Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez plans to use an appearance in Rhode Island Thursday to tout Governor Gina Raimondo’s free college tuition plan as a smart investment in the state’s future.
“This is an investment that’s going to pay a lifetime return,” Perez said in an interview ahead of his trip to the Ocean State. “You go to places like Tennessee and there’s a Republican governor there. And they’ve managed to make two years of higher education accessible for people. And you know what’s happening? They attract business, because when businesses are trying to look and see where they’re going to locate, one of the most important questions they ask is, ‘what does my human capital look like?’ “
Some Democratic lawmakers, particularly in the House, remain skeptical about Raimondo’s proposal to give Rhode Islanders two years of free tuition at CCRI, RIC, or URI. They question in part whether the beneficiaries will leave the state and whether the eventual $30 million cost will grow to become an unwieldy entitlement program. Republican lawmakers have also expressed concern about the proposal.
House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello, meanwhile, has prioritized starting a phaseout of Rhode Island’s cat tax, at an estimated cost of about $40 million in the budget year starting July 1.
Perez, a 1983 graduate of Brown University and U.S. labor secretary under President Obama, said the initial $10 million proposed for Raimondo’s plan would be well spent, and he said the free college tuition concept transcends partisan politics.
“The benefit of this for workers and their families, for businesses, for the tax base of Rhode Island, I think that is absolutely remarkable, and we’ve seen it elsewhere,” he said. “That is why this is the wave of the present and the wave of the future.”
Raimondo’s concept has been branded as RI Promise.
Perez is coming to Rhode Island at Raimondo’s invitation, he said.
The DNC chairman said he talked up the free tuition concept while visiting with Raimondo in her transition office on Weybosset Street after she won the 2014 gubernatorial race. “I said to her that one of the most important things you can do to position Rhode Island for the long haul is to invest in your people,” he said.
Perez won the chairmanship of the DNC in February. He’s set to take part in a 4 pm town hall meeting Thursday with Raimondo at Rhode Island College to tout her college tuition proposal.
