Posted on 06/09/2014 6:23:21 PM PDT by amnestynone
Blue-state defenders say that progressive policies work. After all, liberal-leaning states boast some of the nation’s wealthiest and best-educated populations. But many are also reeling from problems ranging from high costs of living and widening income inequality to chronic fiscal crises. And leading blue states such as California, Massachusetts, and New York possess unique assets—respectively, favorable climate, educational hubs, fortress industries—that shelter them, at least for a time, from the full economic consequences of their public policies. What happens when you go blue in a more average, workaday place? Rhode Island—a blue state in its purest form—provides an answer.
“Rhode Island is in the midst of an especially grim economic meltdown,” a 2009 New York Times story began, “and no one can pinpoint exactly why.” Five years later, the state continues to suffer from most of the same problems the Times story described: high unemployment, a crippling tax structure, dangerously underfunded state pension systems. But contrary to the Times’s claims, Rhode Island’s predicament is easy to explain. With no special economic advantages, the state has maintained an entitlement mentality inherited from an age of colonial and industrial grandeur. Rhode Island was once one of America’s most prosperous states, and its rate of higher-education attainment remains better than the national average. But the state’s key industries collapsed long ago, and its political leadership has refused to make adjustments to its high-cost, high-regulation governance system.
Nearly all of my Rhode Island in-laws have moved to NC, GA, TX and MT.
I’m right next door to Rhode Island. Chronic unemployment there.
Yes, transporting slaves has been on hard times for over 150 years.
Just wait until Buddy Ciance makes a comeback /sarc
They can keep voting for their failed liberal BS. We’re taking their jobs and we plan on taking more.
With Lincoln Chaffee running the place what can you expect?
This is a perfect description of Detroit, yet another Democrat created disaster.
Total mystery. No one can figure it out. I'm baffled. It just makes me feel so sad and ... well ... blue.
It hasn’t been the same since Ray Patriarca died.:-)
.
I sense that the day of reckoning will feature red-America
having to re-engage with blue-America, much like the West
has done in the past with the east, in Germany with the tearing down of the wall, and the collapse of the USSR and west re-absorption of eastern Europe.
They like high taxes, think public schools are better than charter schools, believe that Christmas trees aren’t Christmas trees, gay marriage is a right, and capital punishment is always wrong.
It literally rejects everything that made it successful and wonders why failure ensues.
Rhode Island only exists so other places can be compared to it....
Torrance County in New Mexico is larger than RI, and has about 1.4 people per square mile.
Dumb ideas coupled with poor attitudes create bad outcomes. So far, the Ivy League schools have missed this immutable concept.
Good! The Progressive Morons that live in RI are getting EXACTLY what they want. I hope they get 50 times more of it. In fact, I would argue that their taxes are WAY too low. They should triple the state income tax, sales tax and all property taxes. It’s for The Chillren!
I have ZERO sympathy for these imbeciles. NONE.
I was visiting in Massachusetts, and turned the TV onto a Rhode Island station. The only ads switched between ads with lawyers asking if you’d had a “slip and fall accident”, or ads for pawn shops. Depressing. :-(
“It’s not because I don’t like paying taxes,” said Gardner, who attended both meetings. “I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore. I’ll protest my appraisal notice, but that’s not enough. Someone needs to step in and address the big picture.”
Bullseye! You hit the nail on the head! Thx!
I see the exact opposite happening. Red and blue America is like a really bad marriage where the one (blue) spouse is addicted to crack, beats the other spouse weekly, leaves for months at a time, and has given the other spouse a good dose of the clap on a couple of occasions.
You know, a marriage like that is well beyond marital counseling sessions. Its not time to talk about what measures are needed for future reconciliation. Instead it’s time to talk about divorce and the property settlement.
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