Tom Sgouros Jr., a Democratic candidate for treasurer, said he hears the “dominant narrative” about what’s wrong with Rhode Island all the time.

According to that narrative, taxes are rising every year “to satisfy the unquenchable demand for government services and benefits,” the “evil unions have the legislature in their iron grip,” cities and towns are spending their way into bankruptcy and “poor people are sucking the state dry,” he said.

“The problem is that this conventional tale is wrong in nearly every particular,” Sgouros wrote in his 2009 book, “Ten Things You Don’t Know About Rhode Island.”

For example, the notion of union dominance is undermined by the battles labor is losing at the State House, he said, citing pension reform, mayoral academies and concessions by public employee unions.

Sgouros believes the dominant narrative has produced the wrong diagnosis of what ails Rhode Island and, as a result, “everybody is running around creating the wrong solutions” and “wondering why the problems don’t get fixed.”

As an example, he cited the flat-tax alternative, which helps the state’s wealthiest taxpayers.

“To pay for those tax cuts, the state government has absorbed some of the Obama stimulus money that should have gone to cities and towns, and to schools,” he wrote Tuesday in his Rhode Island Policy Reporter column. “Property taxes have been increased, leaving thousands of working families with even less money to spend. We’ve laid off municipal workers and teachers, and made cuts in education, Medicaid and other services used by ordinary Rhode Islanders. These policies send a clear signal that our leaders in the State House, notwithstanding rhetoric to the contrary, have not really been helping working families in Rhode Island.”

Sgouros describes the treasurer’s office as “an underused resource,” saying, “There is a lot of stuff that we could do that would save the state money” and “enhance the state’s economy.” For example, he said the state owes about $8 billion in bonds, with much of that money going to out-of-state insurance companies. He’d like to follow the example of states that borrow money locally so those debt payments wind up as income for somebody in the state.

Sgouros, 48, who lives in a 120-year-old house in Wickford, is a freelance engineer who focuses on software engineering, oceanography and policy research. He has done work for advocacy groups such as the Sierra Club, the Poverty Institute and Ocean State Action. He worked for former state Sen. Myrth York, D-Providence, when she ran for governor, and for Kate Coyne-McCoy when she ran for Congress. This is his first run for public office.

Sgouros will face at least one opponent in a Democratic primary, Gina M. Raimondo, of Providence. But he is bound to be the only candidate with experience as a “fire-eater, circus producer and robot impresario” (as it says in his book).

He explained that while working as a freelance engineer, he began doing “fun stuff on the weekends” and ran the Pan-Twilight Circus for awhile. He also performed at Perishable Theater and went on tour with a robot that insulted him.

Sgouros seemed reluctant to talk about that part of his life, saying, “I don’t feel it’s really relevant to the treasurer’s race.” I disagree. I mean, the State House is a real circus, fire-eating certainly would make candidate debates more interesting, and all those insults will help prepare him for public office.

efitzpat@projo.com