The budget battle lines are more clearly drawn every day at the General Assembly. House leaders, still refusing to budge on their decision not to consider raising new revenues to balance the budget, determined instead to make unprecedented cuts to public schools and human services.

Republican legislative leaders applauding the dangerous choice, citing discredited economic theories and misleading budget numbers, while relishing the chance to slash the government they despise.

Senate leaders and Governor Beverly Perdue wait for the final version of the House plan after both recommending raising taxes in their budgets to protect the most vulnerable people in the state.

And that was before the disastrous April revenue figures increased the projected shortfall by another $2.2 billion, making the House leaders’ refusal to consider tax increases even more absurd, their heads further in the sand, hiding like their pollsters told them.

A new group of budget pundits has emerged in recent days. They’re in newspaper editorial offices, state agency board rooms, even in a few Republican legislative offices. They are all appalled at the cuts in the House budget, at least the ones that affect them.

State public education czar William Harrison said the House budget could “undo the progress we’ve seen over the past 20 years.”  The editors at the Henderson Daily Dispatch recently announced that they don’t like the idea of cutting education or law enforcement to balance the budget.

A columnist in the Asheville Citizen-Times says the House budget will make the economic crisis worse by cutting off funding nonprofits that help teachers and public schools.

The Hickory Daily Record says “education cuts must be minimized,” and worries that the House budget will undo the advances the state has made.  Republican Representative Roger West is upset about talk of merging two community colleges in Western North Carolina to save money.

East Carolina Chancellor Steve Ballard told campus officials to prepare for a 15 percent budget reductions that one university leader said would have serious and long-lasting impact on the university.

Wilmington City officials say the state budget problems could make the city’s budget situation dire if lawmakers withhold any local revenues. City Manager Sterling Cheatham says “there are more responsible ways to balance the budget.”

Buncombe County House members are fighting to reverse budget cuts to a plant research center, the Bent Creek Institute, that has already identified a dozen plants with medicinal value  for cancer patients.

House leaders decided this week to drop a proposal to shorten the school year by five days to save money after outrage from many quarters. Now they are taking heat over proposals to cut funding for literacy coaches in schools.

All the staunch defenders of the projects in their districts and programs popular with their readers have something else in common too. They are only complaining about the budget cuts. None of them are willing to publicly call for new revenue to protect the local community college or nonprofits that help teachers and students

Most of the editorials that rail against cutting education never demand new taxes to avoid the cuts. Some of the same legislators who complain about state spending in front of the TV cameras are working to make sure a program in their district isn’t  abolished.. Waste is in somebody else's district.

The simple truth is that unless House leaders change their mind and start putting a revenue package together, millions of people in North Carolina will suffer, and not just the patients in mental hospitals or the disabled seniors who no longer have the care at home they need to stay out of an institution.

Every child in a public school will feel the cuts, bigger classes, fewer counselors and school nurses, computers that are out of date, and no teacher assistants to help with a math problem.

Workers who lose half their paycheck and the health insurance that used to come with it won’t be able to take their children to a doctor and the state won’t help any more.

News of the devastation that will result from the House budget cuts is just now beginning to spread. Small town newspaper editors, university leaders, and a few legislators are beginning to understand.

But they need to do more than that. Chancellors and university trustees need to defend their schools by making the case for more revenue, not just fewer cuts. If the vaunted Citizens for Higher Education PAC really wants to help UNC-Chapel Hill, maybe their lobbyists and influential donors can say loudly that lawmakers must raise taxes.

Maybe the well-connected UNC Board of Governors can say it too.

William Harrison needs to say it to protect the public schools. Community College President Scott Ralls needs to weigh in. The silence about taxes from UNC President Erskine Bowles is deafening.  

They all know that lawmakers must raise new revenue this year. It is the only responsible thing to do, to address the shortfall with a balance of budget cuts and tax increases. The lawmakers know it too, really. Now we just have to make them do it.