- [Jim] Coming up on this week's "A Lively Experiment", a federal appeals court says the state of Rhode Island can resume tolling trucks.

But there's a wrinkle to the decision.

And a major announcement just before the one year anniversary of the closure of the Washington Bridge.

- [Announcer] "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 and Rhode Island PBS.

- Joining us on the panel, URI Political Science Professor Emily Lynch, Attorney and former Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, and Political Contributor Scott MacKay.

Welcome into this week's "Lively."

I'm Jim Hummel and it is great to have you with us.

After years of legal wrangling, the state of Rhode Island has been given the green light to start tolling trucks again, a signature part of former Governor Gina Raimondo's 2016 Roadworks program.

But a federal court also said capping the daily amount for local trucks is unconstitutional.

Scott, I will be the first to admit, I was skeptical that this was gonna prevail.

It did, and now the state has a decision to make on what to do.

- Well, the state has a decision, but the truckers also have a decision.

Do they appeal this to the Supreme Court or do they not?

Now we have a counselor here, former Mayor Taveras.

And I'm just wondering, you know, this Supreme Court since Trump put the conservatives on has been pretty good about taking care of businesses and business interests.

So I just wonder how the truckers are gonna handle this.

- As you looked at this, were you surprised that it got flipped?

Because Judge Smith, who's pretty well known on the federal court, nobody's flip proof, but I was surprised given his reasoning then that the Federal Appeals Court came in and said, "Not so fast."

- I wasn't, I wasn't.

One of the things that the appeals court pointed to is that these big trucks do more damage to the roadways than, you know, the average minivan.

And so I think the judge took that into consideration.

The trucking industry doesn't like to talk about that.

They just say, "Okay, it's another vehicle crossing a bridge."

When obviously when you're in New England and you have these thaw and freeze cycles and you've got these big trucks pounding over it, you're bound to have some problems.

- Emily.

- I mean, as you said, like the opinion focused on the pavement, right?

The pavement is the issue and the tractor trailers have have a major impact on the pavement.

So that was a part of the opinion.

But overall, I think that it's a win for the governor, for the attorney general, for leadership in the general assembly.

And I think this is a good time to maybe act fast as to making a decision of what to do in moving forward.

And especially due to the revenue this can bring to the state.

- Yeah, they brought in tens of millions, almost 100 million dollars.

The thing that struck me though is they were trying to protect the local trucks that go back and forth, the delivery trucks, and now they've said, "Well, you can't really do that."

So do they have to come in at a level that if everybody's gonna get told the same, do they start at a lower level?

Otherwise 'cause it really could hurt local businesses.

Yes?

- Yeah, I mean, "The Pinion" also mentioned that, you know, the majority of people who use the roadworks bridges that, you know, like they're not being told.

This is a very small percentage that are being told.

And of that percentage, it's about, I think the "The Pinion" said 19% are Rhode Island residents.

So this is a very small portion of Rhode Islanders.

- Counselor.

- Well, I'm a little biased here because I work with several people who worked on the case on behalf of the state.

- [Jim] So we'll get that out front.

Right?

- So I wanna make clear, Nicole Benjamin, John Tarantino, so very proud of the work that they've been able to do.

And I'm just gonna say, I mean, this is an important decision for the state of Rhode Island.

And I think that we have to figure out ways to maintain our roads and bridges.

And we see that all across, all across the state, the issues that we have.

So we're happy with the decision from the First Circuit and certainly we'll help the state in any way that we can.

- You know, the state's gonna be looking for revenue, it's gonna have a cash problem.

We all know the deficits are coming down the road.

Now, no broad based tax has been raised in Rhode Island since the banking crisis back in the early, the credit union mess, in the early 1990s.

Luckily, or unluckily, depending how you look at it, sports gambling and the casinos are now the number three, you know, number three in the revenue stream of Rhode Island's what?

Supports government.

So the problem is that you don't wanna raise the sales tax or the income tax And it is hard and yet, somehow you've gotta get enough revenue to run things.

And the fact is that the legislature got rid of the car tax, they've actually cut a big tax that really was onerous.

- And that was about 200 million baked in every year.

Probably more as time's gone on.

- Yes.

- That they have to subsidize, they have to come up with.

- Precisely.

And you know, we're gonna run out of this COVID money and I think the days of sunshine and blue skies for our local lawmakers is gonna get difficult and so you gotta find a way to run this thing.

- You certainly do have to find a way to run it, but I don't see them expanding tolls beyond trucks.

And I say that because the impact it would have on everyday Rhode Islanders and the fact of the matter is, you know, people don't go to City Hall to tell you they're happy.

