IN THE BOOK and perhaps more famously the film The Perfect Storm, the story of the sinking of the Gloucester-based fishing boat Andrea Gale, and the tragic death of its crew, unfolds in two distinct settings. In the first, the boat is far out at sea. There is nothing but deep water and an endless stream of difficulties and hard decisions. The second critical venue is a meteorologist’s computer terminal. It is there that the weather data begins to reveal that the small ship is about to collide with destructive forces of epic proportions.

Governor Carcieri has been watching the weather data on the ship of state for some time now. Last week, he fired a blast over the bow, declared budget negotiations with the Democrat-led leadership of the General Assembly dead, and issued a tough but unavoidable decision to lay off 1,000 state employees. Personnel costs in the budget, largely driven by some of the most generous retirement and benefit packages found in the nation, will sink the state of Rhode Island if not checked now, was the essential message.

I am not surprised the governor’s decision has been met with insults, denials and threats of court filings by the union leadership. But the governor is not alone in his grim assessment of the state’s very serious fiscal condition. If they don’t want to listen to the governor, then I urge the Democratic leadership to pause a moment and review recent forecasts of opinion leaders and economic experts.

Alan Hassenfeld, CEO of Hasbro, a man who knows something about building a strong business, pulled no punches in a recent speech as he asserted that local business leaders are not being adequately served by the chambers of commerce that are supposed to be their voice at the State House. Clearly, the chambers’ overly cozy relationship with the Democratic leadership (they get around 85 percent of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce PAC money) has for quite some time failed to serve the best interests of our independent businesses.

The typical approach of State House insiders is to propose special deals for certain companies or sectors in order to solve economic problems. Remember the call-center tax credits? Software-developer incentives? Venture-capital deals? There are, literally, a hundred others.

The multimillion-dollar tax giveaways for the film industry — championed vigorously by Speaker William Murphy and the Democratic leadership — are the latest. There is no guarantee movie makers will stay after the giveaways end. As other states have learned, a soundstage is just a warehouse with good lighting, and when the cash stops flowing, the lights get moved to the next sucker’s jurisdiction.

Hassenfeld urged business leaders to consider forming a new coalition to fight this system. I wholeheartedly agree. Sign me up, Mr. Hassenfeld.

Then there was the recent report issued by the state Economic Policy Council (EPC), which reveals the average level of education in the state is declining, with one in 10 Rhode Island adults lacking even a high-school diploma. The public-school system in Rhode Island is failing our students. This report supports the governor’s crusade to raise public awareness of the critical connection between improved classroom results and economic development.

“Rhode Island’s economy and work force are moving in opposite directions,” the report concludes. It explains how business owners struggle to find skilled workers and notes the state’s average salary is almost $3,500 below the U.S. mean, and a stunning $13,000 below that of Massachusetts. No wonder our families are struggling.

The third and perhaps most chilling report on the state’s precarious fiscal condition came in a jaw-dropping headline on May 19. State spending has increased $2.5 billion dollars in a mere decade. The state had a budget of $4.53 billion in 1998, and the spending plan proposed for 2008 (as I write this) is projected to be about $7 billion. Roughly a third of that budget is consumed by personnel costs (the employee pay and retirement packages), which next year will cost Rhode Island $166 million, or more than one-tenth of a billion dollars for employees and the growing ranks of retired workers.

“The growth in state spending has been exceeding the growth in the state’s economy” was the blunt assessment from economist Gary Sasse of the Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council (RIPEC). Our exploding entitlement programs — both social welfare and corporate welfare — are filtered through impenetrable bureaucracies, leaving the purported beneficiaries with only the crumbs.

So here’s the weather data on our horizon:

A worker-benefits-package system with unsustainable costs. Unchecked spending. Out-of-control union demands. A silent business community. An exodus of educated young workers.

It is time for the Democratic leadership to take a stand against the union greed, the corporate fat cats, the poverty pimps, and the rest of the special interest groups.

The ship has sailed, but the course is ours to chart. The budget is on the table. The clock is ticking. Either the Democrats in the General Assembly will change course and help this governor head off a collision with our own perfect storm, or they will take us down with them.

Giovanni Cicione is the chairman of the Rhode Island Republican Party.