I spent the last week going through public records.

PUC rate case filings. PPL Corporation SEC disclosures. Rhode Island Ethics Commission lobbying data. Board of Elections campaign finance records. Power purchase agreements. RES compliance reports. Rate increase approvals going back a decade.

Here is what the record shows.

Open a Rhode Island Energy bill and look at the full breakdown. There is the supply charge for the electricity you actually used. And then there is the delivery charge. The fee Rhode Island Energy collects just to move that electricity from the grid to your home. In most Rhode Island households the delivery charge equals or exceeds the actual supply charge. You can use less electricity. You can turn off lights. You can buy efficient appliances. The delivery charge stays. It is fixed. It is mandatory. And it keeps climbing with every approved rate case.

Real world residential bills average 247 dollars a month for electricity alone when you add supply and delivery together. Add gas heating, water heating, and winter peak surcharges and total home energy routinely hits 500 to 650 dollars for thousands of households across this state. The energy you used is only half the bill. The other half is the cost of a delivery system owned by an out of state corporation with a guaranteed profit built into every dollar it charges you.

Governor McKee’s answer to all of that is fifteen dollars a month.

But the fifteen dollar number is not the real story. The real story is what the public record reveals about who Rhode Island’s energy system was actually built to serve. And the answer is not the families opening those bills every month.

Follow all four layers. The picture is clear and it is damning.

Layer One — The Utility and Its Parent Company

Start here because everything else flows from it.

Rhode Island Energy, formerly Narragansett Electric, is owned by PPL Corporation, a Pennsylvania based energy conglomerate. In 2024 PPL reported 1.25 billion dollars in profit from ongoing operations. The company pays its shareholders a consistent dividend of roughly 1.14 dollars per share annually.

This is not a coincidence. It is the regulatory compact.

Under this framework the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission sets rates that allow Rhode Island Energy to recover every approved cost including capital spending, operations, and infrastructure, plus a guaranteed return on equity. The current base allowed return on equity is approximately 9.275 percent with incentives pushing it to 10.57 percent or higher and a ceiling near 11.74 percent.

In November 2025 Rhode Island Energy filed a docket seeking more than 180 million dollars in additional base distribution rate increases over two years. The first comprehensive rate review since 2017. While requesting a 10.75 percent return on equity.

This follows a consistent pattern. In 2022 alone a record 47 percent residential electric supply increase was approved by the PUC. Routine annual adjustments were layered on top. No matter what the Governor calls his plan the fundamental math does not change. PPL recovers its capital, its operations, and its profit through your monthly bill. Every dollar of the delivery charge. Every dollar of the supply adjustment. Every dollar of the rate increase. All of it flows through a regulatory system designed to make the utility whole before the ratepayer gets any consideration at all.

Accounting tweaks and mandate delays do not reduce those costs. They defer them to future ratepayers.

An out of state corporation reported 1.25 billion dollars in profit last year. Rhode Island families are choosing between heat and groceries. The regulatory compact made both outcomes possible simultaneously.

Layer Two — The Mandate Money

The second layer funds a different set of beneficiaries. And it shows up on your bill whether you know it or not.

Rhode Island’s Renewable Energy Standard requires utilities and suppliers to source escalating percentages of power from renewables. Every dollar of compliance cost gets passed directly to ratepayers through a dedicated line item on their bill.

In 2023 Rhode Island Energy alone spent 29.3 million dollars on RES compliance. Up from 16.2 million dollars in 2019. Adding roughly four to seven dollars per month to the average household bill. Statewide RES costs now exceed 90 million dollars annually and are projected to climb further as the mandate accelerates.

The beneficiaries of this mandated market are specific and traceable.

Revolution Wind’s Power Purchase Agreement locks in approximately 98 dollars and 43 cents per megawatt hour for twenty years. Offshore wind developers sell Renewable Energy Certificates into this market. Rhode Island Energy purchases those certificates to satisfy the RES. Every above market dollar gets socialized across the entire ratepayer base.

When wholesale natural gas is cheaper ratepayers still pay the contracted offshore wind price. That spread is a transfer. From working families to energy developers. Built into law by design. Every month. Mandatory.

A 2022 amendment pushed the RES target to 100 percent renewables by 2033. Governor McKee’s Affordability for All plan quietly walks that back to 2050. Not because it saves families money in the long run. Because it delays the pain long enough to survive an election cycle.

Layer Three — The Political Relationships and the Money Trail

This is where the public record gets uncomfortable.

Mandates do not write themselves. Rate structures do not approve themselves. And a system this profitable for this many people does not sustain itself without political maintenance.

Rhode Island has operated under one party control of the General Assembly for three decades. The public record shows that every major policy layer driving high energy costs was passed, expanded, or signed into law during that period of uninterrupted control.

The Renewable Energy Standard and its aggressive escalation schedule were championed by legislative leadership in both chambers. The Act on Climate passed in 2021, binding Rhode Island to net zero mandates and driving the RES acceleration, under full one party control. The 100 percent renewables by 2033 mandate was signed by the same Governor who is now quietly walking it back ahead of an election.

Meanwhile the General Assembly failed year after year to pass meaningful consumer protection reforms or utility accountability measures while ratepayer costs climbed and delinquencies mounted.

The lobbying record is public and searchable.

Rhode Island Energy and PPL Corporation spent approximately 139 thousand dollars on state lobbying in 2024 alone. Part of roughly 466 thousand dollars in documented Rhode Island lobbying expenditures between 2018 and 2024. Their registered lobbyists work the State House in Providence. Utility sector campaign contributions flow to General Assembly members who sit on the very committees that oversee energy legislation.

The environmental organizations that lobbied for RES expansions are part of the same ecosystem. Many receiving federal grants tied to the clean energy framework championed publicly by Rhode Island’s congressional delegation. The senators who champion renewable mandates on the Senate floor helped authorize the federal funding streams that sustain the organizations lobbying for those mandates at the state level.

What about the minority party. The public record shows they were largely powerless during this period. But their answer has rarely amounted to more than opposition without a comprehensive alternative. No serious Percentage of Income Payment Plan proposal. No meaningful supply diversification framework. No consumer protection legislation with real teeth. Criticism without a competing vision is not accountability. It is positioning.

The honest accounting is this. One party built the architecture. The other never offered a real alternative. And families paid for both.

This is not a conspiracy. It is a system operating exactly as designed. Just not designed for the people paying the bills. The documents are public. The lobbying filings are searchable. The campaign finance records are available. The rate case approvals are in the PUC dockets. None of this is hidden. It simply requires someone willing to look.

Layer Four — The Human Cost by Community

This is where the abstract becomes real.

Low income households in Rhode Island face energy burdens reaching 16 percent of household income. Approximately 27 percent of electric customers have fallen behind on their bills. Shutoffs and arrears climb year over year concentrated in older urban neighborhoods and low income communities where housing stock is inefficient and options are few.

Fixed income seniors in uninsulated triple deckers. Renters with electric heat and no ability to switch. Working families with 48 thousand dollar household incomes spending thousands annually on energy while delinquency notices stack up.

Neighboring states with similar renewable mandates achieve lower rates through greater supply diversity and different regulatory structures. Rhode Island’s near total dependence on natural gas, approximately 87 percent of in state generation, combined with layered mandates and transmission constraints produces exactly the volatility that hits the most vulnerable households hardest every single winter.

The fifteen dollars a month McKee is promising does not reach these families in any meaningful way. A working family with a 400 dollar monthly electric bill sees less than four percent relief. A senior on fixed income with a 290 dollar bill still faces an energy burden that crowds out food, medicine, and basic needs. The gap between what the system costs and what these households can sustain is not closing. It is widening.

And the people who designed the system that produced these outcomes just sent out a press release calling it Affordability for All.

What the General Assembly Needs to Do Right Now

The authority to change this exists. The bills are already filed. The dockets are open. Here is what real reform actually looks like.

Least cost procurement first. Require all source competitive bidding across gas, nuclear, hydro, efficiency, and renewables with rigorous cost benefit analysis before any mandate expansion. The cheapest resource that meets reliability standards wins. Not the most politically connected one.

Full transparency on every rate case. Require ten year rate impact modeling for every policy change filed with the PUC. Mandate full public disclosure of all utility lobbying expenditures and campaign contributions in conjunction with active rate cases. Rhode Island ratepayers should know exactly who is in the room when their bills are being set.

Percentage of Income Payment Plans. Cap energy burdens at six percent or less for vulnerable households. Flat dollar discounts do not scale to need. Income based plans do. They are proven in every state that has implemented them seriously. The General Assembly has had this bill in front of it. It needs to pass it.

True retail competition with real consumer protections. Expand community choice aggregation. Ban deceptive residential supplier contracts that have already cost Rhode Island ratepayers millions in above market charges. These are documented ongoing harms. They need to stop now.

Supply diversification. Fast track permitting for diverse generation including gas bridge capacity, nuclear, and hydro where zero emission and cost competitive. Invest in transmission upgrades that reduce dependence on volatile spot markets. Rhode Island’s 87 percent natural gas dependence is a structural vulnerability. Every Rhode Island family feels it when markets move.

The documents and filings referenced throughout this piece are public record. The PUC dockets are open. The PPL SEC filings are available. The Rhode Island Ethics Commission lobbying database is searchable. The Board of Elections campaign finance database exists. None of this requires a source inside the building. It requires someone willing to look, connect the dots, and say plainly what the numbers show.

The Bottom Line

Rhode Island’s energy system does not fail families by accident.

It succeeds extraordinarily well for everyone it was actually built to serve. An out of state utility corporation with a guaranteed return on equity. Offshore wind developers with twenty year contracts locked in above market rates. And the political infrastructure that keeps the whole arrangement intact through lobbying, campaign contributions, and mandate expansions that never seem to get reversed no matter which party is complaining about them.

One party has held the levers of power in this state for thirty years. The public record shows that party’s leadership championed every mandate that added to your bill. The same lobbying database shows utility sector money flowing to the committees that oversee energy legislation. And the same Governor who signed the 100 percent renewables by 2033 mandate is now offering fifteen dollars a month and calling it a revolution.

Rhode Islanders deserve an energy system that works for them. Not the reverse. The General Assembly has the tools. The question is whether its majority has the will to use them against the very system the public record shows they built.

Governor McKee may call it Affordability for All.

The public record calls it something else entirely.

And now you have the receipts.

I was scrolling through a local Facebook group last week when a post stopped me cold.

A woman named Maria was talking about her March electric bill.

Four hundred and eighty seven dollars.

She wrote I don’t know how much longer I can do this.

