For the past eight weeks, Providence Business News has run Newsmaker interviews with some of Rhode Island’s most influential business leaders. We wanted to see how the economy looks from the corner office, and to find out what prescriptions our business leaders would offer to fix what ails it.
Everyone we talked to acknowledged that the state’s financial picture is bleak. If Rhode Island is not in a recession, it is certainly “dipping its toes” in one, said Paul Choquette, the chairman of construction and development giant Gilbane Inc.
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At the same time, true to the can-do optimism that has no doubt fueled their own successes, they all saw opportunities in the current economic and fiscal crises – to show political leadership, to grow the types of businesses that will drive the economy of the future, and to invest in education that will help create good jobs down the road.
The best-run companies come out of downturns stronger than their competitors, with more market share, higher profits, and a vigor that allows them to step on the gas as all around them are moving cautiously into second gear.
They all recognized, however, that the state has an important role to play by dealing forthrightly and immediately with the huge deficit. That means real and long-term solutions to structural problems rather than the last-minute tax hikes and budgeting sleights of hand that have masqueraded as answers in the past. No more papering over decaying fiscal infrastructure. The time is now, they insisted, to set the state on a permanent course of fiscal responsibility.
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