Biden's Commerce Secretary Nominee Ran the State Ranked Dead Last for Commerce
Rhode Island was consistently ranked one of the worst states in the country to do business under President Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of commerce.
Under Democratic Gov. Gina Raimondo, Rhode Island has ranked near the bottom of CNBC’s annual list of the top states for business, coming in dead last in 2019.
WalletHub also ranked Rhode Island the worst state to start a business in 2019.
The state faced an $800 million deficit in May 2020, the Providence Journal reported, as well as an unemployment rate of 8.1 percent in December 2020, just above the national unemployment rate of 6.7 percent.
A Rhode Island commerce agency spokesperson told Fox News that Raimando’s first year in office saw large investments in commercial real estate and that the state was one of the few to continue construction and manufacturing through the pandemic.
“We have stopped the decline, and together we have ignited a comeback of this great state and our economy,” Raimondo said in her State of the State address on Jan. 15.
One of Raimondo’s policies, intended to create jobs by funding infrastructure, charged tractor-trailer drivers tolls up to $20 on a single trip and $40 in a single day for traveling through Rhode Island, according to CNBC.
The American Trucking Association filed a lawsuit against the initiative, calling it unconstitutional. The suit was dismissed by a federal judge and the ATA has appealed.
Raimondo’s Senate confirmation hearing took place on Tuesday.
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