Gio Cicione: "This is your moment that the citizens take back the state from the special interests"

From today's Valley Breeze.

It is said that every man and every woman - somewhere over the course of their life - must have their moment.

It is a moment of recognition that something larger than the day to day details of our own family life is beckoning and we must answer to it. I would propose to you that such a moment has arrived for Rhode Islanders.

The checklist of unfavorable economic conditions in which our state now exists should be by now frighteningly familiar:

* A structural deficit at more than half a billion dollars and growing.

* Seventh highest property tax burden

* Overall fourth highest tax burden

* Worst business climate - including small business climate - in the nation

* Among most generous states in pay and benefits to state workers

* Eighth most highly paid teachers/school results in bottom fifth of nation

Haven't you had enough? If you have, I ask you to take action.

The Rhode Island Republican Party asks you to make a run for the General Assembly to show you are not going to abandon our state. This is your moment that the citizens take back the state from the special interests.

The Rhode Island Republican Party does not owe anything to the grip of greed of the public employee unions and their contracts - and many who do their bidding in our legislature - which have driven this state to its present condition of bankruptcy.

The Rhode Island Republican Party firmly believes the smallest state in the nation has no business being among the most free spending in the nation to those employees in nearly every measurable benefit, especially for the size of their retirement pensions which we cannot afford.

A bankrupted state cannot adequately finance its schools or public universities. It will leave all of our school age children with inferior educations when compared to other states and diminished prospects for college and beyond.

A bankrupted state does not attract businesses that provide jobs, careers and financial stability to college graduates and young people hoping to start families. It drives your own college-educated son or daughter far away from home to more prosperous states where they take their future earning power with them.

A bankrupted state will not nourish the stable, safe, small business-thriving, friendly communities many of us grew up in. Rhode Island is headed toward deteriorating into a state of rundown, boarded-up, forgotten neighborhoods offering far less prosperity, stability and safety to families here. If this is not the future state you want for your children, it's time to say "Enough."

Come join us. We will help you launch your campaign if you will help us fight back.

It doesn't take lots of money or any sacrifice greater than the ones you would make for your family on any given day. Like all things worth doing in life, it just takes desire and hard work.

When you win, we will together pursue a plan to drastically cut our out of control spending, immediately reduce your property and income taxes, put education dollars back into classrooms not just contracts, protect our environment, and to bring companies and good jobs back to Rhode Island. Oh yes, we can!

Contact our office at 401-732-8282. Contact me personally at 401-289-2380.

Giovanni Cicione

R.I. GOP chairman