RALEIGH – By now, it should be obvious that public concern about the size and scope of government is a major theme of the 2010 election cycle.

Tea Party activists helped put the issue back on the political agenda after a seemingly leftward turn in 2008. Then Republican candidates picked up the theme and ran with it. Now, Democrats in competitive districts are championing their own commitment to lower taxes and smaller budgets, with some legislative incumbents claiming to have cut billions in state spending over the past two years (it’s a bit more complicated than that).

By focusing on the general theme, however, you can miss the particulars of the issue. While many voters say they are concerned about big government, they don’t always have the same thing in mind. Some worry most about the federal deficit and debt. Some worry about current or future tax rates. And for North Carolinians, the problem of excessive government seems most ominous close to home, in the form of tax-greedy municipalities.

If you want to understand better why some state residents continue to be so up in arms about forced annexation, I suggest reading The Fayetteville Observer’s recent retrospective piece on that city’s Big Bang annexation five years ago.

Most of the affected property owners in Western Cumberland County are still furious about the annexation, which helped topped several city politicians and may even bleed into area’s competitive legislative races this year. The Observer article leads off with the example of Marion Garvin, promised sewer service in the lead up to the city’s annexation:

Today, Garvin pays nearly $500 more a year in property taxes but still doesn’t have a sewer line. Construction is at least nine years away in his Cliffdale West neighborhood, near Fort Bragg. Garvin, who is 62, leads the neighborhood’s community watch group. “You are getting taxed, even though you don’t have sewer service,” said Garvin, a retired civilian defense worker. “That’s what irks me.”

Among the political class, North Carolina’s aggressive annexation law makes perfect sense. These politicos see people like Garvin as obstructionists, moochers, or both. They buy the municipal line that people who live outside the jurisdiction of growing cities are receiving the benefits of municipal services without being compelled to pay for them. They also buy the notion that it would be impossible for North Carolina to grow and develop if targeted communities had a clearly enforceable right to services and true representation during the annexation process, either through a public referendum or oversight by the elected county commission.

None of these arguments holds water. All of these arguments make affected taxpayers steam with anger.

Regarding the freeloader charge, it isn’t nearly as much of a financial problem as city officials allege – and to the extent it is a problem, annexation is a clumsy tool for addressing it. Obviously, those who live near but not in cities are not in a position to receive direct city services. If they travel into a city to work, shop, or recreate, however, then they are receiving some benefit from the provision of city services such as public safety – but they also help finance those services by paying sales taxes and bearing their share of the property taxes levied on industrial and commercial property in the city.

Regarding direct services such as parks and recreation, the appropriate policy response is to charge nonresidents more than residents. It isn’t to coerce everyone near the city to become city taxpayers, regardless of how many city services they directly or indirectly receive.

When they hear the other set of arguments for North Carolina’s forced-annexation policies – that it would be impossible to manage modern government and growing communities without it – affected taxpayers are even more irate. They know better. They knew that the vast majority of Americans live in states where annexation is already checked by referendum, representation, and the right to services.

North Carolina’s annexation law isn’t just unwise. It’s extreme. And it makes many North Carolinians extremely disenchanted. They’ll be voting this year, too.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.