Speaking of John C, When Will That $75,000 Get Paid Back?

So as you probably heard, Congressman David Cicilline's brother, John, made the news yesterday.

Which reminds me. When is either John Cicilline or David Cicilline going to pay Providence back that $75,000 - or is it $150,000 (two checks @ $75,000)? Is there any question that this highly questionable maneuver would never have taken place if the person tendering the checks had not been the brother of the mayor?

Rumors have been circulating that a post in President Obama's administration for Congressman Cicilline might be arranged if polling of the First District race does not improve sufficiently for the incumbent. Looking down that road for a moment, is there any question that this matter would not come up in a vetting process or during Senate confirmation proceedings? ("Congressman, are we to understand that, during your tenure as mayor of the city, your brother stiffed Providence for $75,000 or $150,000?")

Of course, President Obama could avoid Senate scrutiny and go the czar route for bringing the congressman on board. For example, in the highly unlikely event that, in the midst of campaign season, President Obama wanted to hide just how bad the federal deficit is, Congressman Cicilline is eminently qualified to become the Czar of Freezing Out Federal Auditors And Covering Up The Egregious Budget Situation Until We're Safely Past Election Day. ("Sure, Mr. Axelrod, here's how we did it when I was mayor ...")

Note to the General Treasurer: If George Nee Supports It, It Is Definitively Not "Sound Fiscal Policy"

Kudos to WPRI for bringing this to light.

Treasurer Gina Raimondo is urging lawmakers to reject a little-noticed proposal by Governor Chafee to shave $2.6 million off the amount taxpayers must put into the pension fund next year.

The governor’s proposed 2012-13 budget would scrap a seven-year-old law mandating that if the state’s required pension contribution rate falls from one year to the next, taxpayers must put 20% of the reduction into the pension fund anyway.

Inexplicably, the General Treasurer doesn't want to scrap this financially infeasible law. She wants the state - not exactly awash in surpluses - to somehow put that 20% in anyway.

”After thoughtful analysis, Treasury concluded that the policy should remain in effect and therefore did not recommend a change to this statute,” she wrote in a letter to House Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo obtained by WPRI.com.

As Treasury's analysis does not specify where the money would come from, it's not clear how "thoughtful" the analysis could be. The Governor's office noticed this absence of source, too. (This is all very confusing. I thought Treasurer Raimondo and not Governor Chafee was the fiscally prudent General Officer of the state.)

“In each of these years, we would need to provide this additional funding instead of having the savings accrue to the budget,” [Gubernatorial spokeswoman Christine] Hunsinger told WPRI.com. “Our proposal helps address the projected out-year deficits by not having to allocate funds to this purpose.” The state is on track to run a $349 million deficit in 2015-16.

However, that little detail doesn't seem to bother at least one fan of doing things the old way.

Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee praised Raimondo’s position. “The labor movement appreciates the treasurer weighing in on the side of our members,” he said in an email. “The present law is sound fiscal policy and should remain unchanged.”

It All Makes Sense if you Understand They're Planning to Sell Their Rights to the Gold Mines Under Kennedy Plaza

Ted Nesi of WPRI (CBS 12) notes two developments in the the collapse of ProCAP, an organization that is supposed to address poverty issues that, while outside of the government-proper, receives "96% of its...revenue from taxpayers"...

Superior Court Judge Michael Silverstein granted ProCAP's request and named Thomas Hemmendinger as the agency's temporary court-appointed receiver during a brief hearing Wednesday. A permanent receiver will be named in early January.

The board voted 10-0 “to seek the protection of the courts through receivership" after a presentation by interim executive director Frank Shea that showed the taxpayer-funded nonprofit's financial woes are "much direr, quite frankly, than anybody thought," spokesman Bill Fischer said....

The city [of Providence] will loan ProCAP $250,000 on an emergency basis to keep its doors open and repaying the money will have priority in court, [Mayor Angel Taveras] said. The judge approved a $10,000 bond and described the step taken Wednesday as an "operational receivership" because the organization will remain open.

Let me get this straight. A city that has no money, because it spends more than it takes in, is loaning money to an organization that receives all of its money from public sources -- raising the question of how the "loan" will be paid back -- at the same time that a source of revenue is going to need to be found to pay for the services of a "receiver", who I assume is not working for free.

I'm not suggesting a connection here, just pointing out that the Rhode Island solution to ProCAP's problems seems to be to pile new debts on an already bankrupt organization that has no taxpayer-independent source of revenue with which to pay them back. Does Rhode Island's governing class really think that this is legitimate, rational finance?