They don't go to the State House necessarily to tell you they're happy, and something like that, that would have a broad impact on all Rhode Islanders, I just don't see that happening.

So I think this will probably be limited to trucks, but of course that'll be the state's decision.

- You didn't have people banging down the mayor's door saying, "We love the job that you're doing" over the years?

- It's shocking.

It's shocking.

- I'm amazed.

- It's shocking that they don't come to say that they're happy, but boy, will they come to tell you that they're unhappy.

- Yeah, the anti-toll group in Rhode Island seems to be another one of these talk radio things, but I get that it's real.

- Well- - But if you look at Massachusetts, I mean, you look at other states- - Well, other states have different types of income.

In Florida for, you know, they don't have an income tax, but Lord have mercy, do they toll you on everything as as you drive.

I know that from renting a car, you know, and you get the bill afterwards.

- And they have high meals taxes, a lot of the Southern States have- - So they find other ways to raise the revenue.

- Let's talk about the budget.

We had talked about this a couple of weeks ago.

Scott had alluded to the COVID money is drying up, we're at 14 billion.

The budget five years ago was 9.4.

Some of that was the COVID money, but it's not come back.

So Emily, I wonder we're back into the cloudy days again.

The out projections on 200, 300, $400 million deficit.

It's gonna be a challenge in the next couple of years.

- Definitely, and that's why this decision is going to, with the, you know, with the tolls may be a benefit for the state if the leadership acts quickly, but overall broadly, yeah, the leadership is going to have to make some tough decisions moving forward on how they're going to spend their money in order to be fiscally responsible.

- You know it's really interesting about tough times, I've seen it and you talk to people at the State house, and you probably know this too, Mayor, from your category five that you inherited when you were mayor, and one of the things is sometimes it's easier to do a budget when there's no money than when there's a lot of money.

'Cause when there's a lot of money out there, people are looking for their pet projects, they're trying to add on whatever they can.

When there's no money, usually the leaders could just say, "By the way, this year, you know, you're gonna have to hang onto it.

We just don't have enough money for this pet project that you want, even though it's a good idea, or we don't have money for this because we've committed not to raising broad-based tax.

- Yeah, Speaker Shekarchi said that.

He said, "I have about $10 billion requests for a billion dollars of the ARPA money, which all got"....

But he makes a point 'cause I remember, and Scotty, you and I covered the State House years ago, I remember Governor DiPrete telling me that they had, all of a sudden, it was 100 million dollars surplus back then, which seemed like a lot.

And then it was 50 billion.

It went the other way.

The projections were off.

And he said, "It's a lot easier saying no, isn't it?"

- Well, I got to say no a lot so, but- (all laughing) But I would just say that- - [Jim] There was no money during your administration.

- Well, I would just say that, you know, having faced $110 million deficit on a projected budget of 680, I'm, you know, the two, what is it, Like 250, 270, that they're- - [Jim] It doesn't seem that much.

- It doesn't seem that much, not when the budget's 10 billion.

- Yeah.

- Right?

So I think that without a doubt, you know, you're gonna have to make some tough decisions because you can't spend everywhere.

You can't invest everywhere.

But I think with the budget as large as what we have, it should be manageable, I really do believe that.

- I really wonder how the Republicans are gonna handle this.

I mean, you're turning the COVID spigot off, Trump's coming in, he's already promised tax cuts.

He wants to extend his tax cuts, he wants to take tax cuts.

I mean, excuse me, take taxes off of tolls.

He's talked about keeping Social Security and Medicare intact.

He's no longer blabbing about getting rid of the ACA or Obamacare every day.

But how do you deal with the national debt?

I mean, the Republicans were once the party- - He's gonna increase it.

That's how he is gonna deal with it.

- Yeah.

Of fiscal responsibility.

And now it just seems like that's nonsensical, that they just don't believe that anymore.

Meanwhile, every day servicing this debt is really putting a big gap in the federal budget and it's not gonna be easy.

- Let's talk about the transition.

Go, what were you gonna say?

- Oh yeah, I think we need to pay attention to what Trump will do, especially in that, those first 100 days like that honeymoon period.

And I think this will set us up to what happens in the midterm elections and that's what we should be paying attention to.

And obviously yeah, we're all gonna be paying attention to the economy and whether or not Trump is able to, you know, keep his promises that he made.

- And hasn't that traditionally been the way that you basically have about a year and a half, a little bit more, and if not, that's probably why the founders had the House every two years and the Senate every six, right?

Because then if you don't like it, that's where you take it out at the ballot box, right?

- Exactly.

Yeah.

