Nearly 1 in 10 of us are now unemployed. Proportionally, the state budget deficit is the biggest in the nation. Bridges are crumbling. And emus are on the loose.

But hey, gas is cheap and we found Joe Onions, right? So quit your complaining. At least someone can rest in peace.

OK, so 2008 wasn’t our best year here in Rhode Island.

On the first day of the year, the General Assembly convened amid talk of a $151-million current-year budget deficit, and House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox said, “It’s going to be rough.”

Maybe all you need to know is that those were good old days.

By year’s end, Rhode Island’s unemployment rate stood at 9.3 percent, among the highest in the nation.

On the home front, more than one in four single-family houses sold during the third quarter of the year were foreclosures or “short sales,” in which the house sold for less than the amount owed on the mortgage.

At the State House, Governor Carcieri and the General Assembly are facing a projected $357-million budget gap — the largest deficit in the country as a percentage of state spending, and they’re scrambling to find ways to slash spending and haul in new revenue.

To fix roads and bridges and to rescue the RIPTA bus system, the governor’s Blue-Ribbon Panel for Transportation Funding has, in a draft report, called for putting toll booths on Route 95. And key legislators are considering taxing a variety of items now exempt from the state sales tax, such as movie tickets, haircuts and bowling.

Maybe all you need to know is that we’re talking about taxing duckpins — or that despite new attractions such as “virtual roulette,” the Twin River slot parlor and greyhound track is trying to find ways to avoid virtual bankruptcy. The stakes are high, considering gambling is the third-highest source of state revenue.

But there must have been some good economic news. How about gas prices? In June, the price of regular, self-service gas reached a Rhode Island record high of $4.12. And now I’m paying $1.64 at the Cumberland Farms down the street. I love it, but it reminds me of the 60-degree winter days that my wife calls “the upside of global warming.” Cheap gas seems to be the upside of economic disaster.

Politically, the year belonged to President-elect Barack Obama. Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, a maverick or a socialist, there must have been some part of your heart that was warmed by the sight of the first black American to win the White House.

And there must have been some part of your soul that responded to what Obama said in Chicago about 106-year-old voter Ann Nixon Cooper: “She was born a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn’t vote for two reasons — because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin. And tonight, I think about all that she’s seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can’t; and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.”

In Rhode Island, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jack Reed cruised to victory over Republican Robert Tingle, a Foxwoods pit boss who ran a virtual campaign against the incumbent, and Democratic U.S. Representatives Patrick J. Kennedy and James R. Langevin trounced their GOP challengers by virtually the same huge margins.

Indeed, it was not a good year for most Rhode Island Republicans. The Nov. 4 election nearly cut the number of General Assembly Republicans in half, leaving the GOP with just 10 of 113 seats — believed to be the lowest level in Rhode Island history.

Maybe all you need to know is that there are now only four Republicans in the 38-member state Senate and they’re split 2-to-2 over who should be the leader of their merry little band.

I was sad to see one of my favorite senators lose: Republican Sen. June N. Gibbs, 86, of Middletown, was defeated after 24 years in office. I remember interviewing Gibbs in 2001 about a redistricting map that placed her in a district that included Little Compton, which lies across the Sakonnet River from Middletown. “That’s pure gerrymander,” Gibbs said. But, she added, “I can windsurf over there.” And she wasn’t kidding.

Not all Republicans had a bad year. Allan W. Fung ran away with the Cranston mayoral election, becoming the first Asian-American to be elected mayor in Rhode Island. On election night, hours before Obama talked about a “defining moment” for the country, Fung talked about a “defining moment” for Cranston and Rhode Island.

And not all Democrats had a good year. Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano, a force in state politics for two decades, was ousted by independent candidate Edward O’Neill, a Lincoln resident and retired business executive who had never before held an elected position. On election night, Montalbano attributed the loss to “a message of change out there that has resonated with the people.” But he also appears to have been hurt by an Ethics Commission fine and a redistricting plan that made Lincoln a big chunk of his district.