The comments kept coming. A woman in Cranston. A retiree in Woonsocket. A small business owner in Newport. A young family in Warwick. Different towns. Different circumstances. Same bill. Same impossible choice. Heat the house or buy groceries. Pay the utility or risk the shutoff notice.

I kept reading and I kept thinking about what Governor McKee announced in February. His Affordability for All initiative. One billion dollars in savings over five years. A statewide tour. A press conference. A promise.

Do the math. One billion dollars over five years for roughly four hundred thousand Rhode Island households works out to about one hundred and eighty dollars a year per household.

Fifteen dollars a month.

That is the Governor’s answer to Maria’s four hundred and eighty seven dollar bill.

The Numbers the Press Conference Left Out

Rhode Island has the fourth highest residential electricity rates in the country as of April 2026. Twenty eight to thirty one cents per kilowatt hour. Forty to sixty one percent above the national average.

Official figures show a typical household paying around one hundred sixty to one hundred seventy dollars monthly for electricity alone. Real world numbers put the average closer to two hundred and forty seven dollars. Add gas heating, water, and winter peaks and total home energy costs routinely hit five hundred to six hundred and fifty dollars for families across this state.

April’s seasonal supply adjustment delivered approximately seven dollars in relief for the average customer. Not even half of the promised fifteen yet.

Meanwhile Rhode Island Energy’s parent company PPL Corporation reported one point seven billion dollars in net income in 2024.

One point seven billion dollars. While Maria is posting in a Facebook group about whether she can keep the lights on.

Rhode Island ratepayers are subsidizing a highly profitable out of state corporation. And the Governor is holding press conferences to celebrate fifteen dollars a month.

What Fifteen Dollars Actually Does

A working family with a four hundred dollar electric bill sees less than four percent relief from this plan.

Fixed income seniors, renters in older inefficient homes, and middle class households with electric heat face the same impossible choices they faced before the announcement. The press conference did not change their math.

Energy costs consume sixteen percent of income for the poorest Rhode Island families. Even moderate income households earning around forty eight thousand dollars spend thousands annually on energy while delinquency rates climb. Rhode Island’s median household income sits around eighty three thousand dollars. But with housing costs, grocery bills, and stagnant wages many families are already stretched before the electric bill arrives.

Fifteen dollars a month does not change any of that. It does not even scratch the surface.

What Is Actually In This Plan

Here is what did not make the press conference highlights.

Over five hundred and seventy million dollars of the claimed billion dollar savings comes from slowing the Renewable Energy Standard and pushing one hundred percent renewables from 2033 all the way out to 2050. The rest comes from scaling back net metering credits, capping energy efficiency programs at seventy five million dollars annually, and capitalizing road repaving costs after utility digs.

That last one does not save ratepayers money. It shifts costs to future ratepayers. Rhode Island Energy still recovers every approved cost plus its guaranteed profit through regulated rates. The accounting changes. Maria’s bill does not.

Organizations like the Acadia Center are right to call this save now pay later. Less investment in clean supply and efficiency means greater dependence on volatile natural gas, which already powers roughly eighty seven percent of Rhode Island’s electricity generation. When natural gas markets move every Rhode Island household feels it. We are not fixing the structural problem. We are handing it to the next generation with a bigger price tag attached.

An Election Year Plan Built for a Press Release

McKee’s Affordability for All tour launched while his political future remains uncertain. Rhode Islanders should ask a direct question.

If this plan is genuinely transformative why does it push every hard decision, real efficiency investment, supply diversification, the renewable transition, all the way out to 2050.

Because the hard work does not fit on a campaign mailer. The political reward lives in the announcement. The consequences live in Maria’s mailbox every single month.

What the General Assembly Needs to Do Right Now

The Governor does not get to be the last word on this. The General Assembly and the Public Utilities Commission have the tools. What Rhode Island needs is the will to use them.

Here is what real relief actually looks like.

Restore full investment in energy efficiency. Efficiency is the cheapest way to lower costs across the board. The arbitrary seventy five million dollar spending cap is not fiscal discipline. It is self-sabotage that will cost ratepayers more over time. Reduce demand and prices follow.

Diversify supply and fast track permitting. Rhode Island’s overdependence on out of state natural gas is a structural vulnerability every family pays for when markets tighten. Fast track permitting for new generation capacity including gas bridge capacity, nuclear, and hydro where it is low cost and zero emission. Invest in transmission upgrades. Stop leaving ratepayers exposed to price swings nobody in Providence seems willing to address.

Real consumer protections. Ban deceptive residential supplier contracts that have already cost Rhode Island ratepayers millions. Strengthen retail choice and community choice aggregation. These are documented ongoing harms. They need to stop.

Income based payment plans that actually work. Implement Percentage of Income Payment Plans that cap energy costs at six percent or less for vulnerable households. A fifteen dollar flat credit means something completely different to Maria than it does to a household earning six figures. Income based plans scale to actual need. They are proven in other states. The General Assembly needs to stop stalling and pass them.

Transparency and accountability with teeth. Require ten year rate impact modeling for every policy change. Hold utilities to real performance standards. Stop allowing blank check bonuses funded by ratepayers while PPL Corporation posts one point seven billion dollars in net income.

The General Assembly has bills sitting before it right now on rate transparency, nuclear and hydro inclusion in the Renewable Energy Standard, and income based payment plan implementation. Every week those bills sit idle in committee is another month families across this state pay the price.

Maria is still in that Facebook group. So are hundreds of other Rhode Islanders posting about bills they cannot afford to pay.

The General Assembly has the tools. The bills exist. The mandate is clear.

So why are those bills still sitting in committee while PPL Corporation counts its profits?

Imagine waking up Saturday morning, turning on the news, and seeing it again.

Another Rhode Island bridge. Another failure. Another close call that could have killed people.

That is exactly what happened Friday night in Cranston. At 7:30 p.m. on April 24th a concrete parapet and steel debris fell from the Route 10 North to I-95 North on-ramp directly onto Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor tracks near Wellington Avenue. Chunks of concrete. Steel debris. One of the busiest rail lines in America running directly below.

No train was underneath it.

I want you to sit with that for a second. Because the only reason this is not the worst story Rhode Island has ever had to tell is timing. Pure timing. Nothing else.

What RIDOT Knew

This was not a surprise. Not to the people whose job it is to know.

RIDOT’s own inspection records rated this structure poor as of March 2025. The next scheduled inspection was April 30th. Six days away. The bridge was already flagged for demolition and replacement under the I-95 15 Bridges Project. Rhode Island taxpayers are funding that effort to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The agency knew this bridge was deteriorating. It was in the system. The project was funded and named. Cranston Police Chief Col. Michael Winquist, RIDOT Acting Chief Engineer John Preiss, and Amtrak officials all responded Friday night. Power was cut to the tracks. Crews worked through the night clearing debris and inspecting the corridor.

The structure fell before any of the scheduled work reached it.

I do not know how to make that sound acceptable. Because it is not.

What It Cost

Amtrak suspended all service between New York City and Boston. Trains 184, 94, 176, 178, 179, and multiple Acela runs were canceled outright. Trains already moving were terminated at the nearest station. Kingston Station filled up with stranded passengers who had no good options and no clear answers.

As of Saturday morning no restoration timeline had been announced. The on-ramp is closed. Wellington Avenue is shut in both directions. Commuters, families, and small businesses that depend on that corridor are absorbing the cost of a failure that should never have happened.

This is not an abstraction. Real people missed real things Friday night. And the disruption does not stop at the Rhode Island border. This is the Northeast Corridor. Every state on that line felt what happened in Cranston.

The Pattern

Senator Jessica de la Cruz asked the question that needed to be asked. “Is over $1B a year in taxpayer spending on RIDOT actually delivering results for Rhode Islanders?”

State Representative Michael Chippendale drew the line that has to be drawn. “The Washington Bridge near catastrophe was averted by dumb luck, by a kid who was doing a completely different job than inspecting the bridge. Now we have the entire protective side structure of a state overpass free falling onto the train tracks. Had there been a train coming just prior — there could have been hundreds of deaths.”

Two bridges. Two near-disasters. Both survived because of timing.

Not oversight. Not the inspection schedule. Not the project management. Timing.

Rhode Island has been getting lucky. And luck always runs out eventually. Friday night in Cranston it almost did.

What Has To Change

I am not here to score points off a collapsed bridge. I am here because Rhode Island families have absorbed the cost of decisions made by people who are never held accountable for the outcomes. That has to stop.

Here is what I am calling for.

An independent forensic audit. Bring in an outside engineering firm with no ties to RIDOT and no stake in the current project. Audit every bridge in the 15 Bridges corridor. Publish the full report online within 60 days. Condition ratings. Timelines. Cost overruns. Who signed off on structures rated poor that were still in active use. Taxpayers funded this project. They deserve to know exactly what they bought.

A bipartisan oversight commission with real authority. The General Assembly needs to create a standing commission with equal representation and genuine subpoena power. Not a committee that holds one hearing and disappears. A permanent body that reviews every major RIDOT project before the next dollar is committed. Real oversight means real independence. That starts with ending one-party rubber stamps on billion dollar infrastructure decisions.

Poor and fair rated structures go to the front of the line. RIDOT’s own data shows dozens of bridges statewide in poor condition right now. Stop announcing new projects until every structurally deficient bridge is fixed or replaced. Performance-based funding means money follows results. Not press releases. Not ribbon cuttings. Completed work that Rhode Islanders can drive over and trust.

A live public transparency dashboard. Every Rhode Islander should be able to open a webpage and see every bridge’s inspection date, condition rating, and repair status in real time. If a structure is rated poor it shows up in red. No more burying problems in agency paperwork until concrete hits the tracks. Sunlight is the best accountability tool we have.

Performance-based contracts. Invite private engineering firms to compete on fixed-price fixed-time contracts with real bonuses for finishing early and real penalties for delays and cost overruns. Competition produces results. The current system has produced this.

Tie RIDOT leadership compensation to outcomes. No automatic raises while bridges are failing. Director-level pay should be tied directly to reducing the number of poor-rated structures and delivering projects on time and on budget. If the bridges keep falling the bonuses stop. It is that simple.

Our congressional delegation needs to do their jobs. Rhode Island sends Senator Jack Reed, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Congressman Gabe Amo, and Congressman Seth Magaziner to Washington. Their job is to fight for Rhode Island. Federal infrastructure dollars exist. The bipartisan infrastructure law put billions on the table. The question Rhode Islanders deserve an answer to is simple. How much of that money is coming here. How fast is it moving. And why are we still looking at bridges rated poor while federal funding sits waiting to be claimed. Reed and Whitehouse have been in the Senate for decades. Amo and Magaziner are in the House right now. This is their moment to show Rhode Island what they are actually delivering in Washington. Not press releases. Not photo opportunities at ribbon cuttings. Federal dollars moving toward crumbling Rhode Island infrastructure with a public timeline and a public accounting. That is the job. It is time to do it.

