Governor Carcieri made some excellent points in his address to Rhode Island Wednesday night — chief among them that the state and localities must run government much more efficiently.

The governor proposed no broad-based tax hikes to close a $357 million state budget deficit, arguing instead for rolling back pension benefits for state workers and teachers who retire after April 1, as well as for changes in labor laws to help communities deal with a $74 million cut in municipal and education aid.

Some local leaders are squawking, of course, but the governor’s plan would force them to tighten spending, to seek efficiencies through consolidating services and to refrain from giving away the store in contract negotiations. East Providence, for example, is still grappling with the costs of a teachers contract that offered free health insurance and “buybacks” of up to $5,100 to teachers who chose not to accept the insurance plan.

Certainly, the governor is right that higher broad-based taxes are not the answer, given Rhode Island’s loss of jobs and the flight of middle-class taxpayers. An even less competitive tax structure would make it even harder for the state to come out of recession as well as make its government more efficient.

“I am firmly convinced that raising broad-based sales or income taxes would be disastrous for our state’s future. It will merely prolong the economic decline, hasten job losses, and hurt more of our families,” the governor warned.

He is right, too, that trying to paper over the state’s structural budget problems would leave Rhode Island in poor shape for the future. “We can avoid the tough decisions and drift into more troubled waters, or we can set a new course that leads to sustainable spending and a brighter, more prosperous future for us all,” he said.

Of course, some of his plan does put off hard decisions. He would raid the rainy-day fund by deferring $38.4 million in payments. He would defer the Station fire settlement payment of $10 million.

And he would hit up smokers — always a favorite target of politicians, since their addiction makes many of them willing to hand over almost any amount to feed their habit — by hiking cigarette taxes by $1 a pack.

Unfortunately, the governor mapped out little in the way of efficiencies through consolidation. He merely called for further study. This issue should have been studied to death by now. It is long past time for action. Rhode Island, a tiny state, does not require 36 separate school districts, and so many costly and duplicative fire and police departments.

For that matter, having 39 cities and towns seems surreal. It might be time to energize county government to perform many tasks now performed by Rhode Island’s over-abundance of municipalities. Strong county governments work well in tiny Delaware, which shares a number of characteristics, besides compactness, with the Ocean State.

Also, the governor said little about boosting the revenue side of the equation, along with the cost-cutting — not through tax hikes, but through economic stimulus. (Perhaps a stimulus plan can be coordinated with Connecticut and Massachusetts. Southern New England is, after all, a small region.)

Let us hope that there is close cooperation between the governor and the legislature in these trying times. Partisanship must be set aside for the common good.

Now is the time, if there was ever one, for officials to take bold action to save and create jobs, bring public-employee benefits in line with the real world, and control the costs of the localities through consolidation.

Crisis is often needed to get leaders to make long-overdue structural changes, as they did in the state banking crisis of the early ’90s.

The current situation is certainly a crisis.