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  • From: "Common Sense Foundation" <david@common-sense.org>
  • To: <common-sense@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Consider This: Controversial Budget
  • Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:47:16 -0400

Consider This...


CONTROVERSIAL BUDGET


The theme of the 2004 short session in the N.C. House was that nothing
"controversial" would be heard. That misguided guiding principle kept
the House from even debating the execution moratorium bill, for example.

But somehow the budget was passed. It's a shame that that wasn't more
"controversial" than it was.

Many advocates were relieved to see a state budget that featured cuts
that weren't as bad as might have been expected. But the expectations
game can't mean much to 25,000 families on the waiting list for the
child-care subsidies they need so they can work, or to the 23,000
children frozen out of the Health Choice program and thereby denied
adequate access to decent health care.

With all the work that some legislative leaders and advocates put into
the budget, it's even more disappointing that no significant corporate
loopholes were addressed, and that no new revenue sources were even
debated.

It should be controversial when $27 million is cut from the budgets of
North Carolina's schools. Fat-trimming has been popular for years in
Raleigh, but now no one even pretends anymore to "hold classrooms
harmless." Everyone knows that education budget cuts hurt children, but
it seems controversial only to complain about it.

The budget isn't all bad; some programs, particularly in health and
human services, received small funding increases. And educational
programs championed by Governor Mike Easley fared fairly well.

A growing chorus of unmet needs is ever louder, though. In times of huge
budget surpluses, we got tax cuts. In times of huge budget shortfalls,
we got spending cuts.

When will state government step up to the plate and provide an adequate
safety net? If not now, it isn't clear when. And that should be the most
controversial fact about the 2004 short session.


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  • Consider This: Controversial Budget, Common Sense Foundation, 07/27/2004

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