This ad for Rhode Island’s CollegeBound Saver fund promotion looks like a sleazy investment ad because it is:

Around $22 million in administrative fees from the program go to the private companies that handle the money and the state.  This isn’t necessarily corruption, per se, but we can put it in the questionable bucket of non-governmental activities in which our state government engages.

When the government is involved as a player in a market, citizens have reason to question whether its policies across the board are less focused on the general welfare than on the government’s offering or the health of the markets in which it’s dabbling.  A healthy democracy requires clarity of roles, and such programs obscure them.