Horowitz: 5 Reasons for New Year’s Optimism
Rob Horowitz, GoLocalProv MINDSETTER™
Horowitz: 5 Reasons for New Year’s Optimism
1) State and local governments can pick up the slack and keep us on a path to hit domestic climate change reduction targets. A critical mass of states and cities are committed to big reductions in greenhouse gasses and are successfully implementing plans to meet or exceed these commitments. This work on the state and local level, which is being greatly enhanced by what Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) accurately calls a “clean energy revolution,” will keep us on the path to hit the domestic carbon reductions targets we committed to as part of the landmark Paris global climate change agreement, despite the Trump Administration’s likely retrenchment in this area. Continued progress in the United States is essential for ensuring that the rest of the nations stick to their commitments and that we limit the increase of global temperatures sufficiently to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. to humanity and our planet.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST2) Rhode Island is making significant progress on economic development. The recent announcements that Wexford Science & Technology and Virgin Pulse will locate here, resulting in the creation of close to 2,000 jobs, and that Johnson & Johnson will expand its Rhode Island footprint are convincing demonstrations that Governor Raimondo’s sound and proactive economic development strategy is beginning to pay big dividends. Look for more success this year.
3) Republican Senators are standing up to President-elect Trump on Russian Hacking. With very few exceptions Republican elected officials are not backing President-elect Trump on his refusal to accept the unanimous conclusion of our intelligence agencies that the Russian government spearheaded the hacking of the DNC and other players in a dangerous effort to meddle in our elections and that one of their motivations was to defeat Hillary Clinton. Senators McCain and Graham are leading the fight for a bi-partisan select committee to thoroughly investigate this brazen attempt to undermine our democracy and to recommend what cybersecurity measures should be put in place to prevent future occurrences. Senate Majority Leader McConnell and Speaker Ryan backed President Obama’s punitive actions against Russia this past week These Republicans are putting country ahead of partisan politics and will likely to continue to reject Trump’s nakedly self-serving attempt to downplay this important issue.
4) The Washington Post is adding more than 60 new journalists, expanding its newsroom by 8%. Countering a trend of dramatic reductions in the number of reporters at our nation’s newspapers, the Washington Post is substantially expanding its staff this year. The election of Donald Trump has triggered subscription increases at other major newspapers including the New York Times as well as an up-tick in support for foundation-funded investigative reporting by organizations like ProPublica. With a President-elect who unfortunately, continues to demonstrate on a daily basis that he has little or no regard for the truth, well-researched investigative pieces that include both context and facts are going to be more important than ever.
5 ) President-elect Trump’s appointments of Generals Mattis and Kelly as Secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security respectively. Bringing distinguished military careers and sterling reputations for intellect and sober, realistic thinking, Generals James Mattis and John Kelly stand out as excellent choices—ones that are particularly welcome given President-elect Trump’s inexperience in foreign policy, his penchant for recklessness, and the weaknesses of the remainder of his choices for major national security posts.
Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.
Trump's Win - What Does it Mean for Rhode Island?
Jennifer Duffy
Cook Report
"We don't really know what a Trump presidency means for the nation, never mind the smallest state. One of the unintended consequences of last night's results is that Sen. Jack Reed won't be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Chalk that up as a loss for RI."
Pam Gencarella
Head of Ocean State Taxpayers' Association
"Trump’s win means that his signature issue, illegal immigration, could have a big impact on RI, hopefully reversing our course as a sanctuary state and saving the state taxpayer millions of dollars. While we agree with his 'repeal and replace' Obamacare stance, we have no idea what that means to the RI debacle known as UHIP. It is not a stretch to believe that federal funding for this kind of system will be off the table so, will RI be stuck with this massively expensive system that still doesn’t work and that is expected to cost another $124 million to fix?
Trump's belief that there is significant fraud in the Food Stamp program and the policies that may come from that belief could have a negative impact on RI's local economy since there are businesses in certain cities that rely heavily on this program, fraud and all. On the upside, we may be able to ditch the UHIP program if there is significantly less need for processing welfare program requests (ie. Medicaid and food stamps) resulting from fewer illegal immigrants and less fraud. While we are ambivalent about his touted child care policies, if enacted, it may force our legislators to revisit the ever growing state cost of subsidies in this area and possibly reduce the fraud and abuse in this system."
Kay Israel
Professor at Rhode Island College
"With a Republican President and Congress, Rhode Island will probably be excluded from the 'fruits of victory."
The congressional delegation will be able to vocally make their presence felt, but in the long term it's more symbolic than substantive.
For Rhode Island it's a matter of holding on and waiting until '18 or '20 and a surge in Democratic influence."
Jennifer Lawless
Professor at American University
"The RI congressional delegation just became even less powerful than it was. With unified government, Trump doesn’t need to quell Democrats’ concerns or acquiesce because he’s worried about a Democratically-controlled Senate.
His appointments will reflect that. His executive orders will affect that. And the conservative policy agenda he puts forward will affect that."
Len Lardaro
Professor at University of Rhode Island
"Well there's a few things -- because there's not going to be gridlock, that's a big difference if it had been Hillary and a GOP Congress, in which nothing would got done. We'll at least get a half a billion in infrastructure that's going to pass which will have an impact.
I think you'll see there will be reduced reliance on government nationally -- and that's where we'll stick out like sore thumb. We've relied way too much on government -- and our government is highly inefficient and ineffective. Maybe, just maybe, in this who cycle of things we might be forced to be small and more efficient for once.
A couple of other things -- interest rates jumped. The one to follow is the ten year government bond rate -- which is tied to mortgages. It went from 1.7% to 2.05% in one day. The point is -- if the ten year stays high, mortgage rates will start going higher -- and in the short time people will run to re-finance.
That's the short term impact -- but then if rates stay hight, that will make mortgages more out of reach. And we just passed a bond issue to limit open space -- housing has limited upside here.
The next thing -- the Fed Reserve will go ahead with tightening next month. A strong dollar will hurt manufacturing. When the dollar is strong our exports become more expensive overseas.
Our goods production sector -- manufacturing and construction -- in the near term will do a little better, but as time goes on will be more limited. But something you won't hear, is there are lags in fiscal policy, of six months to year. So we won't really see the effects until the third our fourth quarter of 2017, going into 2018."
Mike Stenhouse
RI Center for Freedon and Prosperity
"As the unbelievable turned into reality this morning, it struck me that the presidential election was not really all about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. It was about a fed-up people, revolting against a corrupt system - the "beast" - that relentlessly favors insiders. Hillary personified the beast, while Donald personified the slayer.
Sadly, based on election results in our state, Rhode Island's version of the beast lives on. I fear our political class has not learned the lessons from the Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump movements - and will continue with their government-centric, anti-family, anti-business status quo."
Kristina Contreras Fox
VP of Young Democrats of America
"A Trump Presidency means the validation of the ugliest part of America. In RI, as with the rest of the country, the hammer of his hatred will fall hardest on minority communities. Being a blue state doesn't make us immune from this danger.
Trump won over 35% (39.5) of the vote here! We need to look in the mirror, and not lie about what the reflection shows us. No more hiding underneath a blue blanket. I expect those who claim Democratic values to be true to those values. The gulf between words and actions have turned into fertile ground for Trump's message to grow here in RI. If you call yourself a Democrat, if you claim to stand in opposition to Trump, now is the time to prove it. Show up and fight back."
