People in North Carolina get it

The Elon Poll released Friday finds that North Carolinians support tax increases on cigarettes and alcohol to help balance the state budget. That's the finding getting the most attention.

But the survey also shows that the rhetoric from the Right about the federal stimulus package and President Obama isn't resonating with the people in North Carolina. The poll finds that the public approves of the job Obama is doing as president by a 59-26 margin and approves of the way he is handling the economy 54-31.

The majority of people in the state also support the stimulus package recently approved by Congress and believe it will have a positive effect on the economy, exactly the opposite of what the market fundamentalists and the politicians they support are shouting on every talk show. 

The poll also finds that a majority of people have confidence in the current Congress. That must really drive them crazy in right-wing world.

North Carolinians have the sense to want their government to invest in programs that create jobs and help people weather the economic crisis. That is not really a surprise, but it is still reassuring that a respected poll shows people can see through the all the market worshipping that got us into this mess.

The poll also has some messages for state lawmakers trying to address a $4 billion budget shortfall. The pollsters asked people if they supported or opposed budget cuts in various areas.

More than 75 percent oppose budget cuts in public schools or the criminal justice system. More than sixty percent don't want reductions in community colleges or mental health. Slightly less than 60 percent are opposed to cuts in the university system.

That doesn't leave much room for slashing $2 billion out of a state budget that spends more than half its total on education.

What would sober sailors do?

Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight said this week that legislators are introducing too many bills to spend money on local projects that can't be funded as the state faces a $4 billion budget shortfall.  He said his fellow makers are acting "like a bunch of drunken sailors on Main Street in Norfolk celebrating victory."

Media outlets across the state have picked up on the comments and Republicans were happy to tout them too. Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger suggested that every bill asking for new funding should have to specify where to reduce spending to pay for it.

Berger could take his own suggestion further and introduce bills to cut $2 billion from the state budget that he thinks is full of wasteful spending. At the very least, Berger and others who claim every year that the budget spends too much need to offer amendments that reduce the budget to levels they support.

It is easy to say that the budget can be balanced with cuts alone. It's another to propose the specific places to reduce spending or eliminate programs, especially when the state spends less per capita now than it did eight years ago.

Report from the fringe

The panic continues on the Right, making for a lot of entries to consider for this week's report from the fringe.

George Leef at the Pope Center to Dismantle Public Higher Education always has something head-scratching to say, or worse. This week Leef referred to Barack Obama as "our arrogant, authoritarian president."  One of the definitions of authoritarianism is favoring blind submission to authority, hardly something that describes Obama for the vast majority of the people.

Wonder what the word for blind submission to a failed ideology is, maybe dogmatarian?

Leef also recently lamented that Charles Murray's analysis of Obama's speech didn't criticize his plan to get more people through college. Leef said that depressed him. Leef always feels better when kids don't continue their education.

Locker Jon Sanders weighs in too this week, comparing government to a parasite as he questions the integrity of elected officials, "When faced with an economic downturn, public officials will seek to protect government revenues at all costs, which they achieve by heaping misery upon misery on families and businesses already suffering from the sour economy."

Responsible public officials don't want to protect government revenues at all costs, they want to protect people forced to turn to their own government for help because the holy market won't help them.

Sanders works for a group that has offered some solutions to the state budget problems caused by the economic downturn, among them denying ambulance service to the poor and refusing to provide an artificial limb to a senior citizen who loses an arm or a leg.

Sounds like protecting an ideology at all costs, another example of dogmatarianism.