Fitzsimon File

The first day of the 2008 General Assembly session featured the annual canned food drive, a NASCAR tire changing competition between House and Senate teams, political pandering from both gubernatorial candidates, and complaints about Governor Mike Easley's budget plans.

And that was just for starters. Many lawmakers are still grumbling about Easley's proposals to raise the tax on cigarettes and alcohol and wondering why he didn't try to build legislative support for the taxes before he announced them. That might make political sense, but has never been Easley's style.

Realtors and your right to vote

The Realtors want to save themselves some money and take away your right to vote on how to pay for new schools in your community. Rep. Pryor Gibson and Rep. William Wainwright filed a proposal Tuesday to repeal last year's legislation that gave counties the authority to raise the real estate transfer tax by .4 percent if local voters approve it. 

Twenty counties have voted on the transfer tax since then and the Realtors and the homebuilders, their brothers in big money, have defeated every one by spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and teaming up with the statewide anti-government forces who produce misleading reports about county taxes.

But even the Realtors deep, deep pockets have limits and they would rather use their purchased political power in Raleigh to stave any more local efforts to make them pay for the growth that brings them their billions in profits every year.

Pandering and punishing children

The most distressing state policy news came from the community college officials who announced that undocumented students would no longer be allowed to enroll in community colleges. The decision comes after a letter from Attorney General Roy Cooper's office advised the community college system to ban the students from campus, an opinion that seems to contradict federal case law and statements from the Department of Homeland Security.

Both candidates for governor support the decision to refuse to let students who have graduated from public schools to continue their education. Republican Pat McCrory, who made an appearance at the legislative building Tuesday, has made pandering about immigration a key part of his campaign for governor.

Lieutenant Governor Beverly Perdue will not be out pandered on this one though. Perdue also wants to stop undocumented kids from continuing their education. The North Carolina News Network reports that Perdue says the students "take up precious resources if they attend the colleges." 

That ignores the fact that the students pay out of state tuition, more than the cost to the state of educating them. When the controversy first erupted last fall, there were 340 undocumented students attending and subsidizing community colleges, one tenth of one percent of the system's total enrollment of 270,000.  But what does the future of 340 children matter when trying to win a race for governor?

It is hard not to see all this as a concerted effort by Democrats to avoid a debate on the issue this session with the general election looming in November. There's another strategy of course, stand up for the kids and confront the anti-immigrant rhetoric head on, but sadly that doesn't appear to be plan.

Adding up Easley's numbers

House and Senate budget committees heard a detailed explanation of Governor Easley's budget Tuesday afternoon and many lawmakers are unhappy with Easley's proposal to give state employees a 1.5 percent pay increase with a $1,000 bonus, much less than the seven percent raise he wants to give teachers.

Easley's budget team was also questioned about the absence of any money for the Housing Trust Fund in the spending plan. Let's hope that means lawmakers will fix that problem with a significant new investment in the Trust Fund to address the state's affordable housing crisis.

Republicans held a news conference Tuesday to talk about their agenda for the session, which includes banning gay marriage, building more roads, and resuming executions in the state, an odd proposal after three innocent people have been freed from death row in the last six months.

They also complained about Easley's budget, criticizing the tax proposal and saying it spends too much.

But a closer look at the numbers in Easley's proposal puts that claim to rest and illustrates the challenges lawmakers face this session

Easley's wants to make budget cuts of almost $400 million and raise $166 million from the sin taxes. But on the bottom line, his budget spends $832 million than last year.

The cost of increased enrollment in public schools, community colleges, and universities, teacher bonuses as part of the ABCs of education, and higher fuel costs for school buses and other state vehicles adds up to $211 million. No one opposes any of those expenses.

A four percent across the board raise for teachers and state employees costs $520 million. Easley's proposal increases mental health spending by $68 million and that seems the least lawmakers will do.

That comes to $800 million, leaving nothing for lawmakers to spend on probation and parole improvements, community colleges, universities, early childhood programs, housing, and other vital services unless they accept the Easley's tax hikes, raise revenue another way, or find a lot of places to make budget cuts of their own.

It promises to be an interesting summer.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 8:10 pm and is filed under Fitzsimon File. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.