Rhode Island Economy
Some Rhode Island legislators are looking into what businesses require to compete and be successful in the Ocean State: Members of the House Finance Committee spent the morning visiting five prospering manufacturing companies around Rhode Island. Their mission: listen to company executives to find out what the legislature can do to promote job creation…. The…
Bryant University Assistant Professor of Economics Edinaldo Tebaldi steps around an important consideration with the following: During recessions, the government often acts as a “buffer” to help revive the economy, Tebaldi said, by increasing spending to generate jobs and boost economic activity. But state government is actually “doing the opposite” by cutting personnel and programs…
The Providence Journal Sunday jobs listing fits on a single side of a newsprint page — one-sixth of which is taken with an ad for Projo newspaper deliverers. (I circled that one.)
Hey, Rhode Islanders: That deferred tax increase known as “transportation bonds” (and claiming all those wonderful federal tax dollars) to which you just assented? Not enough: A special state panel yesterday discussed several ideas to raise money to fix the state’s roads and bridges, from tolls on Route 95 and the Sakonnet River bridge to…
So here’s what’s going on in other towns while the Tiverton teachers demand retroactive pay for time spent working to rule: As state leaders wrestle with a second-straight year of mid-term budget cuts, mayors and managers across Rhode Island are looking at everything from later bill payment schedules to union concessions to offset expected losses…
You’ve probably already read or heard about yesterday’s Providence Journal article about the lack of a sense of urgency among Rhode Island’s leaders, even as other states move quickly to stave off economic oblivion. Part of that leadership apathy probably derives from an unwillingness to do what has to be done; the powerful of state…
From the Associated Press via WTEN-TV (ABC 10) in Albany, NY…General Growth Properties Inc. shares fell today after the nation’s second-largest mall owner warned it faces solvency trouble. The Chicago-based real estate investment trust said it may be forced to file for bankruptcy if it can’t refinance or extend nearly $1 billion in debt due…
House Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino tells Steve Peoples, essentially, “Hey, it ain’t us”: “I’m not sure this is structural,” Costantino said of the deficits. “It’s the economy.” Well, yeah, the economy is partly to blame, but if Rhode Island’s legislature uses that as their annual excuse not to make structural changes, a release of…
I’m sorry to say that my $150 million guess, back in the late spring, at the November Revenue Estimating Conference’s projected budget shortfall was far short. From the governor’s office: Governor Donald L. Carcieri today issued the following statement regarding the Revenue Estimating Conference’s revised projection of state revenues for the current fiscal year. State…
Neil Downing notes that Rhode Island’s tax revenues are down in every category. Ed Mazze offers the same-old same-old: Mazze, who is distinguished professor of business at the University of Rhode Island, and former dean of URI’s College of Business Administration, said that one thing is clear: Rhode Island’s budget gap for the current fiscal…