I don’t know about you, but lately I feel as though I’ve been hit by a serious grifter working the old Three Card Monty. You know the game. The victim watches the cards move about, impressed with his own easy ability to win. Then, when the stakes increase, the victim is left without his cash, scratching his heads wondering how it all went down.
This is the game Gov. Mike Easley is playing with us. Two years ago, with North Carolina’s budget on the verge of collapse under the weight of an endless pit of programs, Easley and other state leaders found it necessary to keep hundreds of millions of dollars owed to the counties. Then, to make up for this egregious act, the state kindly “let” counties pass a sales tax to make up the difference. But this is old news.
Now we hear that one county, Durham, is in need of jobs … and the state is suddenly trying to help with your money. Easley says he wants to provide new jobs for all of North Carolina, but instead, he played the Ace of Diamonds to “buy” the jobs with incentives for Durham to pick up millions in your tax money to help two successful companies. Some of those jobs will cost the taxpayers more than $120,000 per job — and some are merely a partial replacement from jobs eliminated in another part of the state.
In normal times, this might be called the Ace of Spades — creative governance. But see whether we can stay focused on the game.
By now the rest of the state, especially the rural counties, must be scratching its collective head. Just when they are starting to understand how North Carolina is still growing its budget at twice the rate of inflation, they must now try to wonder about why Easley wants jobs in Durham County — at a time the rest of the state is reeling from the economic devastation within the furniture and textile industries. It makes no sense. Why do economic incentives go to the most economically stable areas of the state?
The card, my friends, is what Easley hopes is the Ace of (good) Hearts — re-election. Without geographic representation at any level of state government, the best bang for literally your buck comes when good news happens in large population centers.
Had the governor launched an initiative in Stokes or Columbus counties, the political benefits would not be there, despite the fact that these counties and countless others could use the help.
How can we put a stop to this game? Perhaps one way is a constitutional amendment to provide citizens with a Senate balanced by geography, not population. Stokes, Columbus and other rurally populated areas deserve greater representation, in the same way that Rhode Island and California are equally represented in the U.S. Senate. Two counties, one state senator, is a simple way to provide balance at the state level, preserving county integrity and giving small counties a seat at the state table of governance.
Second — and probably much more challenging — is the need to revise our tax system to provide true incentives to attract and retain jobs. It is far easier, cheaper, and market-sound to attract business by making the state tax system more attractive, rather than just to purchase jobs. Overhauling our state tax bureaucracy to create a simpler, fairer system that is conducive to business is a necessity.
These are two ideas worthy of considerable debate. However, recent sessions of the General Assembly point to signs that debate is not a worthy endeavor. Power, political back-scratching, fast-tracked subsidies, and “trust” between the co-speakers tend to make us forget which card we should be watching. So, while the entertainment value is impressive, and cards are flashing about, we must be on the lookout for the Ace of Clubs — where we are hit over the head with ever more tax money going to Raleigh and ever less to the necessity of running businesses in every county of this state. And you can take that to the bank.