Fine, tell me I need to get a life. But it is not an exaggeration to say that the “Spotlight On Spending” report compiled by the R.I. Center for Freedom & Prosperity and released Tuesday made my year, at least tax-and-politics-wise.

Rhode Island currently has the eighth highest local and state tax burden. While this is up from sixth highest, it is clear that we continue to spend beyond our means and our ability. Yet we’ve been told repeatedly – sometimes explicitly (thank you, Rep Tanzi); usually more subtly by the substance of the budget itself that emerges at the conclusion of the legislative session – that there is nothing left in the state budget to cut. The “Spotlight On Spending” report resoundingly contradicts this.

The Center painstakingly went through the state budget and identified $220 million in unnecessary spending. Bravo to the Center, first of all, for its terrific work analyzing the expenditure side of the state budget and publicizing its disturbing findings.

Secondly, what strikes you when you go through the report is that officials on Smith Hill have a lot to answer for. GoLocalProv reported on some of the more notable are-you-kidding-me items

– $775,000 in handouts to the Volvo Ocean Regatta in Newport;
– $310,312 to operate the state’s failing Film & Television Office;
– $7,500 for tattoo removal training for employees at a beauty salon
– $5,000 to teach an employee * at a company that makes ornamental business card holders how to use Facebook and Twitter.

as well as “areas for potential savings” identified in the report

– $19.1 million by reducing the state’s overtime expenses.
– $11.3 million by freezing all operating supplies and expenses to their enacted FY14 amount.
– $5.5 million by reducing personnel in the governor’s office and General Assembly by 15%.
– $828,463 by reducing the lieutenant governor’s staff to one assistant.

In terms of single favorite items to be eliminated, the report offers a lot to choose from. Elimination of HealthSource RI, a.k.a., ObamaCare RI, is certainly high on the list. It is a natural to be cut, firstly, for its $16+ million annual price tag, which is somehow to be found in a $100+ million sea of red ink; secondly, because it failed to carry out its mission, stated and implied, of expanding health insurance choices and thereby reducing the cost of premiums; and thirdly, because its dominant mission now appears to be a wholly redundant government portal for medicaid sign-ups.

Then there’s the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. Thanks to the “Spotlight on Spending” report for giving me the opportunity to say what I’ve thought for a long time: arts, regrettably, are a luxury and one that taxpayers, accordingly, cannot be asked to fund. Any spending the arts, including specifically the council’s $3 million annual operating budget, is simply not justifiable in light of the above-mentioned nine figure deficit and the state’s high taxes.

But perhaps my favorite single recommendation out of the report is to eliminate the RI Commerce Corporation, formerly the E.D.C. As it has zero power to do the things necessary to bring businesses here – i.e., improve the state’s business climate – its sole function is window-dressing. Accordingly, its $6.2 million is an obvious waste of tax dollars.

There is one tantalizing question that the report does not fully answer, presumably because it is not answerable at the moment: how much overlap is there between the unnecessary spending identified in the “Spotlight on Spending” report and the waste and fraud waiting to be identified and implemented in the Simpatico “Waste & Fraud Project” (a.k.a., the Block Waste & Fraud Report)? PDF page 28 of the “Spotlight on Spending” report refers only to the area of food stamps touched on by the Simpatico report.

Waste, fraud, and abuse of Rhode Island’s food stamp program is estimated to cost taxpayers as much as $22.9 million each year.

I have the solution to this conundrum, and it’s in the form of an all-inclusive compromise that is so prized in some quarters. Let’s implement both the “Spotlight on Spending” report AND the Simpatico “Waste & Fraud Project”. Then we’ll have covered all bases and no one will be left out.

Meanwhile, happy (disgruntled???) reading. Feel free to indicate in comments what your favorite item to cut would be.

* A couple of days ago, PolitiFactRI was positioning itself to issue a seriously embarrassing ruling with regard to one aspect of this $5,000 wasteful spending item – not the $5,000 itself or even whether it is wasteful, but ONE ASPECT of this $5,000. We’ll see this week whether wiser editorial heads prevail or PolitiFactRI proceeds with torching the shredded remnants of its own credibility by issuing the anticipated ruling.