This is just plain ridiculous. Thom Tillis was for it and was prepared to find the money. Bev Perdue was too. And now it appears Pat McCrory is as well. And still North Carolina has not moved (and may not move) to compensate the surviving victims of the state’s disastrous forced sterilization program of the mid-20th Century.

And the reason: the state Senate and its leader Phil Berger. Here’s a Berger  spokesperson addressing the issue in this morning’s Wilmington Star-News:

“While his heart goes out to the victims, the current economic environment – coupled with the difficult budgetary realities inherited from past General Assemblies – prevented us from pursuing proposals to provide financial compensation during our last session,” Auth said.

This is just an embarrassing truckload of crapola. “Current economic environment”? “Difficult budgetary realities”? This from a man who helped ram through a series of absurd tax giveaways to fat cats and profitable corporations in the 2011-12 session? At least Tillis doesn’t have the gall to hide behind such a shameful smokescreen.

There was a time when the Senate President Pro Tem  was widely regarded in Raleigh as a pretty reasonable guy and certainly not an right-wing ideologue. Unfortunately, those times appear to have come and gone.