Fitzsimon File, Your Soapbox

State lawmakers are now setting up the procedure they will use to elect the 16 members of the UNC Board of Governors in the next few weeks. The Senate debate was about the guaranteed slots for people of color, women, each political party.

It is always amazing no one asks the bigger question. If the General Assembly is going to elect the Board of Governors, then how is it fair or appropriate for professional lobbyists to run for the positions and to serve on the Board?

Think about it for a second. If you want to be on the Board of Governors, you have to lobby legislators to vote for you. Seems like the folks who lobby for a living might have an edge there, since they walk the legislative halls every day and take lawmakers to dinner and basketball games virtually every night.

Then try to imagine the confusion of a lawmaker when it comes time to vote on the budget, to make a decision between cutting corporate taxes and increasing funding for universities or deciding if the university system should get $10 million instead of the Division of Public Health.

Which voice from the same person does a member of the House or Senate listen to, the one speaking for the university as a member of the Board of Governors or the one speaking for the corporation that wants to reduce taxes?

Behind all the calls for campaign finance reform and lobbying reform is the fundamental belief that more people must be part of the state policy debates, that we must widen the circle of people with power to make decisions that affect millions of lives. A good start might be to change the way we decide who governs our public universities.

The budget debates in the General Assembly are now starting in earnest and starting again with the wrong questions. House and Senate budget leaders this week told the chairs of budget subcommittees to come up with $480 million worth of cuts from the budget Governor Easley presented to the General Assembly a few weeks ago.

The number is disturbing on its own, since Easley’s budget woefully under funded many important human service programs and completely ignored others, like affordable housing and providing lifesaving drugs to people with HIV/AIDS.

It is hard to imagine how lawmakers can cut almost $500 million from Easley’s proposal without doing serious damage to human services or education or both.

And it is also hard to figure out why setting an arbitrary number is where lawmakers start. It is unlikely that have had time to get a handle on the needs of the state, how many people don’t have health care, how many people with HIV/AIDS can’t afford medicine, how many families need to find an affordable place to live.

The Winston-Salem Journal reported a few days ago that child protective service workers in Forsyth County have 25 cases each. The state wants a caseload of 12.

There are hundreds of similar stories across the state and state lawmakers ought to hear from state agencies about those needs before they decide on an arbitrary amount to spend or to cut.

The folks who incessantly repeat the no-new tax mantra might want to take a look the latest Elon University Poll. It finds overwhelming support for an increase in the cigarette tax and strong support of continuing the two tax increases passed in 2001.

And more bad news for them from Colorado, the state held up as a model for the misnamed Taxpayers Bill of Rights that limits state spending by constitutional amendment.

Colorado’s Governor Bill Owens is a darling of the folks who circulate the no-tax pledges, even mentioned as possible presidential candidate to carry the anti-government banner.

Owens called for changes to the spending restriction amendment in his recent State of the State Speech, saying it prevents the state from spending enough to build a brighter future for Colorado, especially for its children.

No word yet from the folks who want the absurd, restrictive limits. Maybe that’s because if their man Governor Owens is be believed, their proposals would guarantee a dim future for North Carolina.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 11th, 2005 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File, Your Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.