TOM WARD - R.I. budget can kicked down the road, and the mess remains

In the end, the Rhode Island House Finance Committee kicked the can down the road. The budget problems that face our state will have to be faced another day.

The most important sentence in Thursday’s Providence Journal story is this: “Projections released Wednesday by the House fiscal office detail at estimated $422.7-million budget hole for fiscal 2012, the first year the federal stimulus funds are not available.”

In other words, this mess will come back to haunt us again. Why? Simple. There was little courage here, and few real spending cuts.

And today, we have unemployment above 12 percent. Keep up the good work, fellas!

The time was right to help the taxpayers in these tough times, and make real cuts to pension benefits, cost of living adjustments for pensioners, and much more. This budget fails in that, and is disappointing. Like the tobacco money and so many other one-time fixes, the stimulus money will be used up to feed the best of state. Then it will run out, and we’ll all be in trouble again.

My thoughts are these:

• I don’t mind paying another two cents per gallon for gas. How can we gripe with the price up 30 cents in the past few weeks? What’s another two cents? I just wish it wasn’t RIPTA, the bus company, getting the money. For Woonsocket, RIPTA cuts the beach bus run, and World War II Memorial State Park, the “Social Ocean” swimming hole enjoyed by inner city families for years, is an abandoned swamp. Maybe the city can put a sprinkler in the Main Street mini-park.

• I’m OK with the state revenue sharing cut to cities and towns. Yes, there will be pain, but at least the in the short term municipal employees and teachers, still fortunate enough to have good jobs and benefits, might finally understand that the well is dry and their neighbors are in crisis. Are you listening, Lincoln teachers?

• The pension “Cost of Living Adjustment” (COLA) cuts are minimal, and a joke. Those in the private sector would have to save well over a million dollars by age 60 to have anything even approaching the largesse of a state pension. Pension proposals put forward by both Gov. Donald Carcieri and a House study commission were ignored. Limited cuts were made, but very generous pensions remain.

• The biggest disappointment is this. Carcieri spent years working on a plan that might cost us a few bucks in the short term, but would put the state on a path to grow private sector jobs with cuts in business tax rates. In the end, it is only the private sector that creates wealth and can get us out of this mess. And as usual, his plan was ignored, replaced by business as usual from the Democrats that control the state. If Carcieri didn’t see himself as a lame duck a week ago, I’m sure he must see it now. Just hand Speaker Bill Murphy the car keys, governor. The ride is over. Florida beckons.

The rest of us will just stay mired in the mud.

- Tom Ward, publisher

It's the state budget, stupid!

Will I-Way traffic distract you?

Do you remember the days when your baseball or softball coach told you to "Keep your eye on the ball?"

For the next week, you'd better keep your eye on the ball again. No, this isn't baseball, but you'll probably see plenty of screwball arguments.

The Rhode Island state budget is coming right down the middle, aiming for your wallet. You, on the other hand, will likely be distracted by a stupid traffic jam on Interstate 195.

Some cynics think the I-way mess that begins Thursday, and will receive a full-court media press, was planned to distract "the masses" from the release of the much anticipated state budget by the House Finance Committee. While I'm not a tin-foil hat conspiracy theorist by trade, it does get me wondering.

In what is surely one of our state's most shameful continuing displays, House leaders will unveil the secret budget just before a hearing on the bill, on Wednesday afternoon. It's already a done deal behind the scenes, and will be rubber-stamped out of committee quickly. Then you and I will have only one week before the entire House debates it - and likely passes it - next Wednesday, June 24.

One week. That's all you have to digest the facts and talk to your legislator. And that's all the time your legislator has to decide on whether he or she represents you, or continues to support the sweet talkers who got us all into this mess. (This column will be updated at www.valleybreeze.com if necessary).

For the most part, you can expect your representatives to try to defend the proposal, warts and all. They have to be "team players," after all, to have any future in the General Assembly. Representing the people can get lonely, and they might not get their candy - Legislative Grants - to give to the folks at home.

Last year, Assembly leaders did the right thing - sort of - by passing almost intact the budget of Gov. Donald Carcieri, a budget with spending cuts and no tax increases. I say "sort of" because the budget was flawed with optimistic revenue estimates, nothing more than hopeful guesses that the economy would improve and bring in needed revenue. It didn't, and promises to cities and towns were broken on the backs of local taxpayers (and smokers) earlier this spring.

So here we are. Residents in Woonsocket are looking at paying more than $1,000 per home and more in property tax increases. North Providence is struggling mightily. Union rank and file members in Lincoln - all except the teachers - have accepted a one-year pay freeze, and a budget was passed with the assumption that teachers, too, will accept the freeze. I'm sure many teachers would happily take the freeze and do the right thing, but they can't, muzzled by union leaders, as always. So they accept their shameful silence and hope for the state bailout under the phony guise of "increased education spending." Hah!

In every community, property tax hikes are going up to cope with our state's self-inflicted fiasco. Jobs continue to disappear, and gas prices are rising again.

With that as a backdrop, will the General Assembly hit us all with a host of new taxes? We'll know Wednesday. What I know today is massive state pension reform is a must.

On Thursday, we'll all wake up to irrelevant traffic jam stories. Don't be fooled. Buy the Journal. Visit www.risc-ri.org . Read all you can about the budget. If you are unhappy, call your state representative or senator. House Speaker William Murphy is at 222-2466. Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed is at 222-6655.

The I-way mess will last a few days. Your tax increase will last forever. Speak out!

-Ward is publisher of

The Valley Breeze newspapers