The Bottom Line

Rhode Island spends over a billion dollars a year on transportation. This is not a funding problem. The money is there. What is missing is accountability for where it goes and what it actually produces.

Working families across this state pay their taxes and follow the rules. They get in their cars. They board their trains. They trust that the infrastructure underneath them was maintained by people who took that responsibility seriously.

Friday night that trust fell onto the tracks near Wellington Avenue.

Rhode Island can do better than this. Not with more money. With more accountability. Real oversight. Real consequences. Real results.

That is what this state deserves. And it is long past time someone delivered it.

I was having lunch with a coworker a few weeks ago. Good guy. Works hard. Him and his wife both work full-time, two kids at home, doing everything right. Somewhere between the food and the coffee he just shook his head and said, “I don’t know how much longer we can afford to stay here.”

He wasn’t complaining. He wasn’t making a political statement. He was just doing the math out loud. And the math wasn’t working.

That moment stuck with me. Because he is not an outlier. He is Rhode Island right now.

Dead Last. Not Bottom Ten. Dead Last.

Realtor.com just published a ranking of every state in the country by housing affordability. Rhode Island landed at the very bottom. We recorded the highest jump in total housing costs as a share of gross income of any state in America, 8.4% in a single year. We were already one of the most expensive states before this report came out. Now we’re the fastest going in the wrong direction.

Think about what that number means in a real life. It means the young teacher who wants to buy her first home in Newport County is being priced out. It means the couple who both work full-time and still can’t get ahead on rent. It means the retired veteran on a fixed income watching his property tax bill climb every year while his pension stays flat. It means families quietly deciding to move to North Carolina or Florida or anywhere that isn’t bleeding them dry.

This didn’t happen by accident. This is the direct result of policy choices made by people who have faced no real accountability at the ballot box for a very long time.

What Unchecked Power Produces

Rhode Island’s General Assembly is one of the most one-sided legislative bodies in the United States. Democrats have held commanding supermajorities in both chambers for decades. That kind of unchecked, single-party control produces a predictable result. Spending that keeps growing. Regulations that keep stacking. Energy mandates that sound reasonable in a press release and translate into some of the highest electricity bills in the country. Zoning laws so restrictive that basic supply and demand has been suspended, guaranteeing that home prices keep climbing no matter how desperate the need becomes.

When there’s no real competition, no genuine accountability, no opposition with enough votes to force a debate, the natural tendency is drift. Policies get passed that serve insiders and donor networks more than working families. And working families pay the price, month after month, in their rent, their utility bills, their grocery bills, and eventually in the decision to leave.

This is not a story about bad people. It’s a story about what happens when any party, anywhere, holds power without consequence for too long.

Senator de la Cruz Is Saying What Needs to Be Said

Senate Minority Leader Jessica de la Cruz, who represents District 23, saw the Realtor.com data and said it plainly. Rhode Island is on the wrong list again, and Democrat policies have made it worse. She didn’t just say that. She put a bill in front of her colleagues.

Senate Bill S-2672 is a phased income tax reduction of 2% per year over five years. Modest and responsible. She’s also pushing to repeal the energy mandates driving utility bills higher for every family and small business in this state. And she’s calling for real permitting reform so that housing development can move forward in urban and suburban areas without years of red tape and delay.

She put it simply: we shouldn’t settle for affordability when we can aim for prosperity.

She’s right. And she deserves backup. Not just words of support, but actual votes, actual seats, and an actual General Assembly that’s balanced enough to force real debate and real accountability.

The Solutions Are Not Complicated

Rhode Island does not need to accept decline as a permanent condition. The tools to turn this around are well understood. What’s been missing is the political will to use them, and the political competition to force the issue.

Start with housing supply. The single most effective thing this state can do to bring housing costs down is make it possible to build more housing. That means cutting through zoning restrictions, shortening permitting timelines, and giving builders a predictable path from application to construction. More supply puts downward pressure on prices. That’s not ideology. That’s how markets work.

Fix the tax burden. Senator de la Cruz’s S-2672 is the right starting point on income taxes. But the property tax burden on homeowners and seniors in this state is also crushing, and it deserves serious attention. Targeted relief through homestead exemptions, senior freeze programs, and income-based credits would give real breathing room to families who have invested the most in their communities. And Rhode Island’s estate tax is long past its expiration date. We are one of the only states still punishing families for the effort of building something and wanting to pass it on.

End the energy mandate trap. Rhode Island already has some of the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. The current energy mandates are adding costs to every household and every small business without a realistic plan for managing the transition or protecting ratepayers. An all-of-the-above energy approach that includes renewables alongside natural gas and nuclear would lower bills, improve grid reliability, and make this state more competitive. Ideology is not a substitute for an electric bill people can actually pay.

Reduce regulatory friction on businesses and jobs. Rhode Island loses employers and jobs to neighboring states in part because our regulatory and tax climate sends the signal that businesses are not especially welcome here. Targeted incentives for manufacturing, trades, logistics, and technology companies, combined with a genuine effort to reduce the burden on small businesses, would raise household incomes. Higher incomes make housing more affordable. These things connect.

Expand educational options for families. Families are not going to choose Rhode Island, or stay in Rhode Island, if they don’t feel confident about their children’s schools. Expanding access to charter schools, vocational programs, and education savings accounts gives every family, regardless of zip code or income, a real choice. It also creates accountability in a system that has in too many places shielded itself from consequences.

Demand fiscal discipline before asking for another dollar. Rhode Islanders are not opposed to strong public services. We believe in good infrastructure, safe communities, and schools that work. But we expect efficiency and results, and for too long the General Assembly has offered spending without accountability. Before any new tax or mandate, do the basic work of proving the money we already collect is being used wisely.

The Case for a Purple Rhode Island

The political label on your voter registration does not change what you pay at the pump, at the grocery store, or when the landlord puts the new lease on the table. Working-class Democrats in Woonsocket and Central Falls feel this affordability crisis just as sharply as Republicans in Coventry or independents in Newport County.

Rhode Island is, at its core, a purple state. Voters here are pragmatic. They care about results. They have elected Republican governors. They have crossed party lines when they believed it served their families. The problem is that legislative races, especially in off-year cycles, don’t generate the same attention as statewide contests. That’s where the supermajority gets reinforced, not because people are satisfied with the results, but because not enough voices have pushed back loudly enough.

A more balanced General Assembly, one where Republicans, independents, and fiscally grounded Democrats have enough seats to force genuine debate and real compromise, would produce better policy for everyone. Not because the minority always has the right answer, but because competition and accountability improve governance. Always.

Who This Fight Belongs To

If you’re a Republican, show up. The data is on your side and the frustration is widespread. Run for office. Support candidates. Make the case.

If you’re an independent, your vote has never mattered more in a Rhode Island legislative race. Don’t sit this one out.

If you’re a working-class Democrat or a soft Democrat who is tired of paying more for everything while the people in power talk about affordability without delivering it, you are not obligated to vote for failure because it has a D next to its name. Senator de la Cruz is not asking you to change your values. She is asking you to demand that your values, a fair shot, real opportunity, a state where working people can actually get ahead, be delivered by the people you send to the State House.

What You Can Do Right Now

Call or write your state representative and senator. Tell them to support S-2672 and the full housing and energy reform agenda.

Share this with five people who feel the squeeze but don’t follow the politics closely. They are the people who will decide these races.

Show up to town halls and public hearings. The room is usually full of lobbyists and insiders. Your presence changes that dynamic.

If you have ever thought about running for local or state office, 2026 is the year. These races are won on small margins. One engaged, credible candidate can change a district.

Vote in every election as though your family’s financial future depends on it. In 2026, it does.

Rhode Island Is Worth This Fight

This is not a eulogy for the Ocean State. This is a rallying cry.

We have a great location, strong communities, a real workforce, and more assets than most states our size. We are not a state without potential. We are a state that has been held back by a political structure that has grown comfortable with failure and disconnected from the daily reality of working families.

My coworker shouldn’t have to sit at lunch and wonder whether he and his wife can afford to stay in the state they’re raising their kids in. Neither should your neighbor, your coworker, or your kids.

The Realtor.com map is a wake-up call. Senator de la Cruz’s S-2672 is a starting point. And the coalition of Republicans, independents, and disaffected Democrats who are ready for something real is the foundation.

Rhode Island can be better than this. The question is whether we’re organized enough and committed enough to make it happen.

I believe we are.

My grandfather didn’t need a politician to explain responsible gun ownership to him.

He kept a firearm in the house because he was a working man who understood something simple. Protecting your family is your job. Not the state’s. Not a committee’s. Yours. You provide. You protect. You do not wait for permission.

That is still how most Rhode Islanders think. I know because I talk to them. At the diner. At the hardware store. At the games on Saturday morning. They are hunters, sport shooters, veterans, parents, small business owners. They follow every rule. They always have.

And right now the Rhode Island General Assembly is moving a package of bills that treats every one of them like a suspect.

What Is Actually Happening

Several sweeping gun control bills survived committee hearings in April 2026. They were held for further study. That sounds slow. It is not. The General Assembly has a decades-long habit of quietly advancing legislation and bringing it to a floor vote before most Rhode Islanders even know it is moving.

If you own a firearm in this state, or if you simply believe the Constitution means what it says, you need to understand exactly what these bills do.

What Rhode Island Already Has

Before we get into what is being proposed, let’s be honest about where things already stand.

Rhode Island requires a universal background check on every firearm purchase. Rhode Island also mandates a seven-day waiting period. These are real safeguards. Most responsible owners have accepted them. They target the transaction without criminalizing the citizen.

What is being pushed now goes well past that. In several specific areas it would make Rhode Island’s gun laws stricter than Massachusetts. That is not spin. That is what the bills actually say.

The Bills, One at a Time

H8073 and S2710 ban possession of so-called assault-style firearms. Not future sales. Current legal ownership. Every Rhode Islander who legally owns one of these firearms would have until December 31, 2026 to sell it, transfer it out of state, or destroy it. Failure to comply means felony charges.

Massachusetts has a similar ban but allows residents to keep properly registered pre-ban firearms. Rhode Island’s version offers no such protection. You purchased it legally. You own it legally today. Under this bill you could be a felon by New Year’s Day 2027.

