LIKE CASEY at the bat, Edward Achorn recently took another mighty swing but clearly struck out by (again) blaming Rhode Island’s economic woes (“End nightmare after Halloween,” Commentary, Oct. 21) solely on Democrats in Rhode Island.

Conspicuously absent from Mr. Achorn’s opinion (again), however, is that Rhode Island has been led by a Republican governor for the past 14 years and by Governor Carcieri for the last six.

Most people in Rhode Island, like those across America, recognize that the state and the country are going in the wrong direction.

Despite twice electing a Republican governor who ran on the platform of being a businessman who would create thousands of new high-paying jobs in Rhode Island, the facts prove otherwise. In fact, under the Carcieri administration, jobs have disappeared from Rhode Island at an alarming rate. Since the beginning of 2008 alone, Rhode Island has lost 12,600 jobs — an average of 1,400 jobs per month. Recent and painful publicity have confirmed what many of us suspected — that Rhode Island now has the highest unemployment rate in America. Yet when asked if he would at least convene some type of economic summit conference to address this dire situation, Governor Carcieri’s response was no. Only later, presumably in response to the appropriate public outrage at his refusal to at least acknowledge our economic crisis, did the governor relent and agree to convene an economic summit this month.

This most recent national economic crisis should not have been any great revelation to the governor. In 2006 and 2007 the typical Rhode Island household income was already $2,764 lower than it had been in 1999 and 2000, before the recession of 2001. In Rhode Island, this gave us the dubious distinction of experiencing our first economic “recovery” where incomes did not even return to their pre-recession peak.

Most Rhode Island families, already struggling to pay their bills, now are confronted with rising energy costs leading to higher gasoline prices and heating oil costs this year. The average Rhode Island household is expected to spend $2,468 or 24.2 percent more than last winter just to heat their homes. Yet again the leadership from the governor’s office on this issue has been non existent.

We in Rhode Island have not been spared the dramatic and disastrous outcomes of the subprime mortgage crisis and the resulting high foreclosure rates in many of our neighborhoods. This mortgage foreclosure crisis is not only reducing home values resulting in declining property taxes across Rhode Island but will cost Rhode Island an estimated $572 million in 2008 and 2009 from subprime mortgage-related foreclosures alone. While mayors in Rhode Island, including the Democratic mayor of Providence, have vigorously worked on presenting real progressive and practical alternatives to these dramatic foreclosures, the issue would be much better addressed under the auspices of a statewide initiative that the governor could easily convene and lead.

Any substantive discussions about the financial crisis in Rhode Island and across the country are somewhat disingenuous if we ignore the cost of the war in Iraq. Even assuming a significant force reduction, the cost of the Iraq war is expected to total $10 billion for Rhode Island taxpayers by the year 2017. Clearly this is an issue that the Republican governor of Rhode Island has had ample opportunity to raise during his various social visits with President Bush yet our governor continues to support President Bush’s misguided strategy in Iraq.

Everywhere I go in Rhode Island people are upset and worried about their health-care insurance and the cost of maintaining it. In 2006 the average inflation-adjusted health-care premium for family coverage in Rhode Island was $12,242, a 27.6 percent increase from 2001, while the average premium for individual coverage was $4,714, up 28.7 percent since 2001. If this dramatic increase in premiums is not worrisome enough, a growing number of Rhode Island residents are now living without health insurance.

During 2006-07, an average of 102,000 Rhode Island residents (9.7 percent of the state’s population) had no heath insurance. This constitutes 3.1 percent more uninsured Rhode Islanders than during 1999-2000. It would seem to me and I think to most Rhode Islanders, that if we are serious about resolving the state’s economic crisis, we must incorporate practical changes to our health-care crisis as well.

Clearly there is enough blame to go around, but for Mr. Achorn to suggest that the sole cause of our economic crisis in Rhode Island is the result of our Democratic Assembly ignores the lack of real leadership from the top elected official in Rhode Island for the past six years.

Fairness would also dictate that Mr. Achorn at least occasionally mention certain important programs and proposals supported by the very Democrats that he likes to criticize. While Mr. Achorn repeatedly likes to point to the state’s abject failure to develop its ports, he fails to mention that the Democratic General Assembly leadership has consistently and repeatedly pledged to support such port opportunities only to have the present governor refuse to pursue any type of meaningful development of the state’s ports.

A functioning port at Quonset would boost Rhode Island’s economy tremendously and has the potential to transform our state into an integral part of the international transportation network.

While there has been plenty of external pressure, including from many within the Democratic Party, the leadership of House Speaker William Murphy and Senate President Joseph Montalbano refused to support any increases to either the state’s sales tax or income tax, a point on which the Republican governor apparently agreed.

In doing so, the Democratic leadership in the Assembly have taken positive steps to try and make Rhode Island more competitive with neighboring states.

The same Democratic-led Assembly that Mr. Achorn likes to attack recently adopted a budget that lowered state spending by $58 million and reduced our structural deficit. It was the Democrats in the Assembly who also reversed our Republican governor’s decision to level-fund education assistance to local communities by dedicating the additional revenue from video-lottery terminals to bolster local school aid.

Without the foresight of the House and Senate Democratic leadership, Fidelity would not be cutting the ribbon on the state’s largest office building, which came about as a direct result of the Democratic Assembly’s Jobs Growth Act.

In Mr. Achorn’s opinion pieces, he consistently seems to forget that it was the Democratic leadership in the General Assembly that led the charge for the establishment of a property-tax cap to provide Rhode Island residents and businesses with real and long-term property tax relief. It was the same Democratic leadership in the General Assembly that created the historic-tax-credit program, which has led to the revitalization of vacant mills and dilapidated properties throughout Rhode Island, and particularly in our older urban cities.

It was this same Democratic-led Senate and House that championed the construction of the biotechnology center at the University of Rhode Island, better positioning our state to capitalize on this important growth sector of the economy and making us a national leader.

And despite an unfortunate and ill advised veto by our Republican governor, the Democratic General Assembly leadership passed landmark renewable energy legislation last year that will be further addressed by the Assembly despite the governor’s veto. Our state’s economic success depends in no small part on our ability to grow these new “green” jobs and it is time for the governor to get on board.

While there is always room for honest and hard-fought political debate and dialogue on all of these issues, our state is not going to begin to move in the right direction unless and until our elected leaders, including the highest elected leader in state, our Republican governor, put aside partisan politics and decide to work together as a community. This governor has two years left as the captain of our ship and it is time for him to stop simply letting our state drift with the tide.

I would strongly urge Mr. Achorn to convince our governor that there is still time to seek common ground and build the future of our state up rather than simply spend two more years tearing the Democratic Party down.

William J. Lynch is chairman of the Rhode Island Democratic Party.

Edward Achorn replies: The column Mr. Lynch cites did not include the words Democrat, Democrats or Democratic. Contrary to Mr. Lynch’s assertion, my columns often take issue with Governor Carcieri’s economic leadership. Also contrary to Mr. Lynch’s assertion, I mentioned the role of Democrats in property-tax-cap legislation as recently as Sept. 30 (“Taking on the two most powerful senators,” Commentary). I also praised Democratic House Speaker William Murphy and Finance Committee Chairman Steven Costantino for keeping their promise to pass an apparently balanced budget with no new broad-based taxes (“$168 million budget cut is just the start,” May 6).