Boxing Out

This isn’t Bev Perdue’s first rodeo. She knew full well that her budget proposals were dead on arrival at the General Assembly, but she was thinking ahead to the fall elections and, even though she isn’t running, she is trying to position Democrats to run against the legislature in the fall. Their popularity ratings are even lower than hers. Legislative leaders, trying to box out her box, are trying to portray Perdue’s proposals as more of the same big spending, high taxes failed strategies of the past. Time will tell which version resonates best with voters in November.

Perdue’s 20.9 billion dollar budget proposed the restoration of the ѕ cent sales tax to increase funding for education, make up the $258 million hole left from temporary federal funds that expires next year, give teachers a 1.8 percent pay increase and spreads a few more dollars to community colleges and universities.

Unless legislators agree to the sales tax increase, and there’s no chance they will, they will have to cut the budget more, not spend more. The stage is set for November's election games.

One curious thing both the governor and legislators agree on is a cap on gas taxes. No doubt this is a populist position but it creates even more of a transportation crisis than we currently have. Yes, our gas taxes are among the highest in the nation, but North Carolina depends on these taxes to build and maintain roads, so putting a cap on them just limits the amount we have to spend for already congested, inadequate roads. Someone, some time is going to have to address our growing problems with transportation.

The big problem Perdue has is that she is the lame duck in the contest.