While some Rhode Island leaders seem content with economic stagnation and a failure to create high-paying jobs, other states are making use of their natural advantages. Consider Virginia, which is capitalizing on the boom in port business on the Eastern Seaboard.

In July, a $450 million cargo container terminal at Hampton Roads is coming on line, creating 210 direct jobs, with many more to be spun off.

Taxpayers are kicking in a chunk of the cost: $54 million for railroad projects related to the terminal, and $28.8 million from the state, plus a $4 million tax credit. But officials believe the port will pay for itself many times over in both direct taxes and spinoff economic activity.

“It’s going to be good,” said Portsmouth Mayor James Holley, who is expecting tax revenue of $5.5 million a year for his city alone. But then, the Portsmouth-Hampton Roads-Norfolk area is booming, in no small part because of money brought in by their ports.

Indeed, this is a great time for port investment on the East Coast, officials say, because the Panama Canal is being widened as part of a dramatic modernization project. That will let the new giant cargo ships filled with products from China and other Asian countries get through the canal, more easily reaching the East Coast, where America’s population is most concentrated. As of now, the biggest vessels must undertake a longer and more expensive trip to get to the East Coast, or unload on the West Coast and move goods by train across America, also an expensive proposition. For smaller ships, the wait at the Panama Canal will also be reduced, meaning lower shipping costs and more business on the East Coast near ports.

Port jobs pay exceptionally well and tend to be outsourcing-proof, since businesses must move goods to population centers, wherever they are produced. Further, the ports spin off other business, for which there is plenty of room at a place like Quonset Point, in manufacturing and services.

Rhode Island has an opportunity to develop a thriving port at Quonset Point, but Governor Carcieri and some other leaders have squelched it so far. The yacht-club set around Narragansett Bay did not want to share the water with a couple of big ships a week in the summer, even though this occurs without conflict in other parts of the country, where politicians better understand that new jobs are essential to a healthy state, providing the tax revenues to balance the budget and provide public services without, for instance, big budget deficits. And for that matter, the yachting season around here is not exactly year round.

It seems the height of foolishness that Rhode Island refuses to exploit its tremendous natural advantages as a strong site for a thriving port in the midst of the Northeastern megalopolis, but there you have it.