Bev’s Money Dilemma
2009-09-09 - by
Governor Perdue has plenty of education-budget headaches – like whether local school districts are laying off teachers.
Getting less attention is the near-panic among health and human-services advocates over draconian state budget cuts. Especially with North Carolina facing swine-flu fears, an aging population and serious mental-health needs.
Budget reform – whatever that is – and commissions to ferret out waste won’t solve the problem. I’ve seen too many foxes chase this hare. There just isn’t billions of dollars in waste to be found. It would have been found by the myriad efficiency-study commissions that came before.
A lot of smart people – like Bill Friday, Jim Hunt and Richard Vinroot – say North Carolina will continue to face a structural budget deficit unless it modernizes its tax structure. Like what the Senate proposed this year.
But that probably won’t happen without the determined leadership of the governor. And does Perdue have the clout to exercise that kind of leadership, given her poll numbers?
Well, she has to decide whether she’s going to keep muddling through the next three and a half years – or take bold action to cut the Gordian knot.
You almost wish the Republicans would get a chance to run things, just so North Carolinians could see the damage that would do to public education and public health. But people don’t deserve that. We might never recover.
Bev’s Money Dilemma
2009-09-09/
Governor Perdue has plenty of education-budget headaches – like whether local school districts are laying off teachers.
Getting less attention is the near-panic among health and human-services advocates over draconian state budget cuts. Especially with North Carolina facing swine-flu fears, an aging population and serious mental-health needs.
Budget reform – whatever that is – and commissions to ferret out waste won’t solve the problem. I’ve seen too many foxes chase this hare. There just isn’t billions of dollars in waste to be found. It would have been found by the myriad efficiency-study commissions that came before.
A lot of smart people – like Bill Friday, Jim Hunt and Richard Vinroot – say North Carolina will continue to face a structural budget deficit unless it modernizes its tax structure. Like what the Senate proposed this year.
But that probably won’t happen without the determined leadership of the governor. And does Perdue have the clout to exercise that kind of leadership, given her poll numbers?
Well, she has to decide whether she’s going to keep muddling through the next three and a half years – or take bold action to cut the Gordian knot.
You almost wish the Republicans would get a chance to run things, just so North Carolinians could see the damage that would do to public education and public health. But people don’t deserve that. We might never recover.