Well, we’re screwed. We wrote recently about budget woes in the state legislature, where the new Republican majorities let it be known that they intended to deal with the $3.7 billion shortfall solely through huge spending cuts.
Our suggestion, as has been made by many others in the state’s press, progressive think tanks, and most Democrats, was that the GOPers should leave the current “temporary” sales tax, and the tax rate on wealthy residents, the same as it is now for the coming year. That one simple decision could reduce the shortfall by more than a billion dollars without raising taxes. It’s something that nearly 60 percent of North Carolinians support, according to a recent nonpartisan Elon poll. Granted, leaving the tax rates alone would still leave us in a $2.7 billion hole; but when you’re desperately deep in debt, cutting a quick billion is a good place to start, and a sensible way to manage a government.
To our dismay, but certainly not our surprise, the new House Speaker, Thom Tillis, yesterday shot down any talk of making such a sensible, responsible move. According to a Charlotte Observer story by Jim Morrill, even former N.C. governor Jim Martin, A Republican and no slouch in the political-strategies department, told the new GOP leaders that they should at least “hold open” the idea of keeping the temporary taxes on the books to help cut the budget deficit. As Morrill succinctly reported, however, “Tillis said later the decision has already been made to let the taxes expire.”
As we wrote earlier, one thing is for sure: If the $3.7 billion shortfall is handled through spending cuts alone, North Carolina will be left with a second-rate excuse for a state government; many of its people will be worse off; our public schools will be in the crapper; and desperately needed human services will be a mere memory.
So, here’s a big Thanks For Nothin’ to Thom Tillis, the House Speaker and supposed education proponent from Mecklenburg County, for immediately caving in to Tea Party irrationality, right off the bat. At least now we know what we’re dealing with, which is, frankly, a major shit storm that will hit the state for the next two years. It’s not a pretty sight.
This article appears in Jan 25-31, 2011.
I am surprised you are surprised.
After 100 years of not being in power you actually thought the GOP would adopt the Democrat position and extend taxes?
They also introduced a bill to fight ObamaCare, a bill to prevent illegals from attending colleges and universities, remove the cap on charter schools and a bill to stop fake ‘mary jane’.
And this is just the first 24 hours.
Hopefully they will also get to:
1. Voter picture ID’s
2. Elimination of Partial ballot counting (cost Ruth Samuelson her At-large BOCC seat in 2004)
3. Banning elective Abortion in state or local government plans
4. banning homosexual marriage
The GOP should be doing this stuff. The folks that sent them to Raleigh want to cut the budget without any tax increase extensions.
You didn’t think the GOP would turn into moderates did you?
Way to go, Bill. Let’s keep poor people from voting, keep people who are trying to better themselves from getting an education, waste time stopping voter fraud that is not happening, ban a constitutionally protected right for women (they’re a lower class anyway), and, of course, ban homosexual marriage, the main cause of heterosexual divorce. Let’s keep the state safe for straight white males, who are the most discriminated class of people around. How you continue to get re-elected is unfathomable to me.
Just ignore him. He matters so little. His job is little more than to be as public and obnoxious about his views as possible in an effort to make those views seem more widely-held than they are (aka the tea party strategy).
I’m not sure why else he or someone at his office would actually spend time responding to CL articles.
You’re right, of course. I’m still, however, looking for anything in his e-mail about job creation. Can’t seem to find it.
Want to read my Bill James impersonation?
I want smaller less intrusive government that controls who can attend college, controls women’s medical decisions, controls who can marry whom, issues photo ID cards to voters, and controls things that pretend to be drugs.
I’m glad we have boneheaded uglies like Bill James around to impose their misguided faux morality on everyone they come across.
Maybe I respond to CL articles because it is fun to watch liberals go nuts when I do?
😉
Try reading this liberal write-up. He foams at the mouth more than John.
Seems the Majority leader (Stam) was said to refer to Democrats as stuck pigs…. excerpt below…..
http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/cms/2011/01/28/the-follies-and-hypocrisies-of-the-week/
Stam compares Democrats to pigs
Stam walked up to House Minority Leader Joe Hackney after the Judiciary Committee meeting to shake hands, saying “good debate.”
A few hours later, a gloating Stam told folks at a school privatization meeting sponsored by Civitas and Americans for the Prosperous about the committee debate and ridiculed the objections by Hackney and other Democrats, saying “you should have heard the squeals about how fast we were going. But a stuck pig squeals.”
From pledges of openness and cooperation to comparing Democrats to stuck pigs. That’s a long way to travel in just one day.
It’d be much easier to compare you to a pig Bill. You got those floppy jowls and everything 😉
Let’s make sure that there’s no backdoor taxation, like new bond issues as our local government tends to do. GOP has a tendency to not add more taxes, but add more debt.
Abolish property taxes, close down the DMV which would end mandatory auto insurance, end all vehicle taxes, sell all state assets to payoff debt, recall national guard from Iraq and Afghanistan…for starters..
Or they could just repudiate the debt. I’d go for that too.
Barenaked government? I love it. A government reduced to being one of many arbiters of property disputes and one of many security providers.