As you no doubt remember, the New Bosses of the state legislature ran on a platform of “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.” House Speaker Thom Tillis even handed out snappy rubber bracelets saying “Think Jobs” to other lawmakers. When critics groused about some of the GOP’s spending cuts (not to mention their focus on social issues such as abortion and gay marriage), House Majority Leader “Skip” Stam famously declared, “Tell us in September if you can tell the difference.”
Well, we are well into September, and yes, Skip, we can definitely tell a difference. For the third month in a row, unemployment in North Carolina has risen, with no signs of getting any better. The real bitch of the situation? Many of the job losses are a direct result of Skip, Thom & Co.’s budget cuts.
In August, for instance, the private sector in N.C. gained 6,900 jobs, according to the Employment Security Commission. But unemployment still rose for that month because of the loss of 300 state government jobs and 11,800 local government jobs — mostly schoolteachers, plus some public safety personnel and university employees — made necessary by the legislature’s budget cuts. Yeah, Skip, that was one great jobs plan you guys came up with.
This article appears in Sep 13-19, 2011.
Yes I like to have my cake and eat it too, but you cannot get mad when you ask for budget cuts and then they end up cutting something you didn’t want them to.
Maybe you could try using your “creative talent” to suggest how they could get the necessary budget reduction without cutting jobs… Nothing worse than listening to someone whine about the obvious with no attempt to make suggestions on how to fix it. Reminds me of an election campaign….