Another powerful legislator, Senate Finance Chairman Stephen D. Alves was upset by Michael J. Pinga in a close Democratic primary in West Warwick.

But another once-powerful legislator, former Senate President William V. Irons, did have a good year.

Irons, who resigned abruptly on the eve of the 2004 legislative session, received word from federal prosecutors that he is no longer a target of the wide-ranging State House influence-peddling probe known as Operation Dollar Bill. The Journal disclosed that Irons, an insurance salesman, had collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in commissions since 1997 on a Blue Cross policy covering CVS workers in Rhode Island, and at the time, Irons chaired a committee that handled health care and voted on legislation of interest to CVS.

In October, a Superior Court judge dismissed ethics charges against Irons, saying the state Ethics Commission can’t prosecute him based on his legislative activities because of the “speech-in-debate” clause in the state Constitution. The Ethics Commission has appealed.

Speaking of Operation Dollar Bill, a federal jury in October convicted former Roger Williams Medical Center President Robert A. Urciuoli of corruption charges while acquitting another former hospital executive, Frances P. Driscoll. The verdict came two years after Urciuoli and Driscoll were convicted in a trial in which the verdict was later overturned.

Speaking of convictions, Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline’s brother, lawyer John M. Cicilline, went to prison in October for his role in shaking down a drug-dealing couple in Massachusetts for $150,000. And John Cicilline was at the center of another controversy, involving a bounced $75,000 check for a client’s delinquent taxes in Providence.

Speaking of Cicilline, the mayor was involved in a high-profile debate with Governor Carcieri over illegal immigration following the arrest of an illegal immigrant charged with kidnapping and raping a woman.

Speaking of Carcieri, the governor signed a six-point executive order in March that he said would enable “a vast array of state government agencies” to address illegal immigration in Rhode Island. Immigration advocates accused him of scapegoating, and Democratic leaders accused him of “mandating racial profiling.”

In June, immigration agents swept through stores, apartments and other locations on Aquidneck Island, arresting 42 suspected illegal immigrants. In July, agents entered state courthouses, arresting 31 others, working as janitors. And in August, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin and 15 pastors took the extraordinary step of calling on immigration agents to “evaluate the morality of their participation in immigration raids.”

Speaking of courthouses, the federal courthouse in downtown Providence celebrated its centennial this year. Chief Justice of the United States John G. Roberts Jr. was here for the opening event in February, marking the first time a sitting Supreme Court chief justice has been in Rhode Island on official business in more than two centuries. Another Supreme Court justice, Antonin Scalia, came to the Roger Williams University School of Law in April as part of its “supreme semester.”

In July, the Rhode Island Supreme Court brought an abrupt end to the state’s nine-year effort to force major corporations to clean up lead-based paint that the state believes poisoned tens of thousands of local children. The court overturned rulings by a Superior Court judge and a jury verdict that found the companies created a public nuisance by making and selling the paint.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Frank J. Williams surprised many people by announcing he will resign at year’s end. Williams, 68, said he is retiring in part because he has achieved many of his goals. Also earlier this month, District Court Chief Judge Albert E. DeRobbio and Family Court Judge Gilbert T. Rocha died within days of each other.

So all in all, it was a year of change — often dramatic change and not always for the best.

Some of us felt like fleeing. Rhode Island was one of just two states to lose population in the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimate. And in Foster, three emus bolted when a pig used its snout to lift a livestock gate off its hinges. (Two returned promptly, but one was on the lam for four weeks.)

One thing that didn’t change was our fascination with anything connected to mobsters. You could see that as people gathered in Riverside on a cold November day to watch a backhoe dig up what the state police believe is the body of Joseph P. “Joe Onions” Scanlon, the victim of an infamous 1978 gangland slaying. A family friend said Scanlon got his nickname “because he made the girls cry.” And maybe all you need to know about his death is the tale involves a bullet through the skull, a body in a red Cadillac and a prostitute named Sandra Surprise.

Like Joe Onions, 2008 had a bad ending and made some of us cry. In many respects, it will be good to see both of them laid to rest.