The Perfect Storm - Rhode Island Budget Crisis (Part 1)

"Rhode Island is clearly facing one of the biggest budget deficits in the country. We're hearing that more and more states are coming into this column of states with significant budget deficits. From what we've seen, we know that the size of our budget deficit compared to the overall size of our budget is very serious. It is something that has been developing over the past several years. We know that there is the $150 million hole in this budget year that we are now in, and another $384 million projected for FY09. So, clearly, it is a very serious situation that has to be solved. There is a whole variety of things that probably lead to the kind of time that we are in: the economy isn't great right now; the revenues that the state counts on in the form of people being here, paying taxes, businesses opeing up, jobs coming online, has not been what the state was hoping for; and it just leads to almost a perfect storm of economic difficulties both in the state, the region, and the country at the same time that we're looking for ways to plan for the future of the state."


Find your legislator:
http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/




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