01:00 AM EST on Sunday, February 29, 2004

How much more money can be squeezed out of Rhode Islanders, who in many cases face skyrocketing property taxes? How can the Ocean State compete for jobs if its taxes are higher, and services poorer, than those of neighboring states? How will the state better educate its children if powerful groups soak up an ever-increasing share of education dollars for salaries and lavish benefits only dreamed of by most in the private sector?

Governor Carcieri kept these questions in the forefront last week as he unveiled his proposed budget of $5.9 billion (federal and state spending combined) for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Rhode Island has not been living within its means. Two years ago, it papered over a shortfall by blowing through the state's tobacco settlement money. Last year, it spent all of a $100 million windfall from a federal state-aid package.

This year, it must finally face up to its deficit, projected at $194 million. The governor proposed to do so by increasing taxes and fees by some $54.6 million, hiking tuition at state colleges, and making some program cuts.

Immediately, special-interest groups began howling. But they owe it to the public to suggest how -- specifically! -- they would balance the budget: Whose programs should be cut, or whose taxes raised, and by how much? That way, the public could assess whether these groups' ideas are better than the governor's. It's easy crying for more money. But money comes from real people: When the government takes too much, that job will not be created, that set of braces will not go on a child's teeth.

The biggest outcry seems to have come from cities and towns that cannot live with the $7.9 million cut in local aid (most of it for education -- which means for teachers' compensation) that Mr. Carcieri is proposing. He would actually increase spending on education by $11.1 million, but he believes that an additional $5.7 million should go to charter schools, which serve as laboratories of educational innovation, and other money should go for school construction.

Teachers-union officials seemed especially outraged. "How does the governor expect that public schools in Rhode Island are going to meet all the federal mandates and provide programs for all children?" asked Larry Purtill, president of the National Education Association of Rhode Island. Here's our translation of Mr. Purtill's rhetoric: "We will not accept anything that would slow our pay raises or cut our benefits."

One answer to the mess: More teachers could pay part of their medical-insurance costs, as people in the private sector do. They could scale back their pension benefits, which are more luxurious than what most taxpayers enjoy. That many teachers can retire in their 50s with lavish pensions is maybe not such a hot idea, either.

These powerful groups have long managed to pressure legislators and school committees to do their bidding, but something has to give. Basic repairs of school buildings are not being made; textbooks are not being bought; reforms such as slightly longer school days are being fought tooth and nail. The taxpayers cannot be asked to endlessly sacrifice while public-employee unions refuse to yield in the slightest.

As Mr. Carcieri noted, the public is not getting the quality of public education that it already pays for. Taxpayers spend over $10,000 per student per year, and teachers' pay ranks sixth or seventh in America, but Rhode Island students consistently rank near the bottom regionally in test scores. The problem isn't the taxpayers' failure to spend money.

We applaud other priorities of the governor that focus on the general interest: providing for repairs of highways and other infrastructure through borrowing; cutting the legislature's secretive $6.2 million slush fund, known as "legislative grants," often used to reward political friends and punish foes; ending the absurd $10.5 million subsidy to racing-dog owners at Lincoln Park; applying the standards to Rhode Island welfare recipients that are used in 17 other states, including Massachusetts and Connecticut.

We wish there were more money to trim the cost of attending Rhode Island colleges and to provide for the poor. The proposed cut in welfare subsidies for child care may be self-defeating, making it harder for recipients to enter the work world.

But it is crucial that Rhode Island begin facing its problems and start providing higher-quality government that is not beyond the means of the taxpayers. The governor's budget leads the state in that direction.