RALEIGH – Why do fiscal conservatives rally on or around April 15?
At first glance, the question may seem silly. Everyone knows the significance of the date. For voters motivated by fiscal issues such as government taxes and wasteful spending, Tax Day will always stir the passions and motivate civic and political activism.
But for most of the tens of thousands of North Carolinians participating in Tea Party rallies over the next couple of weeks, taxes are not, per se, objectionable. These voters aren’t anarchists. They believe that federal, state, and local governments deliver valuable services that no other institution can deliver, services that will inevitably be funded by government confiscation of household incomes.
Here’s what they find objectionable: Government has far exceeded its proper bounds, both in cost and intrusiveness. It doesn’t deliver on its legitimate promises – to protect our individual rights and ensure the delivery of core public services. And it can’t deliver on its illegitimate promises – to fund massive pension, health care, and education entitlements without ruinous tax increases.
Here in North Carolina, the numbers are particularly stark. We have one of the worst economies in the United States. Our politicians have raised taxes repeatedly. They’ve expanded old programs and created new ones, predicting great success, only to produce mediocrity. As JLF’s Joe Coletti demonstrated in a 2008 study, North Carolinians have gotten a poor return on their “investment” of tax dollars:
Coletti’s report is designed to help North Carolinians determine whether state government is offering a good “bang for the buck.” “States that invest taxes well should have better performance on health, education, roads, and crime than states that do not make good investments,” he said. “Better performance, in turn, should spur faster income and population growth.”
North Carolina fares worse than most of its neighbors, Coletti said. “An overall D grade puts North Carolina just ahead of Georgia, but well behind Virginia’s and South Carolina’s B grades, Tennessee’s A-, and Florida’s A grade as the top-ranked state,” he said. “Arkansas, which had the same tax burden as North Carolina in 2001, earned a C+, Mississippi and Alabama earned B- grades, Louisiana earned a B+, while Texas earned an A and tied for second overall among the 50 states.”
North Carolina’s poor score in government cost-effectiveness comports with the perception of many state taxpayers. It’s a result they find infuriating. They should.
Coletti will be among the speakers at some two dozen Tea Parties scheduled during the month of April all across North Carolina, from the mountains to the coast. For the most part, the host organizations have been created within the past year by local activists, many completely new to politics. These activists have used Facebook, Twitter, simple websites, and other tools to find like-minded conservatives and set up new organizations in their communities to push for lower taxes, lower spending, less regulation, and more freedom in North Carolina.
As I’ve previously written, Tea Party activists aren’t corporate plants, professional operatives, or dangerous extremists. They are moms, dads, grandparents, laborers, professionals, farmers, small-business owners, and retirees. They are Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, and unaffiliated. They disagree on a variety of cultural, social, and foreign-policy issues.
What unites them is an abiding belief that the future of American prosperity and constitutional government is at stake. At every level, politicians have spent recklessly and governed irresponsibly. Their profligacy stems in part from short-term expediency and in part from the expectation that there will be no long-term consequences, that voters will forget who did what and will simply pay the bill for bankrupt entitlements, wasteful “stimulus” programs, and the creeping nationalization of health care.
Tea Party activists think these politicians have it wrong, and that their policies must be reversed. They plan do something about it. What will you do?
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation