A massive budget deficit means fewer hands out to R.I. lawmakers as 2025 begins

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : Ruggerio has historically deferred to federal policy on assault weapons.
55% : "Increasing state reimbursement rates for primary care providers also tops Ruggerio and Lawson's 2025 priority list, having already authorized higher rates for certain Medicaid providers in behavioral and mental health care as part of the fiscal 2025 budget.
54% : A combination of state spending that has outpaced revenue combined with the expiration of the federal pandemic aid that cushioned state coffers in recent years is well-documented.
53% : Ruggerio's potential acquiescence on stricter gun measures doesn't translate into support for a tax on the state's top earners.
52% : Hasbro Inc. has yet to ask for any kind of tax break or policy change that could keep the century-old Ocean State fixture from moving its local headquarters to Massachusetts.
52% : "I don't think anyone with a straight face can say that the state takeover has met its promise," Blazejewski, who lives in Providence and whose children attend Providence public schools, said.
50% : Or maybe it's the influence of Ruggerio's new no. 2: Sen. Val Lawson.
45% : Shekarchi waved away questions about legislative oversight hearings over the December cyberattack on RIBridges, the state's public benefits and health insurance marketplace platform, which have potentially compromised thousands of Rhode Islanders' personal information.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.