One thing that conservative candidates running for the General Assembly like to talk about is taxes. But their misguided proposals would not only make the budget crisis far worse, they would take a state tax system that already forces the poor to pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes than the wealthy and make it even more regressive.

The conservative candidates are not only signing every pledge they can find vowing to not to raise any new revenue next year despite a budget shortfall that will exceed $3 billion, most are also promising to lower taxes on corporations and wealthy individuals after they are elected.

The promises for cutting taxes don't ever come with a price tag. But less revenue would mean an even larger shortfall and even deeper budget cuts on top of the ones they refuse to be specific about.

The state suffers from a structural budget problem caused primarily by an outdated revenue system that no longer fits the state's economy. Tax reform is the long term answer, not tax cuts.

Conservatives used to agree that the tax system needed an overhaul and that the sales tax base should be broadened to include services to make the tax less regressive and more closely tied to the state's economic activity.

Not anymore. Not this year. This year's breed of conservative candidates running for the General Assembly seems strongly opposed to expanding the sales tax base.

It might be that they don't understand why it's important or more likely it's because they'd rather demagogue about taxes than have an honest policy debate about how to stabilize the state's revenue stream for the next decade. Either way, it does not bode well for next year.

The conservatives base their misguided tax policy on flawed reasoning and misleading claims about North Carolina's current tax rates, repeatedly claiming that they are the highest in the Southeast, among the highest in the country, and crippling the state's economic development efforts.

It's simply not true. The conservative Tax Foundation often quoted by the Right says that North Carolina's overall state and local taxes are lower than other Southern states like Virginia and Arkansas.

A growing number of economists, including Locke Foundation adjunct scholar Dr. Mike Walden, say North Carolina is well-positioned to rebound from the economic downturn. Republican Senator Richard Burr recently said the same thing.

Taxes in North Carolina are not out of line with other states and are not driving away jobs. Candidates who refuse to recognize that reality could do serious damage to the state if they become lawmakers and slash taxes on corporations and the wealthy, leaving too few resources to maintain vital state investments in education and human services.

Maybe the most disturbing proposal from the reality deniers is the misnamed Taxpayers Protection Act, or TABOR, a constitutional amendment that would arbitrarily limit state spending every year to an amount determined by a flawed formula based on inflation and population growth.

Versions of TABOR have been adopted through the years in several states around the country, most notably Colorado, which has fallen sharply in national rankings of quality of life measures since voters approved the amendment in the early 1990s.

Colorado's experience and the growing realization by voters across that TABOR is a dangerous and draconian budget policy has led to the defeat of the amendment in several states in the last few years.

Anti-government zealots have been pushing Tabor in North Carolina for a long time, at one point circulating a TABOR pledge for candidates to sign. It didn't work. Legislative leaders were smarter than that.

But now TABOR is back front and center on the right-wing agenda and has a decent chance to pass if conservatives take over the General Assembly.

It all adds up to regressive tax policy that favors the wealthy at the expense of the poor and disastrous budget policy that would punish low-income and middle class families by denying services to people who need them and decimating public education and other state institutions that we all rely on.

Don't say you weren't warned.