The $787 billion economic stimulus package passed by Congress this week appears to have come as a welcome relief to Rhode Island.
The bill, signed into law Tuesday by President Obama, includes $1.1 billion in federal aid to ease Rhode Island's budget shortfall and is expected to create 12,000 new jobs in a state where the unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent, second-highest in the nation.
The recovery plan includes financial assistance for the state's Medicaid system, highway and transit projects, education system, welfare programs, energy initiatives and housing investments. The stimulus is also set to extend unemployment insurance and provide tax relief for families and small businesses.
The major spending bill, which came after weeks of haggling between Democrats and Republicans, promises to offer a lifeline to a state that his been hit hard by the current recession.
A poll conducted earlier this month by the Taubman Center for Public Policy found that 82 percent of Rhode Island voters rated the state's economy as poor, and about the same number said the state was headed on the "wrong track."
More than half of voters, 66 percent, said they knew a friend or family member who recently lost a job.
A strong majority, however, said it believed the stimulus package would have a positive effect on the nation's economy. Of 451 registered voters surveyed, 74 percent said the stimulus will make the economy "a little better" or "a lot better."
In a press conference on Tuesday, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., who voted in favor of the bill, called the stimulus a "critical first step" and "an unprecedented investment in the American people," according to a press release.
The "package of fiscal relief, tax cuts and infrastructure investments," Reed went on to say, "is the start, not the end, of the effort."
"The money must now be spent quickly and responsibly in order to be effective," the state's senior senator said in the press release.
Alex Swartsel, a spokeswoman for Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., seconded Reed's statement in an e-mail to The Herald. "The state needs to act quickly to ensure that none of the funds are forfeited by inaction," she wrote.
Rhode Island voters were also concerned about the effectiveness of the package. In the Taubman Center poll, 81 percent of respondents said they were either "somewhat" or "very concerned" that the plan might not turn the economy around quickly enough.
Swartsel added in her e-mail that Whitehouse was "pleased that the bill passed, but is concerned that the recovery plan may not be enough to dig our economy out of its rut."
"He would have preferred to see higher funding for infrastructure and other construction projects," she wrote. Whitehouse supported the bill when the measure passed through the Senate by a vote of 60 to 38, with one senatorabstaining.
Republican Gov. Donald Carcieri '65 had criticized the bill for poor allocation of funds, but Amy Kempe, the governor's press secretary, said in an interview yesterday that the governor was focusing on the future.
"We have the stimulus legislation. Now our focus is to identify and get these projects started and get money in people's pockets," she said. "We're looking ahead - we're not looking back."
Carcieri created a state Office of Economic Recovery and Reinvestment earlier this month, Kempe said, adding that the new office will help "streamline the process" of using the stimulus money and ensure that all communities in Rhode Island benefit from the plan.
But Kempe said there was still a procedure that needs to be followed before the "first dime" comes to Rhode Island from Washington. The federal government has two to three weeks to draft rules and regulations on how the legislation will be implemented.
"We want to make sure this is done properly and not in haste," she said.
The recovery package is expected to create or save 3.5 million jobs nationwide over the next two years, according to the White House. Jobs will be created in a variety of industries, including clean energy and health care, with over 90 percent in the private sector.
