Lt. Gov. Dan Forest is at it again, offering more bizarre and extreme positions on important issues facing North Carolina in yet an another appearance with a right-wing group, this time in an online conversation with Generation Opportunity, or GenOpp, a Koch brothers organization targeting millennials with the usual far-right messaging.
Forest was talking about higher education this time, not his recent ridiculous ideas about a constitutional convention or his call to resist clear and decisive federal court rulings about marriage equality.
But his extremism was on display nonetheless. Forest was asked by the GenOpp interviewer about rising tuition at colleges and universities and Forest said that the reason for the increases was clear, Pell grants and low-interest loans offered by the federal government.
Apparently helping low-income students afford a college education is making a college education more expensive.
That will come as news to the folks at the campuses of the UNC system who have been forced to raise tuition to make up for some of the massive budget cuts to the universities made by the Republican General Assembly to pay for the big tax cuts for the wealthy that Forest often praises.
It is a simple formula, big budget cuts to education, higher tuition for college students, and a $10,000 tax break for millionaires.
But remember it’s those grants and loans to poor kids that are the problem.
Speaking of the Robin Hood in reverse tax cuts, Forest also reminded listeners of a Greenville radio show recently that they don’t far enough for his liking.
His ultimate goal is not just reduce the personal and corporate income taxes, Forest said, but to abolish them entirely, which along with the elimination of the franchise tax the General Assembly has ended, would reduce state revenues by $12 billion a year.
The state budget is roughly $21 billion so Forest’s plan would cut state revenues by more than half.
Of course, he didn’t mention how he would make up for that lost revenue, but there are only two ways, higher sales taxes which fall disproportionately on low-income families or unprecedented budget cuts or some regressive combination of both.
Add it all up and it’s been quite a few weeks for Forest. Standing defiantly with the pro-discrimination forces, openly calling for a dangerous conference of states to rewrite the constitution, blaming loans for low-income students for rising tuition and calling for an end to all income taxes in the state which would slash the budget by $12 billion.
What’s next for Forest, co-founding a faith-based consumer organization that encourages shoppers not to spend money at stores that feature women in lingerie in their catalogs?
Oh wait, he’s already done that too.
McCrory puts the politics back in roads after taking the politics out of roads
A recent story in Business Week is probably not going over very well in Governor Pat McCrory’s office, but it raises an interesting point about McCrory’s boasting about taking the politics out of how road building decisions are made.
McCrory talked often on the campaign trail about getting the politics out of transportation decisions and his administration did come up with system that provided a numerical ranking for each project based on specific criteria.
Then a few months ago, McCrory came out with a proposal for a billion dollar transportation bond to fund a serious of highway projects, many of which came in near the bottom of the numerical ranking system.
McCrory’s office referred Business Week to the Department of Transportation for comment and a spokesman there said the projects in the bond and the numerical formula work together in the transportation plan.
In other words, the ranking system takes the politics out of road building and the bond issue projects put politics back in. So much for that campaign promise.
Public information not a trade secret
And finally, an item reported earlier this week on the Progressive Pulse by reporter Sarah Ovaska that bears repealing.
Charter school profiteer Baker Mitchell finally responded to the state’s demands that he obey the law and disclose the salaries of his company’s employees that work at the charter schools he operates in southeastern North Carolina.
It is public money after all and the employees are working at a public charter school.
Mitchell has long refused to release what it is clearly public information and this week he came with a novel idea. He would release the salary information to education officials but only if they would keep it private by considering it a trade secret.
With all due respect Mr. Mitchell, it is our money spent by a public school and we deserve to know where it is going.
It’s not that complicated—unless you have something to hide.
