Fitzsimon File

For the eighth time in nine years, North Carolina starts the new fiscal year without a budget in place. It has some company this summer, as five other states are still trying to pass a spending plan.

House and Senate negotiators are still trying to reach an agreement on how to raise at least $900 million to help address the $4.6 billion shortfall and avoid making some of the most damaging cuts to education, human services, and criminal justice programs.

Republican lawmakers continue to claim that the proposals to raise revenue will cost the state thousands of jobs and prolong the state's economic problems, are instead urging legislative leaders to balance the budget with cuts alone.

North Carolina also has company in engaging in that debate. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that forty-eight states have faced shortfalls that add up to $166 million, almost a fourth of the total of state budgets.

Legislators in every one of the states with budget problems have faced the same choices, make deep, damaging cuts to education, human services, and vital public institutions, or raise revenue to make some of the cuts less painful.

The arguments have been have similar too, the think-tanks on the Right and the anti-government legislators allied with them railing against raising a penny in taxes, claiming it's the worst possible move in a recession and will devastate small businesses and put thousands of people out of work.

The other side cites economists, including folks at the Center, who believe just the opposite, that it is better to combine budget cuts with new taxes  than to simply slash services and layoff thousands of state workers.

Minnesota State Economist Tom Stimson said this week that Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty's decision to shift expenses to the next biennium and delay tax refunds instead of raising taxes will cost the state between 3,000 and 5,000 jobs and creates a $7.2 billion hole for the next governor to handle.

Stimson was responding to claims by some Republican legislators that raising taxes would be a "job-killer, a phrase often used by Republicans in the North Carolina General Assembly.

And Minnesota is more the exception than the rule for states facing huge shortfalls. Twenty-five states have already raised taxes and another 12 are considering it. And not just states with Democratic legislatures or Democratic governors. 

Mississippi raised taxes this year under Republican Governor Haley Barbour, the former head of the Republican National Committee. So did Florida, where Republican Governor Charlie Crist is in charge. 

Hawaii has raised taxes with the support of Republican Governor Linda Lingle and Nevada has too under Republican Governor Jim Gibbons. Nevada raised new revenue under Republican John Huntsman, Jr. 

That's not the entire list, but wonder what North Carolina Republicans think of all those "job-killers" in their own party?

They're not job-killers of course, and not total ideologues either. They are politicians, and though self-described conservatives, they realize that it doesn't make sense to do irreparable harm to public education and their state's infrastructure to balance the budget.

Wonder why the Republicans in North Carolina haven't figured that out?

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