H7755 and S2726 require eight hours of safety training for every firearm purchase. Not once when you get your license. Every single transaction. Massachusetts requires a safety course for licensing. Not per purchase. Rhode Island’s proposal creates a bureaucratic wall that hits first-time buyers hardest, burdens rural residents with limited access to training facilities, and puts a real obstacle in front of anyone who needs to legally purchase a firearm quickly for self-defense.

H7035 caps Rhode Islanders at one firearm purchase every 30 days. Massachusetts has no such limit. This does nothing to stop a criminal from acquiring a weapon illegally. It simply tells a law-abiding citizen that the government gets to decide how often they exercise a constitutional right.

H7557 and S2611 expose gun manufacturers and dealers to civil lawsuits when their legally sold products are later used in a crime. Even when every applicable law was followed at the time of sale. The practical effect is fewer dealers, fewer legal options for responsible buyers, and not one fewer criminal with a gun.

Why None of This Works

Here is the core problem with every one of these bills.

Criminals do not comply.

The felon illegally carrying in Providence is not scheduling eight hours of safety training. The person planning a violent crime is not counting his monthly purchase limit. The straw purchaser funneling guns to a gang is not worried about manufacturer liability lawsuits.

These bills place their entire burden on the one group of people they should never be targeting. The Rhode Islander who passed the background check. Waited the seven days. Followed every rule on the books.

That is not public safety policy. That is political theater.

What Would Actually Work

Rhode Island does not need to punish people who did nothing wrong. It needs to get serious about the people actually driving gun violence.

Mandatory minimum sentences for illegal possession. If you are a prohibited person and you are caught carrying, the penalty should be swift and certain. That is real deterrence.

Enhanced penalties for using a firearm in a crime. New Mexico recently moved repeat armed felons to second-degree felony status with significantly longer sentences. Rhode Island should do the same. If you use a gun to commit a crime here, the consequence should actually mean something.

Aggressive prosecution of straw purchases and illegal trafficking. These are federal crimes that are chronically under-prosecuted. Straw purchases and trafficking are how most crime guns actually reach our streets. That is where the focus belongs.

Real resources for law enforcement and prosecutors. Give them the tools to go after actual threats. Not the hunter buying his third rifle. Not the single mother purchasing her first handgun for her family’s safety.

The Bigger Picture

Rhode Island has been run by one party for nearly ninety years. During that time the state has produced some of the highest property taxes in New England, a housing crisis that has been building for decades, a pension system that collapsed and had to be gutted, and a steady pattern of working families quietly leaving.

The same political machine that produced those results is pushing these gun bills through committee right now.

This is not about safety. If it were about safety the conversation would center on enforcement, prosecution, and targeting the people actually committing gun crimes in Rhode Island’s cities. Instead the focus is on restricting the rights of people who already follow every rule.

Rhode Islanders deserve better than that.

What You Can Do Right Now

The session is active. These bills can move at any time.

Call your state senator and state representative today. Tell them to vote no. Tell them to kill these bills in committee and put the focus where it belongs. On enforcement and real criminal accountability.

Find your legislators at rilegislature.gov. The call takes five minutes.

Share this. Tag every hunter, sport shooter, veteran, and home defender you know. The Second Amendment community in Rhode Island is larger and more politically diverse than the General Assembly wants to admit. It is time to make that impossible to ignore.

Your rights are not up for negotiation. Don’t let them act like they are.

My neighbor knocked on my door on a Tuesday afternoon last spring and told me he was moving to North Carolina.

He and his wife had talked about it for two years. They ran the numbers a dozen times hoping they were wrong. They weren’t. The property tax bill had gone up four times in eight years. The rent on their daughter’s apartment near Providence was eating half her paycheck. The job he’d been promised kept getting delayed. And one morning he woke up and said enough.

He didn’t leave because he wanted to. He left because Rhode Island made it impossible for him to stay.

He was the third family on my street in two years.

I’m telling you that because what follows is not a collection of abstractions. These are real people. Real families. Real decisions that should have never had to be made. And if you live in this state right now you already know someone who made the same one.

So let’s talk about what actually happened here. And how long it has been happening.

What They Promised

You already know how it started.

On New Year’s Day 1935 Democrats seized Rhode Island’s statehouse in fourteen minutes flat. No election. No mandate. State police at the chamber doors. A party that rewrote the rules of power while most Rhode Islanders were still recovering from the night before.

We told that story last week. Thousands of you shared it. Because it hit something real.

But the coup was only the beginning.

What came after it is the part that actually matters to you today. When Democrats seized power they made a promise. Reform. Accountability. A government that finally worked for working people. The mill workers. The factory hands. The immigrant families in Providence who had been locked out of power for decades.

Future House Speaker Matthew Smith later told the honest truth about what actually followed. Democrats, he wrote, “failed to capitalize on its revolution and institute the program of reform it had promoted for so long.” Instead they “indulged in a wild scramble for patronage and power.”

The real victims, Smith concluded, were the people of Rhode Island.

He wrote that in 1973.

I read it last week and honestly had to put my phone down for a minute. Because it reads like it was written this morning.

The Recession Nobody Wanted to Say Out Loud

In the fall of 2025 URI economist Leonard Lardaro said what the numbers had been screaming for months.

Rhode Island was officially in a recession.

Not a rough patch. Not a period of adjustment. A recession. For the entire calendar year of 2025 not one key economic indicator improved over the year before. Zero months of progress. Twelve months of straight decline.

Maybe I’m wrong to be angry about that. But I don’t think I am.

Because while families across this state were tightening their budgets and making impossible decisions about where they could afford to live — the same machine that seized power on New Year’s Day 1935 was still running the building on Smith Hill. Without interruption. Without accountability. Without a single genuine fear of losing.

That combination — recession plus zero accountability — is not a coincidence.

It is a consequence.

The People Who Left

Last year 1,600 more Rhode Islanders moved out of this state than moved in.

Read that again.

Over two decades Rhode Island has lost more than 107,000 residents to other states. They took nearly a billion dollars in annual income with them. Every single year more people choose to leave than stay.

These are not statistics. They are the couple who bought their first house on your street and lasted four years before the tax bill broke them. The young nurse who trained at Rhode Island Hospital and moved to New Hampshire because she could actually afford a one-bedroom apartment there. The small business owner who relocated to a state where the regulatory climate felt like it was designed to help him instead of slow him down.

I have watched it happen in real time. And every time someone leaves I think the same thing.

This didn’t have to be this way.

The Number That Says Everything

Rhode Island’s unemployment rate sits at 4.8 percent right now. Higher than the national average. Higher than the New England regional average. For seven straight quarters.

Seven. Straight. Quarters.

We are not just underperforming compared to the rest of America. We are underperforming compared to our own neighbors. Massachusetts. Connecticut. New Hampshire. Maine. Vermont. Every state around us is doing better. All of them have something Rhode Island has been missing for nearly a century.

Real competition. Real consequences for failure.

New Hampshire has traded legislative control between parties multiple times in the last twenty years. The result is consistently one of the most affordable states in New England with a growing population and employers who want to be there. Massachusetts has elected Republican governors repeatedly because voters understood that divided government produces better outcomes than one party running everything without challenge.

Rhode Island voters can make that same rational decision.

They just need someone to give them the honest picture to do it.

Your Invoice

So here is what 91 years of unchecked one-party control has actually cost the average Rhode Island family.

Some of the highest property taxes in all of New England. A housing crisis decades in the making while the same legislators held the same hearings and passed the same incremental measures that never moved the needle. A pension system that collapsed in 2011 and had to be gutted — breaking promises made to teachers, firefighters, and state workers who had planned their entire retirements around a guarantee the state couldn’t keep. A business climate that ranks near the bottom nationally. Young families making painful decisions to leave places they loved because the math simply stopped working.

And now — a population projected to shrink by more than 5 percent by 2050.

Fewer Rhode Islanders. Fewer families. Fewer kids in classrooms. A state quietly hollowing out while the machine that seized power on New Year’s Day 1935 keeps running.

That is your invoice. Not a political argument. An invoice. Ninety-one years of one-party rule. Paid in full by the people who stayed and the people who couldn’t.

This Is Not About Picking a Side

I want to be straight with you.

I’m a Republican. I’m planning to run for District 74 in 2028. I have a perspective here and I’m not going to pretend I don’t.

But I mean this genuinely — this is not about making Rhode Island a red state. I would say the same thing if the parties were reversed. Unchecked power in either direction produces the same result every time. Comfortable insiders. Broken promises. Ordinary families paying the price.

What Rhode Island needs is not a pendulum swing. It needs two parties that both know they can lose. That pressure — real, credible, electoral accountability at every level — is the missing ingredient. It has been missing since January 1, 1935.

November 2026

My neighbor texts me from North Carolina sometimes.

He likes it there. The weather is better. His mortgage payment is lower than his old property tax bill was. He doesn’t regret leaving. He just regrets that leaving felt like the only option.

That is what 91 years actually costs. Not just in dollars. In people. In neighbors. In the version of Rhode Island we were supposed to get and never did.

I started writing these stories because I got tired of watching good people leave a place they loved. That is the whole reason. Not a talking point. Just the truth.

November 2026 is the moment Rhode Island voters can start demanding better. Not by picking a side. By refusing to hand out free passes in every district, for every seat, at every level.

The coup took 14 minutes.

Taking the state back starts in November.

It was over before most Rhode Islanders finished their morning coffee.

On New Year’s Day 1935, in the span of fourteen minutes, the Democratic Party seized control of Rhode Island state government in one of the most audacious political power grabs in American history. No election. No mandate from voters. Just a lieutenant governor who refused to seat duly elected Republican senators, state police stationed at chamber doors so lawmakers couldn’t escape to break quorum, and a party that rewrote the rules of power while the rest of the state was still recovering from the night before.

The Associated Press called it the overthrow of a “Republican feudal system.” The New York Times labeled it “a startling coup.” The Christian Science Monitor declared that “50-year-old Republican domination is in shambles.” One conservative newspaper publisher was so outraged he ordered a star removed from the American flag in his pages, arguing Rhode Island no longer deserved its place in the union.

It was, by any honest measure, one of the most breathtaking moments in American state political history.

And Rhode Island has been paying for it ever since.

The Promise They Made and Broke

To understand why the Bloodless Revolution matters today, you have to understand what Democrats promised when they took power.

Rhode Island in 1935 was a state desperate for change. The Great Depression had gutted working families. Republican political boss General Charles Brayton had spent decades engineering a system that concentrated power in rural, Republican-leaning districts while urban working-class communities, the immigrant families, the factory workers, the mill hands, had little real voice in their own government. The Brayton Act effectively stripped the governor of appointment power, keeping control in the hands of legislative insiders and their networks.

Democrats rode into power promising to tear all of that down. Reform. Accountability. A government that finally answered to the people paying for it. A new era for Rhode Island.

