RALEIGH – The North Carolina House has finally approved a $14.3 billion General Fund budget adjustment for FY 2002-03. I’ve already written and said a lot about it – its commendable inclusion of serious budget savings, its regrettable failure to include more, and its disastrous reliance on taxes and trust-fund raids and one-time revenue tricks that will further weaken our long-term fiscal posture (see http://www.johnlocke.org/issues/Spotlights/223_House_Budget_Analysis.pdf).
Today, though, I’ve had a few random thoughts related to the House budget plan pop into my head. Here goes:
* House Speaker Jim Black is seriously deluded. Reacting to Republican criticisms of the plan, he said he was surprised that so few members of the GOP voted for it. “When you vote against the budget, you vote against a lot of things,” he said. “With no tax increase, what’s the reason for that?”
The speaker appears to misunderstand the definition of the term “tax increase.” It refers to any legislative action that raises the legal tax burden on any class or group of taxpayers. Raising tax rates constitutes a tax increase. Removing previously legal exemptions, deductions, or credits constitutes a tax increase. Imposing a sudden revenue loss on cities and counties, forcing them to hike property taxes, is a tax increase, or at least is arguably so.
The House budget includes $322 million from a revenue bill that includes several tax increases. While some Republicans and other critics say the entire amount is a tax hike, that’s a bit unfair. Half of the $322 million is a straight-up tax increase, on anyone who owns shares in, works for, or buys from a corporation doing business in North Carolina (raise your hand if this doesn’t apply to you). The other half comes from stiffing cities and counties. As a result, some of these localities are raising property taxes, by our count at least $60 million worth.
The House budget plan includes more than $200 million in tax increases. Period.
* Folks other than Speaker Black might be surprised that any Republican voted for the plan. You have to remember, however, that some RINOs (Republicans in Name Only) can still be found in the GOP delegation. Two reliable RINOs, Reps. Buck Buchanan of Mitchell County and Wilma Sherrill of Buncombe, voted for the bill. So did Buchanan’s fellow Mitchell Republican, Gregg Thompson, who is running for a new N.C. Senate seat. With a crowded primary, I presume Thompson’s vote today for a tax increase will be the end of him. Hard to understand why he did it, except that maybe he just believes state government doesn’t have enough of our money to squander.
* The much-publicized special provision on UNC-Chapel Hill’s Qur’an assignment remained in the budget plan (see http://www.herald-sun.com/state/6-256960.html). That’s unfortunate. I’ve been as critical as anyone of the university’s poor judgment and hubris regarding this issue, but the solution is not for the General Assembly to start determining the reading assignments of students. I sympathize with the sentiment expressed by the House amendment, but it’s wrongheaded. Legislators shouldn’t use the budget bill to make such substantial policy changes, for one thing. And the appropriate way to respond to UNC-Chapel Hill’s cluelessness would have been to do a nonbinding resolution and to start getting more skeptical about university demands for funding and power in the future.
Ideally, the actions of intolerant, uninformed, leftist wackos on campuses should be of public interest only as comic relief, or as a reason to choose another school for one’s children. The only reason it rises to the level of a public policy issue is that the vast majority of UNC-Chapel Hill’s education budget comes from the taxpayers. Let’s fix the real problem.
I am reminded of a similar debate back in the 1990s about arts funding. Reacting to outrageous pieces of “art” created by government-funded artists, some Republican lawmakers in Washington wanted to get into the business of deciding which artists and artworks should be funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. No, no, no. The government should avoid sponsoring rotten art by avoiding the sponsorship of all art, since one person’s idea of rot may be another person’s idea of genius. Let freedom reign, in art and in higher education, but allow me the equally valid freedom to direct my hard-earned money elsewhere if I so desire.