General Assembly leaders pledge economic reforms for R.I.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The General Assembly's top leaders pledged Thursday to make job growth and economic development their priority in 2013.

Speaking last night in a convention hall ballroom packed with the state's business, political and educational elite, Speak of the House Gordon Fox and Senate President Teresa Paiva Weed each said they will guide legislators toward enacting reforms intended to reduce Rhode Island's unemployment rate and to improve its business climate, both of which are among the worst in the nation.

"We will address the factors that are holding ourselves back as a state," Paiva Weed said during the annual dinner of the business-backed Rhode Island Public Expenditure Council, held in the R.I. Convention Center.