LETTERS

A perfect storm of botched economics

Posted

To the Editor:

I am standing on the deck of a sinking ship named Rhode Island, and though it is the strength of our people and of our hope that has so far kept her from foundering, a new weather pattern forming on the horizon may cause a wind to blow, striking this ship that has already suffered too many hits.

In the last few short years, Rhode Island, the smallest among the states united has befallen more than her fair share of political and economic corruption, abuse of power, mismanagement and deliberate acts of malfeasance, all for personal gain. Our little state has sailed on the rough waters of failure for too long, ripping us apart, plank by plank. The pension system crisis and the “38 Studios” mega failure were waves of ineptitude, in which the taxpayer must take bucket in hand and begin to bale. The level of shadiness coming out of the General Assembly has blotted out any light of transparency in recent months, and guess what dear Ocean-Staters? Bam! Bam! The good people of R.I. must again pay the price for a less than shiny city on Smith Hill; and we haven’t even touched upon the proposed truck tolls or voices of opposition which get stifled under the leadership of speaker Mattiello. The five million dollar “cooler warmer” campaign indeed left us cold and chilly…and a little hot, under the collar.

All of this has battered and damaged us, as a state. The flares fired high in the afternoon sky, signaling an S.O.S. once again goes unheard, and business as usual at the State House watches the limping vessel at the event horizon of the vortex, about to pull us down. This writer believes that a new deadly, perfect storm is about to form, which will swirl us around even faster, and break us apart a little more.

The Department of Human Resources has spent $400 million on a new computer system, that will enable them to DOUBLE, that’s right people, double the number of welfare claims processed in a day. I guess it’s good fortune for the department, and very good timing also; now that Guatemala city has been officially recognized as the sister of our capitol, Providence, by its mayor Jorge Elorza, my guess is that the tidal wave of unskilled Guatemalan immigrants will bash us over the head and expand EBT enrollment like a super swell. Who will pay for the new unemployed on the government dole? That’s right voters, the middle class, gasping for air, and the business community, struggling in the worst business-friendly state in the nation.

The heavy winds of new immigration, combined with a new flood of welfare recipients, and we can add to this storm a very angry middle class and business community, may sink our small ship on the waters of bankruptcy. Maybe fiscal responsibility and common sense governing can steer us out of disaster. Can anyone sail us to calmer seas? Choose your captain well, voters, or we will be calling The Titanic our sister ship.

Joseph Bucci

Cranston

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