Post Mortem







The story of how the state budget got made and passed reads like a plot from a bad Gothic novel.

 

On page one Governor Perdue is sitting, looking at last year’s budget and dreaming of all the new things she is going to spend money on this year; she dreams and dreams then adds up the numbers and, lo and behold, she finds she wants to spend $4 billion more than she has.

 

She calls a press conference and announces the state has a 20% ‘shortfall’ but, of course, the 20% is pure whooey. It only exists on paper as what she wants to spend.

 

Chapter Two is like The Scarlet Pimpernel: She’s here, she’s there, she’s everywhere – Governor Perdue’s for spending cuts, for tax increases, mad at the legislature for raising the wrong taxes, mad at the legislature for not raising taxes enough.

 

Chapter Three is about a farce.

 

Last year the state spent $20.3 billion. This year (after a lot of anguish and bitter weeping and raising taxes a billion dollars) the Governor spends $20.8 billion – a $500 million increase. Then in a stroke of pure sophistry says she’s cut spending 20% – $4 billion. Which, of course, is pure moonshine. All she really cut was a number she dreamed up in the first place.

 

Summary: The Governor wanted to increase spending $4 billion, failed, and called it a cut. Which is pretty strange logic.

 

Looking back, the Governor’s way of budgeting led her straight into temptation. She got so busy dreaming about how much she wanted to spend she hardly gave a thought to what she could cut.

 

For instance, right in the middle of moaning the state didn’t have enough money to fund the public schools, she traipsed down to Nags Head to do the ground breaking for a $25 million Taj Mahal-type fishing pier – paid for by taxpayers. She didn’t blink when Secretary of Health and Human Services spent $38,000 to buy 1100 crab pots. Or when her Secretary of Transportation spent $18,000 to buy 100,000 ‘clickers’ to give school children. Or when her Secretary of Commerce spent $170,000 to fly part of his department to Paris for the Air Show.

 

Nor did she say a discouraging word when, after the legislature passed her budget, House Speaker Joe Hackney chirruped that he didn’t see any pork in it at all.

 

That was the last straw for the John Pope Civitas Institute: About an hour after Hackney’s quote appeared in the newspapers Civitas published a list of $300 million in pork barrel projects Hackney had supported, including a million dollars for state aircraft, $10 million for College Athletic Booster Clubs, $40 million for the museums (nice but hardly a reason to raise taxes) and $2 million for something called ‘shellfish sanitation’ which, let’s hope, doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

 

In the last chapter puzzled taxpayers are saying, We’re spending $500 million more this year than last year – so where’s the $4 billion cut? And, of course, the Governor’s answer is all blue smoke and mirrors. She didn’t cut $4 billion. She couldn’t even bring herself to cut a $25 million fishing pier.

 

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Carter Wrenn

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Post Mortem







The story of how the state budget got made and passed reads like a plot from a bad Gothic novel.

 

On page one Governor Perdue is sitting, looking at last year’s budget and dreaming of all the new things she is going to spend money on this year; she dreams and dreams then adds up the numbers and, lo and behold, she finds she wants to spend $4 billion more than she has.

 

She calls a press conference and announces the state has a 20% ‘shortfall’ but, of course, the 20% is pure whooey. It only exists on paper as what she wants to spend.

 

Chapter Two is like The Scarlet Pimpernel: She’s here, she’s there, she’s everywhere – Governor Perdue’s for spending cuts, for tax increases, mad at the legislature for raising the wrong taxes, mad at the legislature for not raising taxes enough.

 

Chapter Three is about a farce.

 

Last year the state spent $20.3 billion. This year (after a lot of anguish and bitter weeping and raising taxes a billion dollars) the Governor spends $20.8 billion – a $500 million increase. Then in a stroke of pure sophistry says she’s cut spending 20% – $4 billion. Which, of course, is pure moonshine. All she really cut was a number she dreamed up in the first place.

 

Summary: The Governor wanted to increase spending $4 billion, failed, and called it a cut. Which is pretty strange logic.

 

Looking back, the Governor’s way of budgeting led her straight into temptation. She got so busy dreaming about how much she wanted to spend she hardly gave a thought to what she could cut.

 

For instance, right in the middle of moaning the state didn’t have enough money to fund the public schools, she traipsed down to Nags Head to do the ground breaking for a $25 million Taj Mahal-type fishing pier – paid for by taxpayers. She didn’t blink when Secretary of Health and Human Services spent $38,000 to buy 1100 crab pots. Or when her Secretary of Transportation spent $18,000 to buy 100,000 ‘clickers’ to give school children. Or when her Secretary of Commerce spent $170,000 to fly part of his department to Paris for the Air Show.

 

Nor did she say a discouraging word when, after the legislature passed her budget, House Speaker Joe Hackney chirruped that he didn’t see any pork in it at all.

 

That was the last straw for the John Pope Civitas Institute: About an hour after Hackney’s quote appeared in the newspapers Civitas published a list of $300 million in pork barrel projects Hackney had supported, including a million dollars for state aircraft, $10 million for College Athletic Booster Clubs, $40 million for the museums (nice but hardly a reason to raise taxes) and $2 million for something called ‘shellfish sanitation’ which, let’s hope, doesn’t mean what it sounds like.

 

In the last chapter puzzled taxpayers are saying, We’re spending $500 million more this year than last year – so where’s the $4 billion cut? And, of course, the Governor’s answer is all blue smoke and mirrors. She didn’t cut $4 billion. She couldn’t even bring herself to cut a $25 million fishing pier.

 

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Carter Wrenn

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