The Agenda

I think The Don's been sucking on one of those pipes we featured recently.

The first thing I fell in love with in this ProJo article was the caption on its accompanying photo:

A parking lot on Broad Street in Providence is a proposed site for affordable housing, but a planned midyear budget revision by Governor Carcieri may jeopardize the project.

Affordable housing in a parking lot? I'm pretty sure this isn't what they had in mind, so presumably they were going to replace the parking lot with something which could, in theory, have generated more property tax revenue than a parking lot.

But going further, the article explains The Don wants to take $26 million out of RI Housing's budget. Says Richard Godfrey, the Executive Director of RI Housing:

Simply put, Rhode Island Housing does not have $26 million to spare in our operating budget. In fact, the organization has no surplus cash. With only $17 million to spend on programs this year, even if we shut down all operations and programs, it would be impossible for Rhode Island Housing to fund a $26-million payment over the next five months.

Thank God we finally have a governor who's serious about forcing the state to become fiscally responsible.