Governor Carcieri speaks with reporters at T.F. Green Airport after meeting with President-elect Barack Obama at the National Governors Association meeting yesterday.

The Providence Journal / Sandor Bodo

WARWICK — Governor Carcieri returned from his first face-to-face meeting with Barack Obama yesterday with this message: The president-elect is committed to helping the states make an economic recovery.

Carcieri and other governors met with Obama at a meeting of the National Governors Association in Philadelphia during which the incoming president promised swift action on an economic plan to help states get back on track.

Forty-one states are predicting budget shortfalls this year.

Speaking to reporters after he arrived at T.F. Green Airport yesterday afternoon, Carcieri said he was impressed as much by Obama’s willingness to assist as by his command of the complex economic issues that the country faces.

“I think he fully appreciates where the states are and how important they are in the resurgence here,” the governor said.

“At the state level, there are limited things we can do,” he added. “We don’t have the money to throw at things and [constitutionally] we have to balance our budgets, so this is a time when we need the federal government’s resources to come to bear and support the efforts in the states.”

Carcieri, a Republican, noted that Democrats Obama and Vice President-elect Joseph Biden Jr. seemed ready to engage governors in their plan, regardless of political affiliations.

“I came away from this, as we all did, encouraged,” the governor said. “…We’ve got to be aggressive, we have to be bold, and we have to stop the slide and get this economy moving forward.”

The president-elect’s aides and congressional leaders have been discussing a state stimulus package that could exceed $500 billion over two years. Obama hopes to be able to sign the measure soon after taking office on Jan. 20.

Carcieri said it is his impression that the package will prioritize money for state infrastructure projects such as roads and bridges –– thereby creating jobs –– and for increases in federal contributions to the Medicaid program for the poor and disabled.

Obama aides have been noncommittal on whether the legislation will contain exactly what the governors seek.

The need for a stimulus package was underscored this week by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s declaration of a fiscal emergency and the possibility that his state could run out of cash within two months as it faces a $28-billion budget gap.

Rhode Island, while not yet experiencing a cash-flow problem, is tied with Michigan for the highest unemployment rate in the nation at 9.3 percent. Percentagewise, it faces the worst current-year deficit of any state, according to the national Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

“We haven’t seen these kinds of times in most of our lifetimes,” Carcieri said. “So I think the feeling is that there has to be a big federal response — and already there has been.”

—With reports from the Associated Press.

cneedham@projo.com