If anyone wants proof (rather, more proof) that the 2013 General Assembly debacle in Raleigh is largely driven by narrow ideology rather than common sense or concerns about quality of life, then here you go. On Tuesday the N.C. Senate eliminated $1.2 million from the Transportation Department budget for greenway trails. Got rid of it – poof! – just like that. Never mind that greenways are increasingly popular nationwide, including North Carolina. Never mind that the state’s greenway program is already seriously underfunded. And never mind that the $1.2 million would bring the state another $4.5 million in matching funds to build yet more greenways. Or that greenways invariably bring a rise in nearby home sales and real estate prices. Moreover, as pointed out by N.C. Policy Watch, never mind that $1.2 million is less than the cost of building one lousy mile of highway in North Carolina.
Yep, never mind all that common-sense stuff, because the underlying reason for cutting greenway funding has little to do with thoughtful policy. The culprit here, to be blunt, is the grumpy-white-hick attitude that has dominated most of the legislature’s current session. Sometimes it’s hard to figure which is worse: the business-toadying politicians dedicated to giving away the state to big corporations, or the boors and bumpkins who simply resent that “things ain’t the way they wuz when they’s brung up.” But make no mistake about the views of those who killed greenway funding – they may as well wear nametags saying “Resentful Rube.”
You see, “greenway” has the word “green” in it. That means trees and grass and all that nature stuff, which are all things beloved by communist environmentalists. It means that a bunch of squishy liberals on their bicycles, wearing their nanny-state helmets and coddling their granola-eatin’ kids, are gonna be having fun somewhere, at some point in time. So you just know it’s a stupid thing for the state to pay for. Hell, the next thing you know, the libs will want us to pay for their croissants and tofu. I wish to God that I was kidding, but I’m telling you: I grew up around these folks, or at least their cultural twins, and there’s not much exaggeration in the little portrait I’m painting here.
Sometimes political decisions are made for logical reasons, even if not everyone agrees with the lawmakers’ logic. Other times, particularly when a lot of new, like-thinking representatives and senators are swept into office at once, decisions are made for truly imbecilic reasons. Unfortunately, those reasons nearly always make for harmful, even spiteful legislation. That’s just the kind of cultural retreads and insensitive fools that are running Raleigh right now, and who are gradually turning this beautiful state into a version of Mississippi.
This article appears in Jun 5-11, 2013.
Don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for them.
Elections have consequences, unfortunately we’re seeing the results of that here right now! When you cut funding to build greenways, it just shows the stupidity of these assclowns running the GA! I do not want to see this wonderful state go the way of Mississippi and Alabama b/c of idiots hell-bent on running it into the ground! If we don’t og out and vote these morons out of office in 2014, we only have ourselves to blame!
The jugheads who populating this state elected this rabble. Many of those who foamed at the mouth for this are now getting hammered by the solons they elected. I think there is a little justice there.
I put a link to this on my site http://www.raleighbuckeyebirds.org/
The decision to defund the greenway is tragic. Your crude, anti-white racism (“grumpy-white-hick”), however, is offensive and completely unnecessary.
The $1.2 million that the General Assembly cut out of the budget is definitely a sad thing for ardent supporters and users of the state’s greenways. This amount is meager as was pointed out in relation to other budgets within the same transportation department, but why should the state help fund greenways in the first place? Local amenities should be paid for by the local municipality. Charlotte can afford to build its greenways without help from State coffers, although when they were offering the monetary assistance obviously the city would take it with please. Yes politics undoubtedly was the reason for dropping the funding, but don’t think of it as things getting more extreme, instead think of it as things returning back to normal after the state splurged on things it shouldn’t have been spending money on in the first place.
That said, I’m going for a jog on said greenway. haha.
What about those raids on the Highway Trust Fund?
Submitted by BruceSiceloff on 08/11/2008 –
The yearly transfer from the Highway Trust Fund to the General Fund was established by law at $170 million in 1989. It became a genuine raid in 2001 when Gov. Easley and the legislative Dems decided they needed more than that to balance the General Fund budget.
If you’ve been thinking that they repaid the extra $525 million they removed from the Highway Trust Fund over five years — you’re only 24 percent correct.
Read more here: http://blogs.newsobserver.com/crosstown/wh…
People, please think. We are in an economic crisis, we think teachers need to be paid more, and we are constantly trying to cut the budget. What is more important-people being paid so they can provide for their families or making more green ways, a first-world problem?
@Matthew: we are in an economic crisis BECAUSE we are constantly trying to cut the budget to give more perks to the supersuper-rich.
We are out of money. Period. Jaap is s typical example of why we are out of money. Talking points with absolutely no grasp of the facts. He he voted for Tax and Spend Liberals his whole life. Well, the cow has run dry. Time to cut back. Greenways are something we can afford when times are good and unless you have been living in a cave the past 5 years, times are not good. $1.2 million here, another million there, before you know it we are talking about real money.
Jaap did not vote at all. Jaap is not a citizen. Sorry if that does not fit in your prejudices about me.
Thanks for all the responses. I have to answer one, however, from Raleigher. It might be racism for me to write about “grumpy-white-hick” lawmakers if I weren’t white myself. But I am white, and grumpy white hicks are a pet peeve of mine, not to mention that the folks in charge now in Raleigh are largely resentful, spite-driven, ignorant – you guessed it — grumpy white hicks. Sorry, but that’s just the sad truth.
Woohoo! Mississippi here we come!
Start writing the N.C. Senate about this issue – then vote against them. Tis the only way they listen…
I am severely disappointed with the GA. Do not let this stop the general public from building a better North Carolina. I’m doing my part as a REALTOR, 1% of the sales price of all new listings in the Stone Mountain to Elkin corridor of the Mountains to Sea Trail (MST) is being donated to Elkin Valley Trails Association (EVTA) for the off road trail creation connecting the 2.