We definitely see that in the, you know, the midterm election, that shift, to the opposing party of the president.

- I mean, you'll see now is you see people jockeying and talking about cutting this and cutting that and Elon Musk and Vivek and all this stuff, people talk to the easy low hanging fruit.

Everybody talks about, oh, that foreign aid is awful.

Isn't it terrible we give all this money to these other countries?

Or they're mad about food stamps or Medicaid or whatever.

Does anybody realize what a tiny piece of the budget, a lot of those things are?

There is no way that by cutting say, food stamps and foreign aid that you're gonna do anything really to try to bring any balance to that budget.

- There's also the, you know, Trump discusses cutting federal employees, and "Wall Street Journal" is, you know, a great, some great graphs in showing that most of the employees are from military related agencies.

- Yes, that's true.

- It's not gonna go over too well.

What are you looking for as the Trump administration comes in?

What are you keeping your eye on?

- Chaos.

- We could do a whole show on that right now.

- Yeah, I was gonna say, look, I think we're gonna have a very tumultuous time.

I think Trump is gonna do what he's, for the most part, what he said he's gonna do.

So I expect... And you can see that with his cabinet picks who are really unprecedented and not in a good way in terms of some of the cabinet picks that he's had.

Was glad to see that Matt Gaetz withdrew for Attorney General, though Pam Bondi has made it pretty clear that she'll do his bidding.

You have I think more convicted felons are being nominated than in any other time in history, including, I mean, I guess the ambassador of France, who's child Kushner- - Kushner, his father-in-law.

- I mean all sorts of things.

So I think you're gonna see a very tumultuous time.

I do expect that he will cut taxes.

I expect he will increase the debt.

I expect that a lot of the people who voted for him, who are lower income are gonna suffer more than they anticipated.

And they're gonna see just how quickly these numbers in a budget really impact people.

And that's something that I learned on a much smaller scale and on a much larger scale, we're gonna do that.

And I would not, I would not, if I wanted to reform the budget, put a billionaire in charge of a department that's not a department, but a department in name only.

- [Jim] A creative department.

Right?

- Because he understands billionaire will, you know, understands what regular people are going through.

I don't think so.

So I think that you're gonna see a really tumultuous time.

- Plus the billionaire has all kinds of government contracts that keep him going.

Billions of dollars in government contracts Musk has.

- Yeah.

Well, you know, it's interesting.

We talk about the deficit.

It's something that nobody is addressing and it's ballooning every year.

And it really, I think most people think of that it's just kind of a concept, but it's gonna affect our kids and grandkids and down the line, it's unsustainable.

But I didn't see a plan from either candidate to say, we really need to reel it in here.

Did you hear anything about that during the campaign?

- No, I didn't see much of a plan on either side.

So you're right.

And I think there are Republicans that are happy with the choices that Trump is making for these heads of agencies and departments.

And, you know, there is a good portion of the American public that wants the shakeup, wants this new department of government efficiency to make some changes to the government, the federal government.

So there definitely is support for that change.

- But I also wonder whether some of the old guard Republicans, and those are the ones who telegraphed on Matt Gaetz, these guys have been around before Trump and maybe after Trump, like we're gonna hold the line somewhere.

So I wonder where that line is.

Pete Hegseth for defense, Tulsi Gabbard, all of that, whether when it comes to it, are they gonna cede to Trump?

I mean that's the great unknown, but we saw a little bit of that channeling on Matt Gaetz.

- We did but the thing is the person who's actually talked the most about it is former Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, who's never been real close to Trump, but he's kind of an institutionalist.

You know, he's one of these people who believes in the role of the Senate in advice and consent and believes that, you know, they're not potted plants.

They're not supposed to just roll over for whatever the president wants.

The problem is the same as it's been in the Trump era, which is all these Republicans are more worried about getting primaried from the right than they are really about any specific policy or anything that's in the Republican platform.

- Especially those who are up at 2026.

Right?

They don't have as much.

You know John Chaffee famously said, Angel, years ago, he always argued to be a Republican.

Of course he's not today's Republican because Congress is gonna shift and it's always good to have somebody in the minority party.

I wonder what this means for Rhode Island going forward.

Hopefully that check for the Washington Bridge has already been deposited in the bank 'cause we're not sure whether it's gonna clear after January 20th, but do you think this matters that we're such a democratic leaning state with a Trump administration coming in?

- Well, I think it might matter for the next two years while the Republicans have the majority in the House and the Senate and the presidency.

I think that if we see historic trends in terms of midterms, the Democrats should take the house in 2026.

I mean, historically, the President loses seats there and there's only gonna be, I think, a five person majority.

