So pleased were some members of the North Carolina House when the chamber quickly voted for the state’s 2003-’05 budget plan April 17 that they applauded their own handiwork. Handshaking and back-slapping was the order of the day.
Predictably, newspaper editorial writers and columnists heralded the budget vote, reportedly the earliest in 20 years in the House, as a product of the wonderful blending of moderates from the Democratic and Republican parties. No more ugly partisanship. No more drawn-out debates that gummed up the gears of big government in recent sessions. No messy democratic procedure to deal with.
Legislators — especially Co-Speaker Richard Morgan and members of his splinter group of “moderate” Republicans — will find out in the next election whether their constituents think so highly of their representatives’ work.
It’s a smart bet that many voters won’t feel like celebrating. Only a few months earlier, in the November election, they thought they had sent a strong message to their public servants to rein in runaway state spending. They also thought they had elected a majority bloc of fiscally conservative lawmakers who could make that happen, at least in the North Carolina House.
No sooner had the opening gavel of the General Assembly’s new session opened than Rep. Michael Decker, R-Walkertown, jumped ship to the Democratic Party. With the parties split, 60-60, multiple votes failed to produce a speaker. Vote after vote, Democrats stood their ranks. Vote after vote, Republicans splintered, with Morgan’s faction denying the GOP any shot at possible victory. Later, the latter faction formed a back-room coalition with the Democrats, who helped elect Morgan to a co-speakership with Rep. Jim Black, D-Matthews.
It’s been a love fest ever since.
But Democrats seem to be loving the coalition more than most Republicans.
“To paraphrase Winston Churchill, this might be our finest hour in this House, certainly, since the Great Depression,” House Rules Chairman Bill Culpepper, D-Chowan, gushed after the vote on the budget.
Even Black joined in. Recalling past state budget battles over the course of his 16 years in the House, Black said, “I’ve had it all kinds of ways here…but maybe this is the best.”
Rep. Ed McMahan, R-Charlotte, echoed the Republican majority’s sentiments. “We have no Republican leadership in the House, and it’s pretty obvious as time goes along that the Democrats are controlling everything,” he said. The vote on the budget alone — by far the most important and far-reaching measure the House or Senate considers each session — bears that out.
Gov. Mike Easley and fellow Democrats got just about everything they wanted in the House plan. His call for extending the 2001 half-cent increase on the state sales tax will help to allow the budget to grow by 4.3 percent, or $600 million, in fiscal 2003-’04. The plan allows for expanded state spending in a number of areas, including corporate subsidies and More At Four. Overall, the plan would increase taxes by $860 million over the next two fiscal years.
Morgan contends that he and Black have been successful because they’ve tried to do what’s best for the state. Now in his elevated position, he believes his vision is much sharper from the summit rather than just his own backyard. He apparently fashions himself as a repentant conservative who had to fend off “right-wing crazies” in his own party (Morgan’s choice of words) to pass a tax hike.
How could one think that’s what’s best for the state is cooperating with big-spenders in another party to fashion a budget with tax and spending increases that most “conservative” lawmakers would previously have opposed?
Playing defense, Morgan points out that the House budget spends $65 million less than the total proposed by Easley, allows tax breaks for married couples and for those with dependent children, and places $100 million in the state’s rainy day fund. Still, it’s a stretch to think that there’s enough meat on those bones tossed to taxpayers to equal the $860 million taken from them in higher taxes over the next biennium. Then, the Senate outbid the House on taxes and spending, so the latter has a poor bargaining position. North Carolinians already have suffered three years of billion-dollar deficits, multi-million-dollar tax increases, and raids on all the state’s trust funds. Is business as usual what’s best for the state?
Railroading, rather than statesmanship, best characterizes the operations of the House this session. The money train engineered by Morgan and Black roared through all the checkpoints that could have saved the state hundreds of millions of dollars. Smart Start and More At Four, which failed a State Auditor’s report recently, quickly come to mind. The auditor recommended consolidation of the duplicative programs. Perhaps the new House coalition thought it was more important to continue to feed boondoggles than to put a little bread on taxpayers’ table.
Republicans now find themselves in a pickle. The defections of Decker and Morgan and his faction have turned a historic November victory into a humiliating defeat not only for the party but also for taxpayers. Big spenders are rejoicing, but other North Carolinians find themselves mourning the missed opportunities.