got to get competitive from a tax standpoint."

"We've got to shift the focus to creating a vibrant economic base in this state that's privately structured so that we're generating the jobs."

"Now is the time that we've got to ratchet up the game."