This week, Rhode Island again made a dismal showing on a "best places to do business" list: the state ranked dead-last in a CNBC report released on Tuesday.

This latest ranking comes two years after the state lowered its top marginal tax rate in a bid to improve the state's reputation as a place to do business. The poor ranking, of course, doesn't prove the tax change was a bad idea; perhaps it was just the first of many steps Rhode Island must take to attract entrepreneurs.

Congressman David Cicilline has made reviving Rhode Island's ailing manufacturing sector a central focus of his brief Washington career. And his push has dovetailed nicely with the Democratic leadership's "Make it in America" agenda, which calls for a national manufacturing strategy and tax policy that incentivizes "insourcing" over than "outsourcing."

Under current law, Rhode Island's payday lenders can charge interest rates as high as 260 percent. That can leave low-income folk on a debt treadmill - taking out loans to pay off the interest on previous loans.

This year, advocates are pushing hard for a measure that would cap the interest rate payday lenders can charge at 36 percent - the top rate for other lenders in the state.

A bill in the General Assembly would crack down on payday lenders in Rhode Island. Here's the script of the new radio ad, paid for by a coalition of unions, minority advocacy groups, religious organizations, and anti-poverty advocates:

Curt Schilling, in his interview with the Providence Journal, suggests Governor Lincoln Chafee was acting irresponsibly when he publicly declared that the state was working to keep 38 Studios "solvent" and later said the company's first game was an "abject failure."

He also attacks Chafee for revealing two of the company's closely held secrets - that it was spending $4 million per month and that its next game, code-named Project Copernicus, wasn't scheduled for release until June 2013.

The Providence Journal has a strong front page story today by veteran scribes Mike Stanton and Andy Smith explaining Curt Schilling's side of the 38 Studios debacle. The paper gets inside the company's generally off-limits headquarters, provides a splash of color - Schilling shows up in the first paragraph "gaunt, unshaven and wearing a wrinkled 38 Studios T-shirt" - and offers a blow-by-blow account of the saga consuming the state and much of New England.

Governor Lincoln Chafee, who's had a tough go of it since taking office on a crisp day in January 2011, has looked more statesmanlike this week than at any point in his tenure.

That is due, in part, to the nature of crisis. When something big and troubling happens in a state, all eyes turn to the chief executive. Think of Governor Carcieri after the Station nightclub fire.

As soon as news broke of financial troubles at former Red Sox ace Curt Schilling's 38 Studios video game company, observers began comparing the firm to Solyndra. Former GOP gubernatorial candidate John Robitaille made the analogy just yesterday in an interview with WPRI-TV.

On the surface, the comparison makes some sense: the Obama Administration invested in Solyndra, the solar energy firm, only to watch it go bust - prompting questions about government picking winners and losers in the private sector.

Just back from buisiness incubator Betaspring's 2012 Spring Launch Day in their new, loft-space offices on Chestnut Street, right down the street from Phoenix HQ. And it was enough to give you some hope for the economic future of our fair city (full disclosure: one of Betaspring's principals, Owen Johnson, is my wife's cousin).

One of Congressman David Cicilline's central challenges - as policymaker and politician facing a tough re-election fight - is his relatively powerless position as a freshman in the minority party. He will not be able to go to voters, in the coming months, with a lengthy list of accomplishments.

But that hasn't stopped him from attaching himself to several hot-button issues in his first year-plus in office.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's Buffett Rule legislation takes center stage in American politics today, with the Senate expected to vote on the measure tonight.

But it's not the only tax measure Congress will take up with Tax Day approaching. The GOP-controlled House will consider a measure, sponsored by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, that would hand a 20 percent tax deduction to businesses employing fewer than 500 people.

Discerning manufacturing's future in Rhode Island is no easy task.

For all the trends I identify in this week's cover story in the Phoenix - "Making It In RI: Can manufacturing rescue the state's economy?" - there are, of course, counter-examples.

I write, for instance, of the increasingly sophisticated training that the modern factory - a high-tech, robot-heavy institution - requires of its employees.

Manufacturing is all the rage these days. Factories are creating jobs for the first time in 20 years, nationwide. And pols from President Obama to our own Congressman David Cicilline are placing big bets on the sector.

So, can manufacturing really save the state?

I spent the last couple of weeks walking the factory floor, talking to CEOs and policymakers, and poring through the data in a quest for the answer.

Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling will be at a Game Stop in Bellingham, Massachusetts at midnight tonight for the release of his video game company 38 Studios' highly anticipated first title, "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning."

The game has won positive early reviews and, as the Providence Journal reported this weekend, industry analysts are expecting sales of at least 1 million, which would make the game a moderate success.

From Greg Sargent at the Washington Post (I've fixed a coupla typos):

Picture this scenario. The Senate holds a high-profile vote on a proposal focused directly on implementing the Buffett Rule, one that would bring the current tax rate for millionaires paying lower rates on investments up to 30 percent. This, at at exactly the moment when the GOP is picking a nominee who is worth $250 million and is personally benefitting to an enormous degree from the current rate — one that’s lower than many middle class taxpayers pay.