Lots of good facts getting revealed here that I'm sure most citizens in North Carolina do not realize, and I'd be the Democrats in the legislature don't want people to know. There are about 75-80 people in the room, listening to the conservative view on Budget and Taxes.

Becki Gray, Chief Policy Analyst at the Civitas Institute addressed the legislative budget. She brought part of the state budget with her -- it's about a 6" tall stack of paper (you can see it in the picture there). She explained that there is so much in there that no one knows about.

In North Carolina, the Democrats start the year with this enormous budget -- They START there. And then the Democrats go behind closed doors and add and make any changes they want. When they're done, they present these literally thousands of pages to the Republicans and force them to vote on it in less than 18 hours.

She also pointed out the Civitas Institute's pork report where they expose some of the hundreds of millions of waste in state government.

Joe Coletti, Fiscal Policy Analyst at the John Locke Foundation described more on the budgeting process and how the budget gets through. North Carolina's budget is $17.2 BILLION. Of that, they spend $9.5 billion to run the school system (not including buildings and local salary extras). $2.5 billion is to run Medicare, one of the largest growing and fastest growing area of the budget.

You see, spending for the state on Medicare is reimbursed by the federal government at the rate of 63 cents on every dollar. So when the state gives away $1 to someone, the feds give them 63 cents. In addition, from 2004-2007, the state budget has increased by over 13%.

Next up is Dr. Barry Poulson, an Americans for Prosperity Foundation Distinguished Scholar. He sees the current government situation as a "Battle of the rent-seekers." Those who are working and paying taxes are on one side of the battle, while the people who seek "things" from the government are on the other side -- and it is a war.

29 states now have some sort of tax and spending laws. However, he describes and points out the enormous differences between taxpayer-initiative limits and government, or statutory limits, primarily instigated by legislatures. Everywhere that it's a taxpayer-supported limit, it's been very successful. However, when the legislatures enact statutory limits, the legislatures are setting up the laws so they will not be limited.

This will ensure that when there is a good economy, government cannot grow out of control, then demand new taxes when the economy slows or recedes. He is from the University of Colorado, and he really couldn't believe how much extra debt the state of North Carolina had issued in the past few years -- just paying back the debt is now the largest growing portion of state spending.

We are in a battle. We are engaged in a battle with the rent-seekers.

Former mayor Tom Fetzer added some concluding comments, including that the state government in North Carolina is corrupt. It has been one-party control of the entire state legislature for an entire century with the exception of one four-year term.

In the question and answer period at the end, Victoria Peterson, a conservative Republican from Durham (really?) asked, "How do we get conservatives to show up at council meetings and other places like the democrat liberals do?" Tom Fetzer tried to answer the question suggesting that conservatives attempt to reach out to others on a conservative basis, not on a party basis. People need to find common ground based on those beliefs, not on the straight party line.

Posted by: Ogre at 07:17 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 635 words, total size 5 kb.