Stop spending money that is not well spent.

• Conduct and publish a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis to determine the effectiveness and value of all state expenditures to any entity receiving state money.
  
  
• Decrease or eliminate funding for programs found to be ineffective or too costly for the benefits they provide.
  
  • A classic example of a well-intentioned but poorly executed spending program is the effort to build 6 houses in South Providence undertaken by the Neighborhood Coalition. These units were built for $345,000 each, and at the time this issue was reported on by the Providence Journal, one unit had sold for $147,000, with no takers for the other units.
  
  
• Bring spending on social services in line with Massachusetts’s spending on the same services, including duration of eligibility for these services.

Induce businesses to locate to Rhode Island by bringing RI's business taxes in line with Massachusetts' business taxes.

• Rhode Island's current tax structure for small business (taken in aggregate the state's largest employer) is far more expensive than Massachusetts.
  
  
• With the Massachusetts border so close, business tax payers have the option of "comparison" shopping when looking at overall tax burdens. The economics of Rhode Island's current tax burden make a relocation to Massachusetts a necessary consideration to save money and be competitive for small business owners. Every small business that moves out of state carries a huge cost to the state in terms of lost income taxes and overall economic activity. Conversely, every business that is induced to move into the state carries huge economic benefits.

Bring the total compensation packages (including wages, benefits, pension amounts and pension eligibility) for state employees in line with what private sector workers earn.

• Rhode Island has an unfunded pension liability of over $10 billion. Many state workers are able to begin collecting pensions after 20 years of service, allowing them to collect pensions potentially beginning in their early 40s. This generosity cannot be afforded by the State. We propose adopting pension rules similar to the State of Texas called the rule of 85. This rule vests a worker with full pension benefits after 20 years of service, but that pension cannot be drawn upon until the worker's age plus years of service equals 85. With this rule, a worker who begins work at age 25 cannot draw a pension until having worked for 25 years and reaching the age 60. This same worker could stop working at the state job at age 45 (20 years of service) take a new job and keep his or her pension benefits, but those benefits could not be drawn upon until age 65. This same worker could work 30 years, and at age 55 retire and begin collecting pension benefits.
  
  
• Employee health benefits are too costly to the state. Compared to private sector health benefits, state employees are not paying in enough to the system. Savings needs to be wrung out of the system through better negotiated contracts (with more than one health care provider!).

Produce a balanced budget by reducing spending and waste and by not relying on one time gimmicks like selling tobacco settlement funds or revenue anticipation bonds.