Within months of taking power they had reorganized state government, consolidated dozens of commissions into a smaller number of departments, and restored real authority to the governor’s office. On paper it looked like genuine reform.

But future Rhode Island House Speaker Matthew Smith, writing in a 1973 edition of Rhode Island History, told the real story. The Democratic Party, he wrote, “failed to capitalize on its revolution and institute the program of reform it had promoted for so long.” Instead of following through on its promises, the newly empowered legislature “indulged in a wild scramble for patronage and power” that mirrored everything they had accused Republicans of doing.

“The real victims,” Smith concluded, “were the people of Rhode Island.”

That sentence was written in 1973. It reads like it was written this morning.

The Machine That Never Let Go

Here is the number that defines modern Rhode Island politics more than any other: 85.

That is how many consecutive years Democrats have controlled the Rhode Island House of Representatives, every single session since 1940. They have controlled the Senate without interruption since 1958. No other state in America has a legislative record quite like it.

When one party controls everything with no real fear of losing, something predictable happens. The party stops competing for your vote and starts assuming it. Accountability gets replaced by access. Reform gets replaced by relationships. And the people who suffer most are not the insiders with the right connections. They are the ordinary residents trying to build a life in a state that keeps making it harder.

The results in Rhode Island speak for themselves and they are not pretty.

Property taxes that rank among the highest in New England, climbing year after year with no meaningful relief in sight. A housing crisis that has been building for decades while the same legislators held panel discussions, commissioned studies, and passed incremental measures that never moved the needle. A business climate that consistently ranks near the bottom nationally, driving entrepreneurs and employers to neighboring states that are more affordable and more welcoming. A population that has been quietly shrinking as young families and working adults make the rational decision to leave.

And then there is the darkest chapter of all.

The Day 300,000 Rhode Islanders Lost Their Savings

In January 1991, newly elected Governor Bruce Sundlun walked into the State House on his first day in office and made a decision that stunned the entire state. He ordered the closure of 45 banks and credit unions, freezing the savings of approximately 300,000 Rhode Island depositors overnight.

The Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corporation, the private insurance fund that covered most of the state’s credit unions, had collapsed. It had been underfunded, poorly supervised, and riddled with insider loans made to politically connected borrowers who never paid them back. The oversight failures that allowed it to happen were the direct product of a political culture where one party had run everything for so long that nobody with real power had any real incentive to ask hard questions.

Families lost access to their life savings. Businesses couldn’t meet payroll. The recovery took years. And the political culture that produced it changed far less than it should have.

I’ve lived here long enough to watch good people leave. Not because they wanted to. Because the math stopped working for them. The tax bill got too high. The rent got too steep. The opportunity they were waiting for never showed up. And they made the painful, rational decision to go somewhere that made more sense for their family. That’s not an accident. That’s not bad luck. That is the predictable result of ninety years of nobody in that State House being held genuinely accountable for anything. When you can’t lose, you don’t have to listen. And Rhode Island families have been living with that reality for nearly a century.

What Two-Party Government Actually Looks Like

Rhode Island’s closest neighbors offer a useful contrast.

New Hampshire operates with genuine two-party competition at every level of state government. Republicans and Democrats have traded control of the legislature and governor’s office multiple times in the past two decades. The result is a state that consistently ranks among the most affordable in New England, with lower property taxes, a stronger business climate, and a population that is growing rather than shrinking.

Massachusetts has its own structural Democratic advantages but has consistently elected Republican governors, from William Weld to Mitt Romney to Charlie Baker, precisely because voters understood that divided government produces better outcomes than unchecked single-party control. Baker won reelection in 2018 with 67 percent of the vote in a state that voted for Hillary Clinton by 27 points. Rhode Island voters are fully capable of making the same rational calculation.

Two-party government is not about ideology. It is about accountability. When both parties know they can lose, both parties have to actually govern. They have to deliver results. They have to answer to voters rather than to their own machines. That pressure produces better policy, better spending decisions, and better outcomes for ordinary people.

Rhode Island has not had that pressure in nearly a century. The evidence of what that costs is visible in every property tax bill, every housing shortage, every business that relocated to a more competitive state, and every young family that made the painful decision to leave a place they loved because they simply could not afford to stay.

November 2026 Is the Opportunity

The Bloodless Revolution of 1935 did not fix Rhode Island. It replaced one set of insiders with another and called it progress. The real victims, as Speaker Smith admitted fifty years ago, were the people of Rhode Island.

Ninety years of evidence has settled the question. One-party dominance does not produce good government. It produces comfortable insiders and frustrated residents. It produces a state with every natural advantage, a stunning coastline, world-class universities, proud communities, and genuine talent, that somehow keeps falling short of what it could and should be.

Rhode Island does not need to become a red state. It does not need to swing from one extreme to another. It needs two parties governing together, checking each other, competing honestly for every vote, and understanding that losing is always a real possibility. That accountability is the missing ingredient. It has been missing since January 1, 1935.

November 2026 is the moment Rhode Island voters have the opportunity to start rebuilding it. Not by picking a side. By demanding real competition at every level, in every district, for every seat.

Every uncontested race is a free pass for the machine to keep running. Rhode Island families have been handing out free passes for ninety years.

It is long past time to stop.

Rhode Island State House, when are we finally going to see real bills that actually help working families and seniors instead of pushing them out of this state?

People are getting hammered right now. Electric bills keep going up. Property taxes keep going up. Rent is out of control. Groceries are still high. Seniors are sitting at the kitchen table trying to figure out which bill has to wait this month, and some are choosing between keeping the lights on and paying for medication. That should never be happening in a state this small and this expensive.

And while all of that is happening, our young people are leaving. They are moving to states where it costs less to live, where it is easier to buy a home, and where they feel like they actually have a future. Families are leaving too. That should be setting off alarm bells in the State House, but too often it feels like the people in charge are more focused on politics than results.

So where are the serious bills to bring energy costs down? Where is the real plan to make housing affordable without creating even more problems? Where is the effort to ease the property tax burden on seniors and working families who are barely hanging on?

Instead of relief, people keep getting more spending, more bureaucracy, more fees, and more excuses from the same career politicians who helped create this mess in the first place.

Rhode Islanders are paying attention. We see our neighbors struggling. We see our kids leaving. We see how hard it has become just to live a normal life here. And people are going to remember who fought to lower costs and make life easier, and who kept making it worse.

It is time for real action. Lower electric costs. Tackle housing the right way. Ease the property tax burden. Make Rhode Island a place where young people can stay, build a life, and raise a family.

We cannot keep losing our people and pretend everything is fine. The excuses have gone on long enough. Rhode Islanders need real relief, and they need it now

.

Dear Members of the Rhode Island General Assembly,

Every spring, Rhode Islanders open their property tax bills and feel the same gut punch.

In towns like Middletown, the levy is set to rise another 3.7 percent this year, which means $2.17 million more pulled from homeowners, even after local officials held town spending to a 3 percent cap and the schools cut more than 20 positions. That tells me this is not simply a local spending problem. It is a revenue problem caused by a tax base that is not growing fast enough.

A lot of Rhode Islanders already believe state government spends far more than it should. They look at a $14.86 billion total state budget for FY2027, a double-digit figure that keeps climbing, and they ask a fair question: why do local property taxes keep going up every year while the state is sitting on surpluses and a fully funded $307 million rainy-day account?

Their frustration is real. And it is justified.

There is a better way.

I am proposing the Rhode Island Local Control & Taxpayer Relief Pilot Act, a true five-year pilot program that would provide Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns with up to $10 million annually through a transparent formula based on population, local property-tax burden, infrastructure need, and school facility need, on top of the state aid they already receive.

The total cost would be up to $1.95 billion over five years, or up to $390 million annually. That works out to roughly 6.5 percent of a single year’s general-revenue budget. This is something the state can afford if it first orders a full independent performance audit to identify waste, then uses those savings along with the modest revenue actions already included in the Governor’s FY2027 plan and, if necessary, a limited temporary draw from our healthy rainy-day fund.

This pilot should come with real teeth so nobody can call it a blank check.

Every dollar should be limited to the following:

• Infrastructure, including roads, bridges, drainage, sidewalks, and broadband or fiber-optic projects

• School facility maintenance and safety upgrades

• Direct homestead or property-tax credits for resident taxpayers

• Debt service on previously approved capital projects

• Municipal energy aggregation, community choice aggregation, or bulk electricity procurement programs, including startup costs, rate subsidies, joint purchasing agreements with other municipalities, or regional energy-buying initiatives

No funds should be used for salaries, general operating expenses, or any other unrelated purpose.

Rhode Island taxpayers would overwhelmingly support an approach like this. People are tired of watching their bills go up while the state budget keeps climbing into the double-digit billions. They want to see real relief. They want to see frozen or lower tax bills, better roads, stronger schools, and improvements they can actually see in their own communities. And they want that relief delivered with full transparency.

This approach would also respect local control. Local elected officials, not distant bureaucrats, should be the ones deciding how best to use these funds within clear limits and public reporting requirements.

Our cities and towns would welcome this. Local leaders have been asking for stable, flexible aid for years. A pilot like this would give them a real chance to ease pressure on property taxpayers, address crumbling infrastructure, and pursue smart local improvements without putting even more strain on homeowners.

This is not about handing towns money and saying, “go to town.” It is about returning taxpayer money to local communities in a responsible, transparent way with strict guardrails and one goal: real relief for the people paying the bills.

This is not more big-government spending. It is smart, limited, accountable relief that brings money and decision-making closer to the people who actually pay for government in the first place. It is practical, targeted, and the kind of common-sense reform that Republicans, Democrats, and independents should all be able to get behind.

I respectfully urge the General Assembly to introduce the Rhode Island Local Control & Taxpayer Relief Pilot Act this session.

Rhode Islanders have waited long enough.

Respectfully,

A concerned Middletown, Rhode Island resident

Rhode Island Local Control & Taxpayer Relief Pilot Act

Working Policy Framework

Purpose

The Rhode Island Local Control & Taxpayer Relief Pilot Act would create a five-year statewide pilot program designed to return a portion of taxpayer dollars back to cities and towns in a responsible, transparent, and relief-focused way.

The goal is simple: ease pressure on local property taxpayers, help municipalities address long-neglected infrastructure and facility needs, and give communities more control over how targeted state support is used, without creating a blank check for general spending.

Why This Is Needed

Across Rhode Island, homeowners and local taxpayers continue to face rising property-tax pressure even as the overall state budget keeps growing. In many communities, local officials are already trying to control spending, but the tax base is not growing fast enough to keep up with infrastructure needs, school facility costs, debt obligations, and other major local pressures.