And because of his nominations, it's actually only gonna, they can't afford to lose anyone for the first couple of months because of the nominations he's made for his cabinet.

So I do think it matters to some degree.

I think that we were able to manage it some earlier, but we had a more divided system during his first administration.

So we have to be careful and I think we have very good advocates and we have folks who understand the system down there.

Senator Reed now is one of the most senior members of the Senate, two congressmen are new, but really doing well down there as well.

So it will matter some, but I think hopefully once we're in the majority it will be better.

- Yeah, one of the things that you have to watch here is things that really do affect Rhode Islanders.

I mean, all those blue collar jobs, that electric boat, I mean, a lot of that is because Jack Reed, again, is on the, you know, armed services.

He's ranking Democratic member now.

And in the days gone by, actually somewhat recently, the committees like appropriations and Armed Services, they used to work pretty well together.

They were run by institutionalists who knew that they weren't gonna be in power forever.

And things went back and forth and they had pretty good relations across the aisle.

But a lot of that's gone out the window.

So it's gonna be interesting to see if somebody tries to grab some of the submarine work or you know, some of the stuff out of New England, the Bath Iron Works up there- - Up in Maine.

- There'll be a lot of pressure on Susan Collins.

It's gonna be a fascinating thing to watch, but I don't expect blue states to be doing very well.

We saw what happened during COVID where Trump pretty much was gonna give out the money depending on whether he liked you or not, or whether you were a blue or red state.

- [Jim] What do you think about for Rhode Island?

- I'm thinking that if we look at like federal funding and how much Rhode Island will get for initiatives related to like climate change or anything related to the environment, funding, like how, you know, there's talk about ending the Department of Education.

How does that have an affect and impact on Rhode Island schools?

That's what I'll be paying attention to.

- Okay.

To be continued.

Big issue this week, the pallet shelters.

Remember the pallet shelters?

ECHO Village off Route 146.

If you're coming down, you see that a lot.

This is just government at its worst.

And Angel, I don't know where to start.

They had a hearing last night and your predecessor, David Cicilline, who's now with the Rhode Island Foundation, went into prosecutor mode.

I could see him cross examining.

If you don't know these 45 pallet units were supposed to get people in out of the cold.

Now the fire marshal is saying, "Well, you know, we have fire codes, we're treating this as a hotel rather than a shelter."

It makes no sense at all.

- Yeah, I mean, you know, I was reading in preparation for today about that and the fire suppression systems.

And I'm thinking to myself, if you built a home, you have to have smoke detectors.

And I think you may have to have hardwired now.

- Sure.

- But I'm like, what fire suppression system is needed for, is it like 200 square feet, the pallets or maybe a little bit- - You can reach the door if there was a fire and they have staff on.

- So it makes no sense.

And it really is something that, you know, sometimes you've gotta cut through the bureaucracy and I think folks need to really focus on getting the job done, but it really made no sense in terms of the fire piece.

And certainly fire safety is super important.

I'm not saying it's not, but again, we're talking about a very small room.

I don't know exactly what type of, why you would treat it as a hotel, especially because they're not connected, right?

So- - Because they had nothing else to fit it into in the fire code.

Look, Tim McLaughlin, we've dealt with him for years.

Somebody's telling him to clam up 'cause he won't do any interviews.

They finally put him on the hot seat yesterday.

And I just, I think in nobody can step back and say, is it more dangerous for people to be outside in this weather or to be inside with potentially fire issues which I think are non-existent?

- Right.

- I'm fired up about this, as you can see.

- Well, I think one of, yeah, I mean.

you said it that communication is key and for us not to hear, you know, why this is taking so long and you know, obviously was yesterday that we saw that.

- Yeah, on Thursday.

- But people are wondering what's happening and we need updates to be clear of why this is taking so long when the pallet shelters, they should have been prepared and ready for March, end of March, - Last year.

- Yeah, so now, you know, we don't see it into 2025, so there needs to be, you know, at least that communication to tell us why this has been such a delay.

But also in looking at like a department of housing, there's been turnover.

So we can see that that's obviously has probably played a role.

- [Jim] They're on their third secretary.

Yeah.

- Exactly.

- I don't wanna throw out too big a discordant note here, but anybody who was in Rhode Island and was sentient on February 20th, 2003 is certainly not, that was the night of the station fire, which I think people know, is not gonna just wanna wave all the fire requirements here.

But the other side of this, and you have to understand that these people are living in makeshift shelters and tents and there's certainly no code safety.

- And you think of the rain earlier this week.

- Yeah.

- What are we really doing here?

