Rhode Islanders often forget how many advantages we have.
I’m relatively new. I’ve only lived here (on and off) for more than 20 years, but I still remember the thrill of discovering this wonderful state.
It was the late 1980s and everyone was depressed. I left New York to come here and found that everything in Providence was less expensive, more convenient, and just easier.
A trip to change my driver’s license at the DMV (in offices across from the State Capital then) took less than an hour, including the written test. A rush hour traffic jam was ten minutes. Getting to the airport took fifteen. To the beach was less than an hour. Rents were lower, sales tax was lower, and the food was amazing.
I haven’t lost my appreciation for everything we have.
One of the challenges we face today is reversing the negative attitudes about our lively experiment.
We need to stop selling ourselves short. We consistently underbid, undercut and sell out our state to attract businesses. This undermines the value of just being here. Businesses that are attracted only by tax cuts, tax breaks and tax incentives are by their nature fickle and will leave at the first opportunity.
Make Rhode Island a Business Center
Dear Business Leaders,
Rhode Island occupies prime and relatively inexpensive real estate between Boston and New York. We are centrally located to the entire Eastern Seaboard, with quick air and shipping access to the rest of the United States and the World. Our traffic jams last minutes, not hours. Our beaches are right here. We have amazing restaurants and a highly educated workforce. Our arts community is vibrant. Our universities are many and diverse. And if you commit to us, your employees will be loyal.
We want you to come and live here because this is the best place to live, not because we’re offering you a deal.
Instead, we’re going to offer you the opportunity to work and live in a place that’s intimate and amazing.
What do you need to do business in Rhode Island? We’ll try to help. Our state government is small and can be flexible.
- We can modify our education system so new hires are able to think and innovate, not just pass tests. We will produce well-rounded students who engage in sports (competition) and learning and arts (creativity). Moving away from the testing model will help to create learning for learning’s sake and a thirst for knowledge and understanding. We will be educating today the workers you need in the future.
- We can streamline the business regulation process and continuously increasing efficiency in government.
- We can build effective long-thinking infrastructure. Rather than blindly reinvest in highways, we will look to 21st century options, including light rail, trolley systems, ride sharing and so on. Does your business really need a bigger airport at a time when jet oil costs continue to skyrocket? Can we make our ports more accessible?
- We will offer tax incentives and rebates to businesses promising infrastructure improvements, long-term payback, and enforce severe penalties for default and exodus.
- We will clean up the swamp of perceived corruption and remove the “pay to play” and “who do you know who can fix things” beliefs that exist.
Rhode Island is at the heart of Center of New England. Won’t you join us?
- Mark Binder, State Representative (to be) from District 4, Providence
P.S. No, we will not allow your businesses to pollute our environment. We will make it costly if you try. Yes, we will provide you with our natural resources (water, land, clean air) but not at wholesale cost.
Bravo, Mark! We need you in our legislature!
Sorry, Mark but your kind of thinking is exactly what we do not need in the General Assembly. In fact, I’m afraid if more people who view the business climate as you do are elected….no, no wait…there are probably a number of people already in the Assembly who think the way you do and that could be why we’re in this mess.
I don’t believe you mentioned this, but the very first thing RI leaders need to do in order to attract business is ask what states with top business climates are doing. States like Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia perennially top these lists. How are they doing it? I want my legislators to ask those questions and then compare what successful states are doing with our state. It’s probably not a simple answer like – get rid of income tax – but if we, and you, are serious about bettering the business climate then we need to look at successful states and try to emulate them where possible.
If we want more of the same thinking that has gotten us nowhere fast, then we can elect more folks like yourself who seem to just not get it.
YES – please end the days of corporate welfare.
RE: Don Roach:
States like Texas, North Carolina, and Georgia have some of the highest rates of poverty, illiteracy, infant mortality, diabetes, incarceration, and some of the lowest standards of living, life expectancy, health coverage and levels of education.
And that is what you call success, God help you!!
His examples were ill-conceived and opened the door to a needless amount of criticism – those states may do business well, but they have some severe cultural flaws, such as unhealthy diets and anti-intellectual undercurrents. Virginia and New Hampshire are cleaner examples – they whoop Rhode Island in every category we have rankings for. Virginia was ranked #1 for business this year and has half Rhode Island’s unemployment rate. It’s not a coincidence that it’s a right-to-work, low-tax state. New Hampshire has no sales tax, income tax, or capital gains tax – “live free or die” indeed.
Bill,
I was talking about business climate. Business climate is one factor in an economy. Georgia’s population is booming. There’s a reason for that. And the unemployment rate for each of the states I listed is at least one full percentage point better than we have in RI as of May 2012.
Like I said, we need to look at what other states are doing well and emulate wherever possible. What we have done and are doing is not working. The governor has had a year and a half to come up with some solutions. Nothing yet and to me it’s not hard to reach out to other governors who have been more successful.
Yes, yes, and yes!!
You’re absolutely right!
But let’s not just bring in “bid’ness.” You might get Monsanto that way. And, please, fewer financial geniuses and fewer piranha-funds.
Let’s work on design, communication, medical high tech, and upscale art touring.
Make Providence the Florence of Tech, and the rest of Rhode Island the platform for work, with the option for the value-added RIGHTEOUS LUNCH, and the Oasis of Chill.
You cover it from Linear Land, and I’ll do my summer thing.
Best Wishes!! Good Luck!!
Picture a stylish samba down Elmwood
at the beginning of the really cold winter.
In any weather, on the appointed day,
samba down elmwood
inventors and the poor
poets and police
bus drivers, firemen, and librarians
people who build carbon fiber chairs
artists, engineers,
get riled up and invite some friends
The winter samba has begun
for the north land.