RALEIGH — Here are some economic statistics to ponder as North Carolina’s political leaders continue along their merry, big-spending, tax-increasing way.

These are personal income measures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (in millions), and constitute a useful way of tracking economic momentum on a quarterly basis:

State/1st Quarter 2001/4th Quarter 2002/Change

* North Carolina/$223,903/$233,136/4.1%

* Alabama/$108,598/$114,230/5.2%
* Arkansas/$60,661/$64,637/6.6%
* Florida/$470,309/$502,034/6.7%
* Georgia/$238,069/$249,311/4.7%
* Louisiana/$107,373/$115,649/7.7%
* Mississippi/$61,420/$65,167/6.1%
* South Carolina/$100,603/$105,603/5.0%
* Tennessee/$152,906/$162,496/6.3%
* Virginia/$230,869/$243,881/5.6%

* Southeast/$1,895,842/$2,005,722/5.8%
* United States/$8,651,750/$9,034,969/4.4%

Some observations leap out from these numbers. First, the Southeast has returned to its recent pattern of outperforming the rest of the country in an economic recovery period. Second, North Carolina continues to lag behind its neighbors and the nation as a whole.

Third, this new “Rip van Winkle” effect corresponds with North Carolina’s unique decision in 2001 to enact significant tax increases to deal with its budget problems, a decision extended into 2002 with additional tax hikes. At the time, Gov. Mike Easley, legislative leaders, and other apologists for the increases — which gave North Carolina one of the highest tax rates on individual and corporate income in the U.S. and one of the highest sales-tax rates in the region — claimed that we were making an “investment,” that our economic strategy of funding government programs was wiser than the more fiscally restrained course chosen by other states.

Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen of the state capitol. Thanks in part to your handiwork, North Carolina must now yearn to achieve the economic growth rates of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana — the very Deep South states that North Carolinians used to pity, not envy.

That loud, annoying sound emanating from Raleigh is a snore.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.