This proposal starts from a basic principle: Rhode Islanders should be able to see a clearer return on the tax dollars they already send to government.

Pilot Structure

This proposal would establish a five-year pilot program running from FY2027 through FY2031.

Under the pilot, Rhode Island’s 39 cities and towns would be eligible to receive up to $10 million annually through a transparent funding formula.

The program would be designed as a temporary, measurable test model, not a permanent entitlement. At the end of the pilot period, the General Assembly would review the results before deciding whether any part of the program should continue.

Funding Approach

The pilot would be supported through a combination of:

• savings identified through a full independent performance audit of state government

• selected revenue measures already proposed in the Governor’s FY2027 budget

• if necessary, a limited and temporary draw from the state’s Budget Reserve and Cash Stabilization Fund

The idea is not to grow government for the sake of growing government. The idea is to redirect resources more effectively and return measurable value to taxpayers at the local level.

Distribution Formula

Municipal funding would be awarded through a transparent public formula based on practical local conditions, including:

• population

• local property-tax burden

• infrastructure need

• school facility need

The formula should be published in full and applied uniformly statewide. Funds should not be distributed through discretionary political decisions, informal negotiations, or special carveouts.

Each city and town should receive a guaranteed minimum level of support, while communities facing greater tax pressure, infrastructure strain, or school facility needs should be eligible for additional funding up to the program cap.

Protection Against Diversion

Funds appropriated for this pilot should be placed in a dedicated municipal relief account and distributed only according to the published formula established under the program.

No portion of the funds should be withheld, redirected, repurposed, reduced, or delayed for political reasons or backroom budget maneuvering. The purpose of the pilot is to provide predictable, transparent local relief, not create another avenue for favoritism, state-level skimming, or insider dealmaking.

Eligible Uses

Funds would be limited to clearly defined purposes that provide visible public value and real taxpayer relief.

Eligible uses would include:

• roads, bridges, drainage, sidewalks, and other core infrastructure projects

• broadband and fiber-optic expansion

• school facility maintenance and safety upgrades

• direct homestead or property-tax credits for resident taxpayers

• debt service on previously approved capital projects

• municipal energy aggregation, community choice aggregation, and bulk electricity procurement efforts, including startup and partnership costs

Ineligible Uses

To protect taxpayers and maintain trust, pilot funds would not be allowed to be used for:

• salaries

• general operating expenses

• pension costs

• routine administrative spending

• unrestricted local budget balancing

This is a relief and infrastructure tool, not a slush fund.

Local Control With Guardrails

A central principle of the pilot is local control. Cities and towns should have flexibility to decide which approved uses matter most in their communities.

At the same time, that flexibility should exist within strict guardrails, clear public reporting, and measurable performance standards.

This is meant to strike the right balance between local decision-making and taxpayer accountability.

Transparency and Reporting

Any municipality receiving pilot funds would be required to file a public annual report detailing:

• how funds were spent

• what projects or tax-relief measures were supported

• measurable outcomes

• the impact on the local property-tax levy, where applicable

These reports should be publicly accessible and easy for taxpayers to review.

Evaluation and Sunset

The pilot should include a formal review after year three and again at the end of year five.

Those reviews should examine:

• whether property-tax pressure was reduced

• whether infrastructure and school facility conditions improved

• whether towns used the funds effectively

• whether the distribution formula worked fairly

• whether the model should be refined, extended, or allowed to expire

The program should automatically sunset at the end of the five-year period unless reauthorized based on results.

Rhode Islanders are working harder than ever, but for a lot of families, it still feels like they’re falling behind. The cost of housing, healthcare, utilities, property taxes, and everyday life keeps climbing, and people are tired of hearing speeches while their bills keep going up. These are not side issues. These are the kitchen-table issues that are hitting families right now.

The General Assembly has rolled out packages, panels, and commissions, and sure, that’s something. But too often it feels like we get small tweaks, more studies, and watered-down ideas that avoid the harder choices. Rhode Islanders need practical solutions that cut red tape, respect taxpayers, and actually make life more affordable, even if that upsets some special interests.

Here’s where real reform is overdue.

Housing affordability: median home prices over $518,000 and brutal rents are locking families out. We need to make it easier to build and increase supply, but without one-size-fits-all mandates that steamroll local communities.

Healthcare costs and access: families are dealing with doctor shortages, long waits, and rising premiums. We need targeted workforce incentives and smarter cost controls, not more bureaucracy and not another blank check.

Infrastructure: the Washington Bridge mess should have been a wake-up call. We need faster project timelines, real oversight, and spending discipline so roads and bridges actually get fixed instead of talked about.

Property taxes and cost of living: Rhode Islanders are getting squeezed from every angle. Taxes are too high, energy bills are too high, and groceries are not getting cheaper. Families need real tax relief and a government that shows some spending restraint.

Education funding: the school funding formula needs a full rewrite. We should be able to support students while also easing the pressure on local property taxpayers.

These should not be partisan fights. These are family priorities. I may not be in office, but I am taking them seriously by doing the homework, digging into the numbers, listening to people across the state, and working on practical reforms that could actually pass and actually work.

Rhode Island does not need more feel-good headlines. It needs serious fixes. What’s the top issue you think needs to be addressed right now?

The “No Kings” rally is happening in Providence this weekend, and every American has the right to protest. But I hope Rhode Islanders take a second to look a little closer to home before pouring all that energy into Washington.

A lot of people are angry at one man. I get it. But the biggest problems hurting Rhode Islanders are not coming from the White House. They are coming from right here in our own State House. For nearly 90 years, one party has had near-total control of Rhode Island government. In that same stretch, our state has sunk toward the bottom of just about every major ranking that actually affects people’s lives:

• Starting a Business: 50th out of 50 (WalletHub, 2026 – third year in a row)
• Overall Business Climate: 46th (CNBC, 2025)
• Business Friendliness: 46th
• Economy: 45th
• Infrastructure: 45th (U.S. News)
• Transportation: 50th — dead last
• Fiscal Stability: 45th
• Hardest-Working States: 48th
• Higher Education: 46th
• Doctors to Practice: 49th (WalletHub, 2026)
• Road Conditions: 50th — worst in the nation
• New Housing Growth: 50th — the slowest in the continental U.S.

This is what failure looks like when it becomes normal. It looks like young families wondering if they can ever afford to buy here. It looks like seniors watching taxes and utility bills climb faster than their fixed income. It looks like small business owners trying to survive while dealing with high costs, red tape, and crumbling infrastructure. And it looks like a state that keeps asking working people to be patient while the people in power keep making excuses.

Rhode Island is just over 50% independent, but we do not act like it. We keep sending the same people back to the same seats and then acting surprised when nothing changes. Meanwhile, the cost of living keeps climbing, small businesses keep getting squeezed, the roads keep falling apart, and families keep looking elsewhere for opportunity.

By all means, use your First Amendment rights. Protest. Speak out. That is part of being an American. But after the march is over, maybe ask some harder questions of the people who actually shape your day-to-day life: your governor, your mayor, your legislators, your town council.

Presidents come and go. Every four or eight years, the name changes. But the people sitting in Providence have been pulling the levers of power for decades. Maybe it is time to say “No kings” to the people who have treated Rhode Island like their personal kingdom for nearly a century.

If I ever have the privilege of representing Rhode Islanders, I would not see the job as a title to hold. I would see it as a responsibility to earn, every single day.

I’m not a career politician. I come from a working-class background, and that shapes how I look at public service. I think about the people who get up early, work hard, pay their bills, raise families, serve their communities, and expect government to do the basics well. Too often, it doesn’t. Too often, people feel like they are paying more, getting less, and being talked down to by leaders who seem more interested in protecting a system than fixing it.

That is not the kind of representative I’d be.

I’d be the kind of representative who takes the job seriously. Someone focused on results, accountability, and whether life is actually getting better for the people back home. That means lower costs, safer communities, stronger infrastructure, better schools, support for veterans and seniors, and a government that respects taxpayers instead of wasting their money.

I’m conservative on core issues, and I won’t pretend otherwise. I believe in personal responsibility, public safety, secure borders, fiscal discipline, and honest government. But I also believe serious leadership means being practical, telling the truth, and working with anyone when it helps Rhode Islanders. I’m not interested in empty fights, performative politics, or chasing attention. I’m interested in solving problems.

And I want to be honest about where I am right now. This is still new to me, and I take that seriously. I’m learning, listening, and thinking carefully about the best way to serve. That may mean starting closer to home and taking a serious look at District 74 before making a run at Congress down the road. Whether that path begins in 2026 or 2028, I’d rather be honest about the timing than pretend I have every step mapped out.

What I can promise is simple: whenever I run, and whatever level I serve at, the mission will be the same. Fight for working people. Tell the truth. Push for accountability. Focus on results. And never forget who the job is supposed to be about.

At the end of the day, public office should not be about ego, status, or building a brand. It should be about service. It should be about whether you made life a little more affordable, government a little more honest, and the future a little stronger for the people who trusted you with the job.

That’s the kind of representative I’d try to be.

I’m a Republican because I believe in core principles that still matter: personal responsibility, public safety, secure borders, fiscal discipline, strong national defense, and government accountability. I believe taxpayers deserve respect, laws should be enforced, and public office should be about service, not status.

But I also believe leadership is about results, not performance.

I’m a working-class Rhode Islander. I do not come from the consultant class or the political class. I see politics through the eyes of people who work hard, pay bills, raise families, and expect government to do its job honestly and competently. That shapes how I look at everything.

So yes, I’m conservative on core issues. But I’m also practical about governing and open to working with anyone when it helps the people of this state. I’m not interested in bipartisanship for show. I’m interested in getting results for working families, seniors, veterans, and small businesses that are tired of being ignored while political insiders protect themselves.

To me, being a Republican in Rhode Island should mean more than repeating national talking points. It should mean standing for lower costs, safer communities, stronger families, honest government, and basic competence. It should mean knowing when to fight, when to work together, and when to put Rhode Islanders ahead of party politics.

I’m a serious Republican. Conservative in principle, bipartisan when it gets results, and focused on working-class Rhode Islanders who deserve a government that respects them.

Right now, Washington is stuck in a partial Department of Homeland Security shutdown, and the people paying the price are the ones actually doing the work. TSA officers, Border Patrol, Coast Guard, ICE, and other frontline personnel are caught in the middle while both parties keep digging in.

If Congress wanted a real off-ramp before Easter, here is what it could look like.

First, pass a full-year DHS funding bill through September 30, 2026. That ends the shutdown immediately and includes full back pay for every affected worker. TSA gets paid. Airport pressure eases. Border and security operations stabilize. That should be the easy part.