Look, Tim McLaughlin finally said the quiet part out loud.

"We had 100 people die 20 years ago, and I'm not gonna have that on my watch."

Well, is that really a possibility?

I mean, maybe, but this whole fire retardant paint.

What I don't understand is that the governor won't step in.

Now maybe he's kinda worried, it seems like it's one big CYA with everybody.

They don't wanna, oh, we had a fire in the pallet shelter.

But could the governor step in by executive order and say, "Look, we need to ease some of this stuff"?

But maybe he's hesitant to do it.

- Well, I don't know why he hasn't stepped in and I haven't looked at all the legal issues, but I mean, I think this has to be a priority and you go and you do it.

And the other thing that you can do is you can also take action and let someone sue you and defend it in court.

And of course if a court orders something, you then, you know, you obey the court order or you appeal it.

Right?

But I think it has to be a priority.

But it also shows something else, Jim, that I think is instructive and that is that government sometimes works very, very slowly turning around a department, turning around an agency.

It can take a lot of time.

So I think you're gonna see that.

We've seen that at the state level.

I think we're gonna see that at the federal level as well.

Scott talked a little bit earlier about ending the department of education.

You can't just end it.

You need legislation to do that.

I mean, you can make it dysfunctional and that's, I guess easy enough.

- Three branches of government.

Is that how our founders set it up?

It's a novel concept, isn't it?

- You know, there there are three branches at least I hope so.

- Yeah.

We'll see going forward.

Alright, let's, let's get to outrageous and/or kudos.

Emily, what do you have today?

- My kudos are for the Providence students that came together this week and had a community discussion about how they feel about the Providence schools.

And there's been a lot of discussion this week about it.

Senator Zurier also led a discussion and there will be future ones.

I believe Mayor Smiley has one this Saturday.

So I think it's really important for the students to also have that, like, that input.

They're stakeholders in this discussion too, and they brought up issues related to transportation and diversity among teachers.

- So this is independent of the state takeover and everything else.

It's like what are the schools doing for us now, right?

- Right.

- Yeah.

Great.

Angel, what do you have?

- My outrage relates to President-elect Trump and his announced intention to pardon most, if not all, of the January 6th defendants, most of whom have gone to trial or pled guilty.

January 6th was a dark day in our nation's history and to minimize it by pardoning them, I think is a huge mistake and it's gonna be just another dark spot in our history.

- Yeah.

Scotty.

- The Washington Bridge, the state's longest running soap opera.

Hopefully we can get some kind of a look at a timetable.

And I understand why the governor and state leaders are frankly scared of a timetable because they've already busted through the normal ones but I think we really need to get this thing done.

And I think there needs to be more urgency on the part of both the legislature, frankly, DOT, the department of Transportation, and the governor.

Because if he wants to run for governor again and there's not at least a clear plan for this thing to be fixed and get it over with, I think it's gonna be a real problem, I mean- - We didn't even mention.

It was on our list.

This is the one year anniversary.

It was on Wednesday.

I think the good news is they've chosen two companies.

out-of-state companies with national reputations to come in and at least bid and then we'll see the timetable.

I think was a bit of a ray of sunshine even though we're still a little squishy on when it's gonna happen.

What did you think about coming down to those two?

- Well, I think it's good that we have folks now who are interested because we had one round and no one submitted to rebuild the bridge.

So we need to get it rebuilt and it's one of these things that it impacts people every day.

I don't live on East Bay, but I think about it if I have to go over to East Providence or if I have to go over to Sea Cock and I've seen traffic all the way down 95 sometimes that's a result of 1-95.

So it's one of the things that impacts people every day.

And as I said earlier, people don't come to city hall to tell you that they're happy.

- Yeah.

- It's something that, that anger can be a big motivator for people.

- It's just quickly, those two companies, good news that they're running?

- Yeah.

It's a glimmer of good news.

I mean, let's be honest, but until we see- - Let's not get carried away with the optimism now.

- Well let's not, not on this project.

- Alright.

- This has not been, this is not like URI beating PC if you're a URI fan.

- Yeah.

- Or even your alma mater- - Hiring Bill Belichick.

That's a whole nother show.

(group laughing) Alright folks, that is all the time we have.

Thank you for joining us this week.

Angel, good to see you again, and Scotty and Emily.

Come back here next week, we got a lot going on even as we head into the end of the year, we're gonna be talking about what happens in the legislative session within the next couple of weeks.

If you don't join us Friday at 7:00 or Sunday at noon, we archive all of our shows at ripbs.org/lively.

We look forward to seeing you next week right here as "A Lively Experiment" continues.

Have a great weekend.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] "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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