Hopefuls tussle on cutting waste
Friday, November 30th, 2007
By Chris Fitzsimon
Perdue rivals stress accountability, too
Benjamin Niolet, Staff Writer
RALEIGH - The five candidates for governor latched onto an issue Thursday that resonates with voters — trimming the fat from government.
In North Carolina, leaders have made many attempts at wholesale cuts in the name of efficiency. Regardless of which party was trying to trim, those attempts either failed or had debatable success, according to Ran Coble, executive director of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan think tank.
“Overall, efficiency commissions have been failures in North Carolina,” Coble said.
Republicans have had a historical claim to the issue. But this week, it was the Democrats who were racing to take the lead on making government more efficient.
On Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed creating a commission that would recommend cuts to state government spending. The General Assembly would be prohibited from tampering with the commission’s recommendations and would be required to vote them up or down. Perdue’s plan calls for as much as $250 million in savings every legislative session.
The other major candidates attacked Perdue’s plan Thursday as an abdication of the governor’s responsibility to propose an efficient spending plan that eliminates duplication and waste.
“This approach throws out what I think is smoke and mirrors on top of smoke and mirrors,” said State Treasurer Richard Moore, who is contesting Perdue for the Democratic nomination for governor.
“This is simply adding yet another useless bureaucratic cog in a wobbly and broken wheel of state government,” said Bill Graham, one of three Republicans running for governor.
At least four times in the past 30 years, state leaders have pushed major initiatives to create efficiency commissions or study wasteful spending. Those efforts have met political resistance or faded away.
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