RALEIGH — I humbly beg your forgiveness.
I now realize that I have been unduly harsh in my assessment of the North Carolina Senate’s fashioning of a state budget for the next two fiscal years. On Monday, I wrote that most senators surely understood how inadequate the plan was likely to be given the impending release of April tax-collection figures expected to show another shortfall.
Then, on Tuesday, I ripped into the Senate budget and one of its defenders, Sen. John Kerr of Goldsboro, for imposing $499 million in higher taxes next year — including new taxes on children’s candy and soft drinks — in order to fund 5.1 percent spending growth and lots of new subsidies for corporations, nonprofits, and middle-class welfare recipients.
All I can say is, I’ve just been in a grumpy mood this week. My riding lawn mower threw a connecting rod last weekend, consigning me to hours of pushing a small mower up and down a hill, a scene evoking the very tortures of Sisyphus (until a helpful neighbor zipped over on his John Deere). In addition, I admit that I was upset about the latest singer booted off “American Idol.” I was deeply troubled by my recent lack of sausage consumption. I had a headache.
And if I had a dog, she would no doubt have eaten my homework, too.
In restitution for my egregious two-day tirade against the hard-working, compassionate, and wise solons of the Senate, I will now list the many good things about its proposed 2003-05 budget:
* It would phase out state funding for the Global TransPark by 2004-05.
* It contains no obvious math errors.
* It would phase out state funding for the Global TransPark by 2004-05.
* It raises taxes on candy, soft drinks, and prepared foods — but there is no tax surcharge on pork rinds or chitterlings.
* It would phase out state funding for the Global TransPark by 2004-05.
* As far as I can tell, every page of the proposed budget has been correctly numbered.
* It would phase out state funding for the Global TransPark by 2004-05.
* The long-predicted new University of North Carolina campus at Manteo was not funded in the budget.
* And, finally, it would phase out state funding for the Global TransPark by 2004-05.
Sorry I was so critical before. I’ll try to do better.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.