Second, Republicans get the core election-security win they want. Congress passes the SAVE America Act framework requiring proof of U.S. citizenship for federal voter registration. Republicans can go home and say they secured federal elections and finally put a real standard in place.

Third, Democrats get a real sweetener that does not gut the election-security piece. Create a one-time American Voter Access Fund worth $750 million so eligible American citizens can get required documents for free. That means help with birth certificates, passports, state IDs, REAL ID upgrades, mobile DMV access, weekend office hours, and local support for seniors, disabled citizens, low-income Americans, and rural communities.

Fourth, add another $250 million to $300 million for local election administration so local offices are not handed a major new mandate with no support. That money should go toward training, system upgrades, cybersecurity, document processing, and voter education, with most of it flowing directly to county and local offices.

Fifth, include a short but firm six-month implementation window. No endless delay games, but no overnight chaos either. States get a clear deadline to build the systems, issue documents, and educate voters.

Finally, add a mandatory cure process and clear name-change protections so eligible voters are not tripped up by paperwork errors, mismatched documents, or marriage-related name changes. That gives Democrats something real to defend, while Republicans still get the core law and a hard enforcement date.

That is the deal.

Republicans can say they funded DHS and secured federal elections. Democrats can say they ended the shutdown, got workers paid, and made sure eligible Americans are not blocked by cost or bureaucracy. The public gets something rare from Washington: an actual fix instead of another week of grandstanding.

I’m not a politician, and I’m not in a position to present this deal myself. But after two weeks of research, this looks like a fair and workable framework if both sides actually want to get something done.

Fund DHS. Pay the workers. Secure federal elections. Make the paperwork free and fixable. Then get it done and go home.

Rhode Islanders deserve to feel safe where they live, work, and raise their families. That should not be controversial. People should be able to walk through their neighborhoods, send their kids to school, run a small business, or take public transit without feeling like disorder, crime, and basic lawlessness are just things they are expected to tolerate.

I believe in safe communities, strong law enforcement, and a justice system that takes repeat offenders seriously. I also believe accountability matters across the board. Police officers deserve support, resources, and respect, because most are doing a difficult job under intense pressure. But the badge does not put anyone above the law. Public trust depends on both support and standards.

The same basic principle applies to immigration. America should be a welcoming country, but it also has to be a lawful one. A nation that cannot control its border, enforce its laws, or properly vet who enters is failing one of its most basic responsibilities. That does not make you anti-immigrant. It makes you serious. We need secure borders, faster legal processing, stronger enforcement against traffickers and cartels, and a system that respects both compassion and common sense.

Too often, leaders in both parties either exploit these issues for political theater or avoid them because they are afraid of backlash. Regular people pay the price for that cowardice. They are the ones dealing with rising disorder, weak enforcement, and a growing sense that the rules are not applied fairly or consistently.

My view is simple. Laws should mean something. Violent criminals should face real consequences. Police should have the tools to do their jobs. Families should feel safe in their communities. And people who want to come to this country should do it legally, through a process that is fair, orderly, and worthy of the nation they want to join.

Safety, order, and the rule of law are not extreme positions. They are the minimum any serious government owes its people.

Rhode Island needs a serious property tax relief and efficiency plan.

Too many people in this state feel like they did what they were supposed to do. They worked. They bought a home. They stayed put. They paid the mortgage for years. And then instead of finally getting a little breathing room, they look at their tax bill and realize the pressure never really stopped. For a lot of Rhode Islanders, paying off the house no longer feels like security. It feels like reaching one finish line only to find another bill waiting on the other side.

That is not how this is supposed to work.

Property taxes are one of the most direct ways families experience the cost of government. You can argue about policy from 30,000 feet, but a tax bill in the mailbox is personal. It affects whether a senior on a fixed income can stay in the home they spent decades paying for. It affects whether a working family can keep up with rising costs. It affects whether younger Rhode Islanders even believe homeownership is worth chasing here.

And the frustration is not just about the number itself. It is about the feeling that the bill keeps going up while regular people are expected to just absorb it. It is about the sense that too many decisions are made without enough visibility, without enough accountability, and without enough urgency about what all of this is doing to the people footing the bill.

Rhode Island does not need another vague promise about affordability. It needs a framework that actually deals with the pressure homeowners are under while also respecting the reality that local government still has to function.

That is the point of this proposal.

This is not a final bill draft. It is not a complete fiscal note. It is not a magic wand. It is a practical framework for how Rhode Island could reduce pressure on homeowners, improve transparency, reward efficiency, and create a more honest conversation about the long-term drivers of local tax growth.

The framework is built around five core ideas:

1. Limit annual property tax growth

2. Show the costs

3. Help seniors and veterans

4. Support shared services

5. Control future costs

None of these ideas alone solves everything. Together, though, they point in the direction Rhode Island should be moving if we are serious about making this state more affordable for the people who already live here.

Why this conversation matters

Property taxes do not hit everybody the same way.

If you are wealthy, they are a line item. If you are comfortable, they are a frustration. But if you are a senior on a fixed income, a veteran trying to hold onto stability, or a working family already juggling housing, utilities, groceries, insurance, and everything else, they can become one more way the ground keeps shifting under your feet.

And Rhode Islanders know the pattern. Costs rise. Government says the increase is necessary. Residents are told there is no alternative. Then a year later the burden goes up again. People may not follow every budget hearing or every contract negotiation, but they understand the end result just fine. They feel it.

That is what makes this issue different from a lot of abstract political arguments. This is not some distant ideological debate. This is about whether people can keep up. It is about whether government is asking reasonable things of the public. It is about whether the system is built to protect the people paying into it, or simply to preserve itself.

Rhode Island is also a small state with a lot of overlapping local systems. That does not automatically mean waste, but it does mean the burden is on leadership to prove that the structure we have is delivering value. If taxpayers are going to keep being asked for more, they have every right to ask harder questions about transparency, duplication, benefit growth, and whether local government is operating as efficiently as it could.

This plan starts there.

1. Limit annual property tax growth

The first pillar is simple: local property tax growth should not keep running ahead of what families can reasonably absorb.

That does not mean towns should never be allowed to raise taxes. It does mean there should be a clearer guardrail around how fast local tax burdens can grow in the normal course of government. A practical model would tie allowable annual growth to inflation and population growth, while allowing narrow exceptions for genuine emergencies, legal mandates, or voter-approved overrides.

Why does this matter?

Because one of the biggest frustrations homeowners feel is not just the size of the bill, but the unpredictability and steady creep of it. Families try to budget. Seniors try to plan. People assume that once the mortgage is gone, the worst of the housing pressure is behind them. But if the tax burden keeps climbing year after year with no clear discipline around it, homeownership never really stabilizes.

A growth limit would not solve every budget problem. Towns would still need to make hard decisions. But that is exactly the point. A cap is not just a tax policy tool. It is a management discipline tool. It forces local governments to prioritize, justify increases more clearly, and think harder about cost growth instead of assuming the homeowner will just pick up the difference.

Critics will say towns need flexibility. They are right, to a point. Towns do need flexibility for true emergencies and unusual circumstances. That is why any serious proposal should include narrow exceptions and a transparent override process. But flexibility cannot become a permanent excuse for unlimited growth. Homeowners need some protection too.

The broader principle here is straightforward: if families are expected to live within real-world limits, government should be expected to do the same.

2. Show the costs

This may be the strongest and most defensible part of the entire framework.

Rhode Islanders should be able to see, clearly and easily, where their local tax dollars are going.

That means every city and town should publish a searchable public dashboard showing major spending categories, salary schedules, union contracts, healthcare costs, pension formulas, departmental spending, and other significant obligations in plain language. Not hidden across scattered PDFs. Not buried in meeting packets. Not technically public but practically inaccessible. Actually visible.

This matters for a simple reason: transparency is the foundation of accountability.

A lot of residents feel like they are being asked to trust a system they cannot fully see. They know the tax bill. They know the budget keeps growing. But many do not have a clear, usable way to understand what is driving the increase. That gap creates cynicism, confusion, and a sense that public decisions are happening one layer beyond real public scrutiny.

A dashboard does not automatically lower taxes. But it changes the environment in which spending decisions get made. It becomes harder to hide weak explanations. It becomes easier for residents, journalists, watchdogs, and even local officials themselves to compare costs and ask better questions. And when decisions are defensible, leaders should welcome the chance to defend them in the open.

This is not about vilifying public workers. It is not about trying to create resentment toward teachers, police officers, firefighters, or town employees. It is about basic transparency for taxpayers. If local government is going to ask more from homeowners, then homeowners deserve more visibility into how the money is being spent.

That should not be controversial. It should already be standard.

3. Help seniors and veterans

One of the clearest failures in the current system is that relief is too uneven and too patchwork.

In some towns, seniors and veterans may have access to certain exemptions or forms of relief. In others, the rules differ. The paperwork differs. The generosity differs. The awareness differs. That leaves too many people in the dark or dependent on where they happen to live rather than what they actually need.

Rhode Island should build a simpler statewide property tax relief structure for income-qualified seniors and honorably discharged veterans.

That relief could include exemptions, credits, and carefully structured deferral options. But the key idea is that help should be based more on income and need, and less on a confusing patchwork that changes from one municipality to the next.

Why is this so important?

Because these are the Rhode Islanders most vulnerable to being taxed out of stability. A senior who spent decades paying off a home should not have to spend retirement wondering whether rising property taxes are going to outpace a fixed income. A veteran who served the country should not have to fight through a maze of inconsistent local rules just to find out whether any relief is available. And families trying to care for aging parents should not be forced into impossible choices because the system is too fragmented to respond with basic fairness.

There is also an important difference between real relief and relief that only delays the problem. Deferral can help in some cases, but deferral alone is not enough if it simply turns today’s tax pressure into tomorrow’s lien. That may be useful as one option, but it should not be the whole answer. A serious plan should combine immediate help with long-term protection, so people are not just surviving the bill in the short run while passing a different burden down the line.

This pillar is about something bigger than tax policy. It is about stability, dignity, and a basic promise that the people who built their lives here should not be pushed out by a system that refuses to adapt.

4. Support shared services

Rhode Island is a small state. That should be an advantage. Too often, it is treated like a coincidence.

For a state this size, we still operate through a lot of overlapping local systems, duplicated functions, and separate administrative structures. That does not mean every town should lose its identity or that every service should be consolidated. But it does mean we should be asking much harder questions about where cooperation could lower costs without harming service quality.

That is where shared services come in.

