Fix the `rich and poor'

To Governor Rimando and the people that run the State of Rhode Island: 

$5 million for two words and a few colors. I'd love to see the itemized receipt for that kind of money. After all, the state usually wants to see receipts from people if their taxes get excessive. What really were you thinking? I would say 70 percent of the people in the state of Rhode Island are living at or below poverty level trying to make ends meet, working paycheck to paycheck.

I know there's a few of us that the State of RI funded a grant for continuing education for adults and they pulled the grant out halfway through a two-year program. Doing this forced people to drop out or to go way into debt with student loans. I feel that's where some of this money should be going, to help bail out the people that the state screwed over. Now I'm not saying that there are not people out there screwing the state and taking advantage of things that they're really not entitled to, but $5 million dollars, really. I went to have my taxes done the other night, and in the waiting room I was looking at a magazine, Rhode Island Monthly which is all well and good but it's not the true story as a whole.

Governor, everything you've been doing and saying has been just a slap in the face to most RI Citizens, and they are all just words and words alone.

I've lived and worked in the State of Rhode Island my entire life and the only getting ahead I get is older...not any better or different. I thought that would have changed when I went to school on a grant from the state until they ripped it out from me, which sucked me deeper back into the hole.

You're doing all this to attract more people to Rhode Island for tourism, so they will spend more money, increase, and boost the economy. We need to start thinking about the people that are actually living here, and let's boost their morale, spirits, and their economy to keep them wanting to stay here and not being stuck staying here.

The tourists come in and mostly they see all these bright beautiful expensive ideas, places, and everything state government has so called implemented...Let's take them through "Real life Rhode Island" and not what seems to be in a fairy tale book for me, and I know a lot of other people in the State of Rhode Island would agree.

You want to be liked, you want to be popular and everything. Do the right thing for the people that are already here and worry about the people that might come here another time after all it's the good citizens of this State that make the State of Rhode Island, not the climate so again I say the hell with "Cool and Warm" and let's start fixing “RICH AND POOR!”

Colleen Johnson

Warwick