The Raleigh News and Observer had an interesting article today.  It was titled, “Budget battle not likely to cool in August sauna”, and it was written by staff writers Benjamin Niolet and Mark Johnson.  A link to the article is provided below.

www.newsobserver.com/news/story/1625342.html

The article states, “House and Senate Democrats, who control the legislature, can’t agree on taxes.  And Republicans want more cutting, less taxing.”

One week later

What a difference a week can make.  Last week, House Democrat budget writers were claiming that a budget deal was close with the Senate Democrats.  By the end of the week, the Democrat Governor was hinting to veto their budget proposal, and then all deals between the Governor and her Democrat friends in the General Assembly were off.  This week the Democrat leadership admits that they cannot agree amongst themselves on how much to tax the citizens, so they will seek another continuing resolution at the end of this week.

Under state law, a state budget should have been passed by July 1^st.  If a budget is not passed on time, then there must be a continuing resolution passed that addresses government spending.  There have been two continuing resolutions this year thus far.  The present continuing resolution will expire at the end of this month, therefore the Democrat budget writers will be asking all members to vote for another continuing resolution.

Budget Proposals

As the News and Observer article indicates, the Democrats, (who are in charge of the General Assembly as they hold the majority of both chambers), continue to argue over how much to raise taxes.  They have discussed raising taxes anywhere from one billion to 1.6 billion dollars.  They also argue over whom to raise the taxes on.  Here are several of the Democrat budget writer’s proposals that seem most egregious: 

·        Taxing Taxes – This proposal would add a 2% surcharge to the income tax liability of ALL taxpayers.

·        Increasing the Sales Tax – This proposal would hit every North Carolina citizen on every purchase we make.

·        Creating an Internet “Click Through Tax” – This proposal led Amazon to issue a letter to their North Carolina affiliates that they may not do business in our state.

·        Creating a Tax on Small Business (LLC tax) – This tax would create a new tax on every single small business in North Carolina set up as an LLC.

·        Cutting Funding for Schools – This proposal would increase the class size and cut the number of teachers in the North Carolina class rooms.

Republican Budget Principles

Throughout the entire budget process, both the House and Senate Republican leadership has stood united on two principles:

1.      Cut expenses first, and

2.      Make a list of priorities and fund those priorities accordingly.

Earlier this week, as the News and Observer article mentions, the Republican leadership outlined some 628 million dollars in reasonable cuts that could be made.  All of the identified cuts were summarily dismissed by the Democrats.  The Republican leadership has constantly offered to work with the Democrats in finding real solutions and crafting a responsible budget that is fair to all taxpayers and that completely funds our core priorities and responsibilities.  It is the Republican leadership’s position that there is absolutely no need to raise taxes to adopt a fiscally responsible, balanced budget.

The Democrat leadership’s actions, however, have been to:

1.      Propose tax increases on ALL North Carolina taxpayers instead of making needed cuts, and

2.      Refuse to neither make a list of priorities nor fund them first.

If the Democrats did make a list of priorities first, one could assume that education would be a top priority.  After all, the Governor ran on an education platform and was endorsed by the NCAE.  However, during the budgeting process, the Governor’s Democrat friends in the General Assembly were pushing a proposal to increase class sizes and reduce the number of teachers in the class room.  Therefore, until the Democrat leadership actually composes a list of priorities, we the citizens can only guess at what their priorities are.  We can only guess at what essentials they aim to fund first.

Iredell’s Response

Many Iredell citizens have taken the time to contact the General Assembly concerning the budget and the budget process.  People do not understand why a state like California, who has to resort to passing out IOU’s, can do a better and faster job of passing a budget then North Carolina.  Most of the response from Iredell focuses on the fact that this is no time to raise taxes.   Tax increases in a time of recession are harmful to families, working people, seniors, and small businesses. 

Unfortunately the Raleigh News and Observer article is accurate.  The Democrats, who control all aspects of state government, continue to argue within their ranks and they refuse to do their job – they refuse to pass a responsible balanced budget that is fair to the taxpayer and that fully funds our core responsibilities and priorities. 

Over the past several weeks, a couple of things have become clear:

·        Iredell folks are right, this is no time to raise taxes, and