Today is Valentine’s Day, and state lawmakers have filed five bills in the General Assembly this week to which I would like to pledge my true and undying love.
Sen. Fern Shubert of Union County, newly installed as the Republican Whip in that chamber, filed legislation this week to change the way the governor and legislature fashion North Carolina’s state budget. Given that we are about to head into a fourth-straight year of “unforeseen” budget deficits, it would be hard to argue that the process doesn’t need fixing. In her bill, Shubert is resurrecting the old and praiseworthy idea of ditching revenue forecasting in favor of spending only as much revenue as has already come in the previous year.
By itself, this bill would eliminate the fiscal guesswork and reduce the ability of big-spenders to use budget-gap years to force tax increases on us, but it would not necessarily rein in those big-spending proclivities. After all, there are fiscal years in which state revenues can grow 7, 8, 9, or as much as 10 percent. In order to keep lawmakers from misinterpreting Shubert’s reform as an excuse to spend whatever is in the kitty, North Carolina also needs a constitutional cap on the annual growth of state spending. States such as Colorado with similar policies have grown modestly, avoided massive deficits, and cut taxes. Fortunately, this week saw the introduction of such a spending cap by Rep. John Blust, a Greensboro Republican. It would limit annual growth to inflation plus population – in effect holding the real cost of state government per person constant.
Moving over to local government finances for a moment, Sen. Jim Forrester (R-Gaston) filed a bill to phase out the current requirement that counties shoulder a little over 5 percent of the cost of the state’s Medicaid program. I believe in federalism, and in devolving funding and spending responsibilities as close to the people as possible. But Medicaid is the wrong place to impose fiscal discipline on localities. If county governments had some reasonable options for administering the program and controlling its costs, then maybe they should retain a role in funding it. But they don’t. All the substantive decisions are made by Raleigh and Washington. It makes little sense for force politicians in Mecklenburg or Davidson or Pender counties to act as tax collectors for state or national politicians. (By the way, Mr. Boyce, how’s the lawsuit coming?)
Continuing with my legislative love-fest, let’s make it bipartisan by noting that Sen. David Hoyle, a Gaston Democrat, has again proposed a limit on General Assembly sessions, and it has now cleared its first legislative hurdle. I’ve heard all the arguments against the idea, that it would disadvantage the legislative branch against the governor and worsen the quality of legislation and weaken lawmakers’ oversight of the budget and so on. I’m not buying it. If session limits pose a balance-of-power problem, then fix it by taking away some power from the governor. I’d settle for a time warp back before gubernatorial succession, when a single term was deemed sufficient to accomplish the important work of the state’s chief executive. As for time limits making lawmakers rush their work and do it poorly: Hello? They already vote on budgets they’ve never read and pass legislation rashly without thinking through the consequences. Right now, this happens in occasional chunks of lawmaking that only punctuate weeks of inaction, sloth, and boredom. The latter is what would go away with session limits, not valuable legislative activity.
Finally, two bills from two Republican representatives, Cary Allred and Michael Gorman, would lift the statewide cap on charter schools in North Carolina. Despite what some allege, imposing an artificial and arbitrary limit on these innovative and accountable public schools is the wrong solution to the wrong problem. If the fear is that groups or individuals will secure charters for schools without being qualified to run them, then we should fix the application and approval process, not just gum it up. If the fear is that too few families will be interested in charter options to justify expansion, then some folks need to get out more and maybe meet some actual parents.
And if the fear is that too many families will be interested, and that traditional school districts will lose students and money to the newcomers, then we need to find a way to turn that fear into a “Eureka” moment. The competition would be healthy, and the signals would be instructive.
My heart overflows with emotion.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.