Once again, an editorial in The Providence Journal took a jab at neighboring Connecticut, opining that despite its many advantages the state is “a sea of dysfunction.”
“Connecticut has been badly mismanaged for decades,” The Journal editorial board wrote. “The central mistake was making wild promises to its public workforce. The result? Even before a cent is laid out for roads, bridges, schools, or health care for the poor, some 27 percent of Connecticut’s budget is gobbled up by employee pensions and debt service costs. Transportation, by contrast, draws only 10 percent of the state’s budget. Taxes are high in Connecticut, but the state’s residents are not getting a good value.”
Rhode Island has its own problems with underfunded pensions, but The Journal noted that the state passed pension reform earlier this decade when Gov. Gina Raimondo was state treasurer.
“Connecticut presents a cautionary tale of what happens when a state overspends and then desperately tries to overtax to get out of the jam,” the Journal wrote.
The Ocean State’s largest newspaper criticizing Connecticut is nothing new. Last year, on Jan. 24, 2018, The Journal penned an editorial “Lessons from a struggling neighbor” that called on Raimondo to try to attract jobs from Connecticut to Rhode Island, calling it “certainly less risky” than Connecticut.
The Courant responded days later with an editorial “Why, Rhode Island, why?” The editorial noted Rhode Island’s own pension problems and said the state “enjoys a legacy of corruption that not even Connecticut can match.” It ended with a call for the two states to join forces.
“If Rhode Island and Connecticut want to find a way out of the muck, far better for them to work together,” the editorial read.