The state should actively encourage towns to work together on functions like dispatch, purchasing, IT, fleet maintenance, public works coordination, and other back-office or operational areas where duplication may be adding cost without adding value. In some places, broader regional approaches may also make sense, but the smarter place to start is with the functions that are easiest to share and easiest to measure.

This matters because efficiency does not always come from cuts. Sometimes it comes from redesign.

A lot of Rhode Islanders hear “efficiency” and immediately assume somebody is talking about layoffs, service loss, or stripping communities of local control. That is not what this is about. This is about reducing avoidable overhead, getting more buying power where possible, and making sure taxpayers are not paying for the same administrative wheel to be reinvented thirty-nine different ways just because that is how things have always been done.

If shared services are structured well, the upside is not only financial. They can also improve consistency, purchasing leverage, technical capacity, and resiliency. Smaller towns in particular can benefit when they are not forced to carry every burden alone.

This is one of those areas where Rhode Island’s size should help it. The question is whether we are willing to use that advantage.

5. Control future costs

The final pillar is the one that makes some people uncomfortable, but it has to be part of the conversation.

If Rhode Island wants long-term property tax relief, it cannot ignore long-term cost growth.

That includes pension obligations, benefit structures, and other future commitments that shape local budgets year after year. Talking about that does not mean attacking public employees. It does not mean taking away earned benefits from current retirees. And it does not mean pretending workers are the problem. It means recognizing that if future obligations grow faster than taxpayers can sustain, the pressure eventually lands somewhere. In many communities, that “somewhere” is the property tax bill.

A serious approach would bring together local leaders, labor representatives, taxpayers, and policy experts to look at long-term sustainability honestly. The goal would not be punishment. It would be to make sure future commitments are affordable, defensible, and aligned with what the broader public can actually carry over time.

This is where too many politicians go weak. They either run from the issue completely or they talk about it in a way that sounds like a cheap shot at workers. Both approaches fail.

The real task is harder and more responsible than that. It is to protect what has already been earned, respect the people doing the work, and still be honest that the future has to be built on a structure taxpayers can support. Anything less is just kicking the can and pretending the bill will somehow disappear on its own.

It will not.

What this plan is trying to do

Taken together, these five pillars are meant to reduce the long-term pressure that keeps pushing property taxes higher.

They target several of the biggest underlying problems at once: unchecked cost growth, weak public visibility into spending, fragmented local operations, uneven relief for vulnerable homeowners, and a broader lack of structural discipline around future obligations.

That does not mean every town would feel the exact same effect in the exact same way. Rhode Island is small, but communities are still different. Tax bases differ. Budget pressures differ. Existing local relief differs. Some towns already do certain things better than others.

But the statewide direction is what matters here.

The point is to create a structure where homeowners have more protection, taxpayers have more visibility, vulnerable residents have more support, and local government has stronger incentives to operate efficiently instead of simply passing cost growth through.

That is how real relief becomes possible over time.

What this plan is not

It is important to be clear about what this framework is not.

It is not a plan to gut essential services.

It is not a plan to punish rank-and-file public workers.

It is not a call to strip communities of local identity or pretend every town can be run exactly the same way.

It is not a final filed bill, and it is not being sold as a finished fiscal note.

This is a framework. Its purpose is to put serious, practical ideas on the table and move the conversation past the usual cycle of frustration, excuses, and avoidance.

That distinction matters.

Too often in Rhode Island, people can sense the problem clearly, but the discussion never gets very far because the moment anyone raises structural reform, the conversation gets derailed into caricatures. Either you are accused of wanting to cut everything, or you are told the burden simply has to keep rising because there is no alternative.

There are alternatives. They just require more honesty than the status quo is comfortable with.

Why this matters politically and personally

This issue matters on the merits, but it also matters because it gets at something deeper in Rhode Island politics.

A lot of people feel like they are being asked to carry more and more while getting less confidence that government is making disciplined, transparent, accountable decisions with their money. That feeling crosses party lines. It crosses age groups. It crosses town lines.

People may disagree on the exact policy mix, but the frustration is real.

They want to know someone is actually paying attention to the pressure they are under. They want to know somebody is willing to question the way things have been done. They want to know that “affordability” is not just another word politicians throw around before going back to business as usual.

That is part of why this framework matters to me.

I am not putting this out there as somebody who thinks he has every answer. I am putting it out there because too many Rhode Islanders are asking a fair question: how do you spend years paying off a home and still feel like you are falling behind?

That question deserves more than a shrug.

The bottom line

Rhode Islanders should not feel like paying off their home still leaves them trapped under a rising tax burden with no real relief and no real say.

We can have a more honest conversation than that. We can build a system that is more transparent, more efficient, and more protective of the people paying the bills. We can take seniors and veterans more seriously. We can reduce duplication where it makes sense. And we can stop pretending that long-term cost growth is somebody else’s problem.

This state does not become more affordable by accident. It becomes more affordable when leaders are willing to confront the real drivers of cost and put practical reforms on the table.

That is what this framework is meant to do.

If you live in Rhode Island, you do not need a politician to tell you energy costs are a problem. You already know. You see it when the electric bill hits. You see it in the winter when heat becomes another monthly stress point. You see it when small businesses try to keep the lights on and families start cutting back everywhere else just to stay current.

This is one of the biggest ways government failure shows up in everyday life. People are told to accept higher costs, more fees, and more complexity, while the people making the decisions act like ordinary Rhode Islanders should just absorb it and move on.

I do not think that is acceptable.

Rhode Island needs an energy approach that is reliable, affordable, and honest. That means modernizing the grid, demanding real oversight of utilities, cutting down on junk charges and opaque billing, and using an all-of-the-above strategy that keeps costs stable instead of gambling on ideology. If a policy looks good in a press release but leaves working families paying more every month, then it is not working.

My view is simple: keep the power on, keep the bills down, and stop making Rhode Islanders pay the price for a system that feels too complicated, too expensive, and too unaccountable.

For too many Rhode Islanders, healthcare no longer feels like peace of mind. It feels like one more bill, one more fight, and one more reminder that even basic care is getting harder to afford and harder to navigate.

Costs keep rising. Premiums are too high. Deductibles are too high. Prescription prices keep climbing. Families get hit with surprise bills, confusing paperwork, and long waits for appointments. Even people who have insurance often feel like they are still one bad diagnosis or one unexpected bill away from serious financial stress.

That is not a patient-first system.

And the people feeling it the most are often the ones who can least afford it.

Seniors on fixed incomes should not have to choose between medication, groceries, utilities, and rent. After a lifetime of working, paying in, and helping build this state, they deserve stability, not fear every time another medical bill shows up in the mail.

Veterans deserve better too. They served this country. They should not be stuck fighting through delays, confusing systems, or gaps in access when they come home and need care. If we say we support veterans, that support has to mean something when it comes to mental health, specialty care, navigation, and timely treatment.

Working families are getting squeezed from both sides. They pay for coverage every month, then still get hit with high out-of-pocket costs when they actually need to use it. Parents trying to care for children, adults caring for aging parents, and families balancing jobs, rent, food, and transportation are being asked to carry too much.

And low-income Rhode Islanders are often trapped in the worst position of all, where one change in work hours, paperwork, eligibility, or income can throw their coverage into chaos. That is not stability. That is a system that keeps people on edge.

Rhode Island does not need more slogans on healthcare. It needs real patient-first fixes. That means lowering out-of-pocket costs for working families and seniors, requiring clear upfront pricing so patients know what care will cost, expanding access to doctors, specialists, and mental health care, making the system easier for veterans and low-income families to navigate, and cutting red tape that keeps patients stuck in the middle.

Healthcare should be easier to understand, easier to access, and more affordable for the people who depend on it. Seniors should be able to age with dignity. Veterans should get the care they earned. Working families should not feel punished for using the coverage they pay for. And low-income Rhode Islanders should not feel like the system is designed to confuse them instead of help them.

Because when healthcare becomes too expensive, too delayed, or too confusing to use, regular people are the ones who suffer.

And in Rhode Island, too many already are.

If Rhode Island wants a stronger future, it has to start by being honest about what too many families already know: our education system is not delivering enough for too many kids.

We have great teachers. We have hardworking students. We have parents who care deeply. But good people can only do so much inside a system that too often lowers expectations, buries classrooms in bureaucracy, and treats warning signs like they are somebody else’s problem.

Too many students are still falling behind in reading and math. Too many families do not get clear answers until they are already frustrated. Too many kids are pushed forward without the kind of support, structure, and accountability they actually need.

And then we act surprised when graduates are not fully ready for college, the trades, military service, or the workforce.

That is not fair to students. It is not fair to parents. And it is not fair to the teachers trying to do their jobs in a system that asks more from them while too often giving them less support.

Rhode Island needs to get back to basics. Strong reading. Strong math. Better attendance. Safer classrooms. More transparency for parents. More respect for teachers who are actually focused on teaching, not politics or paperwork.

We also need to stop acting like every student has to take the same path. College matters. The trades matter. Technical training matters. Career pathways matter. A good education should open doors, not box students into one narrow definition of success.

If we want a stronger Rhode Island, we need schools that prepare kids for real life, not just systems that protect themselves and call it progress.

Because the cost of failure does not show up in a press release. It shows up in a student who never got the foundation they deserved.

If there’s one issue that touches almost everything else in Rhode Island, it’s affordability.

Too many people in this state feel like they are doing everything right and still falling behind. They work hard. They budget. They make sacrifices. And somehow it still feels like the basics keep getting more expensive while the people in charge keep offering excuses instead of relief.

Housing costs are too high. Rent is too high. Utility bills are too high. Groceries cost more. Property taxes hit families and seniors hard. Insurance costs keep climbing. And for a lot of Rhode Islanders, every month feels like one more round of trying to stretch a paycheck that does not go far enough anymore.

That is not just frustrating. It is destabilizing.

Young people wonder if they can afford to stay here. Working families feel like they are one emergency away from falling behind. Seniors who spent years building a life here are being priced into fear and uncertainty. Small business owners are trying to survive in the same environment their customers are struggling in.

And the worst part is that too many leaders talk about these pressures like they are background noise instead of the main event.

They are the main event.

A state cannot thrive when ordinary people feel like the cost of staying is becoming harder to justify. Rhode Island should be a place where hard work still gives you a fair shot at stability, not a place where every bill feels like a warning sign.

I believe affordability has to be the starting point for serious leadership here. If government is not helping make life more manageable for the people paying the bills, then it is missing the point.

That means building more housing, getting serious about utility costs, cutting waste, demanding better value for taxpayers, and treating cost of living like the emergency it actually is.

Because for a lot of Rhode Islanders, this is not an abstract policy debate. It is daily life.

And daily life is getting too expensive.