Foulkes Responds to Governor McKee’s State of the State

Providence, RI — Helena Buonanno Foulkes today released the following statement in response to last night’s State of the State:

“Last night Governor McKee made his case for an unprecedented third term. It wasn’t a very good one.

You don’t solve problems by ignoring them. Rhode Islanders deserve a governor who will level with them about the challenges we are facing.

In the governor’s speech last night there was no responsibility for the Washington Bridge fiasco. There was no plan to address the affordable housing crisis in a meaningful way. There was no acknowledgement that a flagship company Hasbro left for Massachusetts or an accounting for how to prevent other companies from doing this in the future. No mention of the fact that we have the worst roads in the country and under-performing public schools, with no recognition that the state takeover of the schools in Central Falls and Providence has not worked and it is long past time to return them to local control.

The governor provided no realistic solutions for our budget gap, and offered no solutions for the looming crisis that could close two major hospitals devastating the entire system—$10m for our hospitals is a ludicrous, unserious proposal for the health care emergency Rhode Island faces.

He ignored our problems and instead offered buzzwords and empty promises. Last night the governor used the word ‘affordability’ as a crutch. But just talking about affordability doesn’t drive down costs.

Rhode Islanders don’t need another speech about affordability—without any real solutions to change the trajectory of the state. We need competent leadership that will face our problems and actually work to solve them.

Five years in, and we’re still waiting.”