Rhode Island Economy
In principle, the “buy local” attitude is wonderful, but would it have been too much for state Representative Richard Singleton (I, Cumberland) to spare a sentence or two urging his fellow legislators to take a look at any policies that encourage the “strange attitude” of shopping elsewhere? Unlike the tired rhetoric we hear from some…
This has to stick in the craw of anybody who’s struggling to make monthly housing payments and considers continued employment to be a month-to-month thing (emphasis added): Carcieri immediately put legislative leaders on notice of the likely need to borrow from the state-run disability-insurance fund earlier in the state’s budget year than anyone could recall.…
Personally, I dislike government reliance on gambling for revenue, but this is emblematic of a mindset: OUT OF EVERY DOLLAR lost at Twin River, the state gets approximately 61 cents. If expectations panned out, the state would get $254 million from Twin River this year. In June, the owners offered the state $500 million upfront…
The powers that be should pay some attention when Tom Sgouros and I agree on something: Counting debt service paid from within the department’s budget, we now pay almost $100 million every year in DOT interest payments. How does that make you feel about borrowing $40 million more next year? Do you think that’s a…
The article’s a few days old, but one comment from writer Katherine Gregg yields too rich of a lesson for Governor Carcieri not to highlight: How did we get to this point? Despite orders to cut spending, some state administrators simply couldn’t bring themselves to do it. And state lawmakers seemed content to accept the…
It may be that my estimate of the midyear budget review yielding a $150 million deficit was too optimistic. We’re apparently starting with a baseline gap that’s already one-fifth of that: The state ended its last budget year awash in red ink, according to a newly-released Aug. 29 report by state Controller Marc A. Leonetti.…
The Phoenix Business Journal, reporting on research done at the JPMorgan Chase Economic Outlook Center at Arizona State University, has Rhode Island holding down its familiar place on a pair of economic indicator lists. Rhode Island leads the country in jobs lost for the year preceding July 2008…Arizona ranked second to last for job growth,…
Edward Mazze errs by inadvertently opening the door for the insidious consequence of socialist drift, Anthony DiBella takes his latest Business section “commentary” to the threshold of the socialist view of humanity. The humble Mr. DiBella volunteers for the task of bringing sun-shiny days to the lives of Rhode Islanders: The governor’s idea to assemble…