Letter To The Editor: No To Government Pay Raises

It was back in 2007 when Rhode Island’s unemployment rate was last below 6 percent. Since then we’ve seen it grow to almost 11 percent, and we’ve been one of the states that is leading the U.S. in this category.

Despite this, it took until this year before local leaders started talking at all about economic development and what needs to be done, and we are still stalled in the talking phase.

We’re seeing some modest improvement on the unemployment front. But it is modest improvement. Fixing what needs to be fixed in Rhode Island’s economy is a long term, structural process, and there is no silver bullet. And we are far, far from the place where anyone should break their arm patting themselves on the back for what we’ve done. Certainly, we should not be handing out raises to anyone, at any level, for what’s been achieved since 2007.

To make matters worse, we’re losing time and focus already dealing with issues such as a state appetizer or legalized marijuana. Too many people are unable to afford either in this economy, that we should be ashamed of our lack of progress on the major economic issues facing the state.

I would love to see the Governor and the General Assembly, among others, offer some fresh thinking about how we begin to make Rhode Island attractive for business, how we remove the cost and regulatory burdens that business here must bear, and what we do to deal with an economy that, for a third of our residents, is driven by public assistance in some form or another before we start handing out raises.

We need to get serious about the economy, and I for one, don’t see this happening right now.