Your Soapbox

If you are paying attention at all these days, a theme is emerging from much of the coverage of the issues facing North Carolina.

The News and Observer of Raleigh this weekend told the story of a program that diverts drug offenders from prison to a treatment program, saving lives and saving money. But the program is still reeling from budget cuts of 40 percent in 2001. That means the programs served 400 fewer people, people that headed instead to prison, where they cost $25,000 a year to house and are lost to their families and often to themselves.

The New Bern Sun Journal recently looked at North Carolina’s impending teacher shortage. A State Board of Education task force says raising teacher pay significantly may not solve the entire problem, but is a very important step. That costs millions of dollars.

The Charlotte Observer has been investigating the problems of understaffing and lack of training at group homes after the death of teenager in one of the institutions. More inspectors, more training for employees, a better database to track workers with past problems, all logical changes lawmakers should make this year. That means more funding.

WRAL-TV’s recent documentary on the state’s affordable housing crisis pointed out that not only can the working poor not afford a place to live, but that many teachers and police officers can’t afford to live in the cities in which they work, An investment of $50 million in the Housing Trust Fund would providing 3,000 affordable housing units and create 6,000 jobs at the same time.

The list goes on and on, the waiting lists for a day care subsidy and in-home services for seniors and the list that will soon form again for people who need lifesaving AIDS drugs.

Yet lawmakers so far have heard little of these needs and many others, instead hearing budget reviews with an ear towards finding places to cut funding to meet arbitrary spending targets. Need assessments are not part of the equation.

Maybe it would help to put the problems in the popular plea of the day.

North Carolina’s human services problems are out of line with many other states, hurting human development in the state and making it harder to improve the quality of life here. Kids Count 2004 finds that the percentage of children living in poverty in the state sticks out like a sore thumb among Southeastern states, to employ a phrase a prominent business lobbyist likes to use.

North Carolina has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than Virginia, Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama. In AIDS case rates, North Carolina ranks worse than Alabama, Virginia, and Arkansas. In the number people without health insurance, worse than Georgia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee.

Getting the picture? One more telling statistic, state spending per capita. North Carolina ranks 39th in the country, lower than West Virginia, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, Virginia, Alabama, and Tennessee. So it is true that we have a spending problem, we don’t spend enough investing in our people and the institutions that serve them.

It is time for an honest assessment of the needs of people in North Carolina and a plan for what kind of state we want to be. Then let’s find the money, yes, raise taxes to make those important investments.

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This entry was posted on Monday, March 28th, 2005 at 8:36 pm and is filed under Your Soapbox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.