RALEIGH – The North Carolina General Assembly may be a source of confusion, bad public policy, and costly delay. It may be a horde of would-be full-time lawmakers masquerading as a citizen legislature. It may spurn sound economic analysis in favor of simplistic nostrums and unexamined assumptions. It may pay more attention to the powerful few who lobby government for favors and cash than it does to the taxpaying majority whose interest lies in less government. It may . . .
What was my point, again?
Oh, yeah. The state legislature may be all of these things, and more, but you can’t say that legislative leaders lack the capacity for irony.
On the same day that members were giving final approval to yet another big tax increase on consumers, colleagues were debating a package of bills that would offer special tax breaks and subsidies to a few big companies and institutions with political influence. Scott Mooneyham of the Associated Press spotted the irony, and his story (see here: http://www.herald-sun.com/state/6-270253.html) summarizes the action on the various bills.
Do some of these lawmakers realize how totally inconsistent they are? One day they are grousing about how state and local governments need more tax revenue, and the next they whine about the state’s lack of competitiveness in attracting new industry. Not too long ago, House Speaker Jim Black was talking up the idea of a fundamental reform of the state tax code, starting with the problematic retail sales tax. Now, he has presided over two fiscal years in which that same sales tax, regressive and riddled with economic distortions, has been hiked to 7 percent. Just months ago, both conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats said they opposed balancing the budget with a regressive sales tax hike. But on Monday, several either switched their vote on the sales tax increase or took a hike, which was virtually the same thing.
When lawmakers thoughtlessly and recklessly raise taxes on businesses with out-of-state subsidiaries in 2001, and then turn around and proclaim a desperate need to cap the same tax in 2002, they surrender their right to be taken seriously. There are serious men and women in the General Assembly, a number of them, but many seem to have lost their ability to think logically and clearly about what they are doing. Perhaps limiting sessions or legislative terms, or both, would help to bring them back to reality. Right now, though, our state government is being led by people who seem oblivious to the incongruity between their stated intentions and the actual results of their actions.
Which happens to be the definition of irony.