The Economist magazine on ‘desperate times’ in Rhode Island
May 3rd, 2012 at 12:46 pm by Ted Nesi under Nesi's Notes, On the Main Site
The last time the tart-tongued British weekly The Economist wrote a major story about Rhode Island, in 2009, the headline was “Little Rhody in the red” and the focus was on the state’s “mammoth economic problems.”
Well, The Economist is back – and this time the focus is on the public-sector finance crisis roiling cities and towns across the state. “Improvident,” the headline declares. “Desperate measures for desperate times.”
Here’s an excerpt from the article (no byline, natch):
IT WOULD be something of an overstatement, explains Angel Taveras, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island’s capital, to call the measures he signed this week a “strategy” for dealing with the city’s financial troubles. He and the city council are simply facing reality, he says. The city was projected to run a deficit of $110m this year. Despite shedding jobs, cutting pay, trimming benefits, curbing services and expanding the tax base (on top of an 11% tax rise last year), Providence still faced a shortfall of $21m or so. There was no way to set its finances to rights without tackling the city’s huge pension costs.
Political observers will undoubtedly also note this is the first national or international article about the state’s finances in quite a while that makes no mention of Treasurer Gina Raimondo. Also, hard as it may be to believe, The Economist actually overstates the health of Providence’s pension system; it’s only 32% funded.
Tags: angel taveras, chapter 9, municipal, providence, providence financial crisis, the economist
Nesi's Notes covers politics and the economy in and around Rhode Island for WPRI.com. (Twitter: 
To the provinical people and public sector pukes of Rhode Island, you better get used to this, THE WORLD IS WATCHING! This will impact tourism this year, who wants to visit an area that is in dire straits. Rhode Island is the third world of the United States. Rhode Island business and tourism offers nothing of value to tourists and travelers. When travelers come to an area they want to try decent food. Pasta is not decent food, especially when most of the pasta in Rhode Island is from Venda Ravioli.
Its not the tourists that matter the most. The tax payers that can afford to are leaving, thats the nail in the coffin.
Anyway the ones that stay and can afford to pay are spit on by the unions that want their money.
Lets see : Drunk Ruggerio threatening voting fraud and no investigation. Landfill abuse and no investigation. Crazy-for-years disability fraud and no investigation. No state school funding formula (ok lets see if its enacted). Ridiculous car taxes on laughable valuations. Insane property taxes. Pensioned cross walk guards and bus safety monitors. Iannuzi (the son) post-his union scholarship education which he did not fulfill STILL getting that $80G job. And thats to name a few.
THERE ARE NO JOBS LEFT BECAUSE UNION CRONYISM DESTROYED THEM.
Wow between Ed and Peter, you two left me with nothing to say LOL. I been in RI my whole life, and you guys are 1000% correct. I’ll be leaving soon too, I’m finally wising up. Took long enough.
Gentlemen, I think we all have said the truth, I don’t see any comments from any public sector employees. I hope they now know they have run out any taxpayers who could and can leave, the tourist that can afford to go to better will. Who are they going to get to support all these over the top taxes?
Thousands of middle clss taxpayers are leaving the state and being replaced by tax users. Hows that work for ya. The end is near
The public sector union leadership says we under tax our wealthiest citizens. Are you kidding me? Maybe you can sell that crap to the uneducated but you can’t sell it to those who do their homework. We have other states to compete with, Rhode Island is not in a bubble. If our taxes are higher than our neighbors, the high income earners will simply move to Massachusetts. Then who pays for all of those public sector salaries? The illegal immigrants who are flocking here?
Because we are so small we would be better off lowering taxes in comparison to our neighbors and attracting more business. It would also make sense to lower the gas tax to below that of Massachusetts and Connecticut as well as the cigarette tax, so people will make the short drive to come here.
Most of the cars in the Twin River lot are from Massachusetts. Let them buy their gas and their cigarettes here.
The fixes are easy if our legislators would have some guts. However, as long as their is so much one party dominance, good ideas will never see the light of day. The Democrats continue their dominance and we are sinking deeper and deeper. It is time for balance in our legislature!
If public sector union leadership didn’t have their head buried in the sand so deeply they would figure out that growing business, grows population, which grows taxes and means more union jobs. Stop living in the dark ages! You are part of the reason of why our cities are going bankrupt and now we are all paying for it. We are ranked at or near the bottom in everything a state would want to rank at the top in.
Its so typical that the people who tend to post on such sites hate unions, workers, public employees, never bothered by the depradations of Wall St, the banks, the corporate moguls who off-shore our jobs, and blackmail one state against another to lower their own taxes (for example ending taxes on private planes and boats) while sticking working people with either higher taxes or fewer or less affordable (e.g. RIC, URI tuition) services. A psychologist friend tells me even though it is pathetic, folks like to identify with the upper class and castigate workers even though it hurts their own interests as it makes them feel good to identify with “winners.”
To say that the VERY greedy Public Sector Unions (and their members … w/o sufficient grey matter to realize the consequences of their Unions Piggishness) will be getting their comeuppance soon …. is putting it mildly.