Supporters of limited government and fiscally conservative policies have been watching the new Republican-led General Assembly closely for signs of adherence to or deviation from these governing principles. One of those supporters, Becki Gray, Vice President for Outreach at the John Locke Foundation, offered her assessment of the 2011 session during a conversation with Donna Martinez for Carolina Journal Radio. (Click here to find a station near you or to learn about the weekly CJ Radio podcast.)
Martinez: You have spent day after day, week after week, monitoring the General Assembly, so you know this stuff inside and out. First of all, give us an overall grade of how you have assessed the new General Assembly in terms of the priorities of the John Locke Foundation — not the priorities of the Republican Party, but the Locke Foundation.
Gray: Right. I give them, overall, a B. I think the things that they did, that they stood up for, that they followed through on, they did a really, really good job. I gave them a couple of F grades on things that they really did not do well on at all. Then I gave them a couple of incompletes — just some things that they haven’t quite finished. You know, we finished the one big session, the big budget session … so we’re not quite finished. … We did have a list [for] the first 100 days; here’s what we’d like for you to do.
Martinez: You mentioned the budget. So let’s start with that in terms of the openness of the process and the transparency of it. How would you rate what they’ve done?
Gray: I gave them an A- for opening up the budget process, and here’s the kind of things that we were looking at. There have been a lot of complaints in the past about the budget being presented literally hours before the first vote is taken on it. Well, you know, who’s got time, who has the expertise to go through a 300-page budget, really analyze it, really see what’s in there? So, one of the things that we had advocated for was [to] give us a little bit more time. We suggested 72 hours to put it online, where there would be a review of it for taxpayers — the people who are paying the bill — and those of us at the Locke Foundation that are doing some in-depth analysis, providing that information to the taxpayers. And they did that. Not only did they do that, but it was posted in both cases, with the House version and the Senate version, for about five days. It was over a holiday weekend in both cases. So I like that; we like that. I gave them an A- for that.
The other thing that we suggested was instead of just doing a two-year projection out on the spending plans, do it for five years, so that we see what the longer-term implications are of this spending. Is it going to increase? Is it going to decrease? Let’s look at that. And then the third thing we wanted was for them to set aside some money for the state’s savings account.
One of the reasons we’re in the trouble that we’re in now in this economic downturn is there wasn’t enough money set aside in the savings account to get us through these tough times. So what we wanted to see was more of a focus on putting some money aside in the rainy day fund. And they did all three of those. Now we would have liked for them to have put probably a little bit more in — cut spending a little bit — put a little bit more in a savings account. But overall, for opening up the budget process, I gave them an A-.
Martinez: Now, in terms of even more transparency, one of the Locke Foundation goals has been to see state spending put online. Have they made any progress toward that?
Gray: We didn’t see a lot of progress toward that, and I was very disappointed with that. Now, again, in their defense, perhaps that might extend into a longer-term goal than being able to do it right away. But at the Locke Foundation, we have a transparency website called NCTransparency.com, where we have assigned every state agency, every municipality, every county government, and every school district, a letter grade on how transparent they are. And what I mean by that is, can the taxpayer get to the checkbook, basically? Where’s the money going in, and where’s it going out? And who’s it going to, and how much and when? [It’s] just like you would open your checkbook to it. We’d still like to see more of that, so that it is accessible to regular folks like you and [me] with a computer, with sort of basic skills — you know, be able to see where that money’s going.
Martinez: So spending and transparency — a focus of the Locke Foundation. Property rights, Becki, also a long-term mission and focus of the organization. Any progress by the General Assembly on that?
Gray: Yes, actually. I think the repeal of our draconian forced annexation laws will be the benchmark of this session. I think when we talk about the 2011 session, I know I will call that the forced-annexation-repeal session. Our forced annexation laws have been in place for well over 50 years. And we are [among] a handful of states that allowed this to happen — where municipalities can reach out and annex property owners, bring them into the city limits, charge them city taxes — without providing services. When they provide water and sewer, the property owner has to pay for that. Sometimes $10,000, $20,000 to get the water and sewer line that they have required that you have.
The cities have been doing this, and the sad part about it is the cities have not broken the law in doing this. The law allows them to do this. So the key to really protecting those property rights was to get the law changed, and get it changed in such a way that it was meaningful and that it really provided protection and respect for property owners. And there was a very comprehensive annexation reform bill that went through with a lot of work from a lot of people across the state of North Carolina, and I gave them an A+ for taking care of the forced annexation reform.
Martinez: And that particular issue has such incredible grass-roots support all across North Carolina.
Gray: Right.
Martinez: So there was always a huge contingent of people at the General Assembly, letting their views be known.
Gray: Absolutely. Yes. And they started out a couple years ago, wearing red shirts. … They came to be known as the red shirts, and there were armies of them down there when a committee was considering the bill. They would come in by the busloads — very vocal people who really cared about this. And it was clearly, clearly a community, statewide effort of activists. Of course, at the Locke Foundation, we were very involved in it from the very beginning.
Martinez: Becki, let’s move to the issue of K-12 education. One mission of the Locke Foundation has been to give parents more choices in education. Any progress there?
Gray: Yes. And as a matter of fact, I gave them a B+ for removing the cap on charter schools, eliminating enrollment restrictions, and decentralizing the charter authorization process. They have lifted the cap on charter schools, so now there is no limit on the number of charters that can be started in North Carolina — again, offering hundreds of parents and thousands of children additional opportunities. They have loosened the enrollment restrictions so those good charter schools that are out there can grow. They can let more kids come into those — again, offering the choices for parents and families in North Carolina.
The one thing that they were not able to do was to decentralize the authorization of the charters. There were some constitutional questions that came up, and the decision was made, rather than hold this up, that they would go ahead and leave the authorization of the charters under the State Board of Education and proceed with the rest of it. So really tremendous, tremendous success there.
Martinez: Becki, with the economy really pretty shaky across the country and here in North Carolina — stubbornly high unemployment rate here — jobs and the economy [are] always a focus. Talk to us about the issue of what is termed corporate welfare. Has the General Assembly been able to address any of that spending?
Gray: Well, they’ve addressed it by increasing it, so that was exactly what we did not want them to do. We’ve written a lot about it at the John Locke Foundation. We’ve talked about it a lot. The government ought not to be picking winners and losers by subsidizing some companies and not subsidizing others. The way to create jobs is to leave it to the free market. The government’s job is to create a level playing field for all businesses, and they should do that by lowering the tax rate. We did not see improvement with this. They not only didn’t address corporate welfare, they increased it this session.