Daily News

By Max Haner

In reading the recent guest commentary by the Buncombe County Republican Party Chairman, “Legislature is addicted to taxing and spending,” (AC-T, Aug. 25), I am reminded of the words, “Here they go again — trying to sow the seeds of discontent.” Once more, those in the North Carolina Legislature are being charged with being wasteful with our tax money, taking issue with the way a surplus of approximately $2 billion of non-recurring revenue was allocated and promoting the fear of a future tax increase. Once again, the Republicans forget that the North Carolina Legislature must continue to meet its responsibilities and move forward to provide for our citizens, sustain our quality of life, and invest in the future.

The writer does insert a new twist into his rhetoric. One that he indicates would make this state a utopia … that being a Taxpayers Bill of Rights (TABOR), which is Orwellian (or misleading) at best as it gives a positive name to a very poor and debilitating initiative, much like the current Washington, D.C., administration’s clean air initiative which in fact was intended to gut air quality laws in favor of corporate needs and profits; much like the administration’s No Child Left Behind, which handcuffed our education system by generally unworkable restrictions and lack of funding; much like the administration’s infamous tax relief (money to the wealthy) which in fact has been the cornerstone of the largest deficit in our history — forcing this country to barrow sinfully large sums from China, Japan and India, countries we now depend on for our financial survival.

Research by N.C. Policy Watch (ncpolicywatch.com), a non-partisan public policy watchdog, related via its “Fitzsimon File’’ Aug. 8, 2006, that TABOR has been adopted in other states around this country generally to the detriment of their quality of life. Most notable of these states is Colorado, “which has sharply fallen in national rankings of quality of life measures since voters approved a constitutional amendment in the early 1990s.” (more…)

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 28th, 2006 at 4:39 am and is filed under Daily News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.