There have been multiple stories in recent days detailing the destructive impact that conservative budget and tax policy is having on essential public structures and services in North Carolina. During a time in which most states are rebounding and expanding public investments, North Carolina continues to muddle along and scrimp by like one of Art Pope’s weathered, low-rent chain stores.
Just yesterday, Chris Fitzsimon reported on the disgraceful situation in the Rockingham County public schools (home to Senate leader Phil Berger) while Cedric Johnson highlighted the self-inflicted budget crisis afflicting our courts system.
Now, this morning, comes an excellent editorial that sums up the absurd situation and the driving force behind it: destructive and unnecessary tax cuts. As this morning’s lead editorial in Raleigh’s News & Observer explains:
“The General Assembly’s Republican leaders appear remarkably calm about what is shaping up to be either a serious budget shortfall or an income tax shock for those who have not had enough state tax withheld.
Tax revenue flowing into the state is running about $190 million below projections following tax cuts that took effect in January. That is worrisome because state spending already is at a spartan level. There’s no slack for filling the budget hole with easy cuts. The state could dip into its rainy day fund (even though it’s not a rainy day), but that simply puts off the budget reckoning for a year.
State Rep. Skip Stam, a Wake County Republican and House speaker pro tem, said the budget shortfall isn’t much given the state’s $21.1 billion budget and the federal government’s spending on North Carolina’s Medicaid and transportation projects. He told Time Warner Cable News, ‘The difference is hardly even a rounding error.’ A rounding error? It seems like more than that to state agencies that are trying to meet the needs of a growing state. Their budgets have been tightened first by the Great Recession and then by Republicans taking control of the General Assembly in 2011.”
