Life Under the Tea Party

[gwb-trading]

Just go to WRAL.com (our local Raleigh news station) and look at the NC politics articles over the past year.

We have a Republican-majority legislature in both the state House and the state Senate. Our governor, Pat McCrory, is a Republican who ran as a moderate (yes, I voted for him - sigh)... but he turned hard-right after the election. This crowd has cited "what a great job Brownback is doing in Kansas" and attempt to emulate him.

Since elected this crowd has basically cut taxes for the top 10% of the population while taxing the bottom 90% more heavily, cut social services / unemployment / education / etc. to the bone. Removed teacher tenure (tenure is not what you think, it merely means that a K-12 teacher can appeal their firing if they were fired for political purposes, it does not protect against being fired for low performance. "Tenure" was put in place in our state to stop teachers from being hired/fired for political patronage.). Since their actions and despite their promises that lowering taxes would greatly increase state revenue, the state revenue has sunk and now is at a $455M shortfall from projections (can these people not do basic math?). Despite their promises that privatizing state services to companies of their friends would save money - the spending on these programs have increased greatly. Despite their promises to fix the state IT problems, they have gotten tremendously worse (the ACA website looks like a brilliant success compared to our state IT mess). Despite their commitment to not interfere with local government, they have passed all sorts of laws restricting the rights of property owners and local government (to support big business such as fracking).

Despite their commitment to not focus on social issues, they spend an inordinate amount of time removing abortion rights, smacking-down gays, and trying to stop evolution from being taught in schools. Despite their promises to be transparent they have hired hundreds their donors as state government consultants at $300 to $500 per hour rates. Somehow in just two years they have managed to steal more than the Democrats were able to over the past 20 (is this the new definition of efficient state government?). Don't even get me started on how McCrory's former employer Duke Energy has been dumping coal ash in all our rivers and getting a slap on the wrist for it.

Standard old-style Republicans (like me) who simply want efficient use of our tax dollars, while understanding & supporting the need for public education (who wants to live in a state with an bunch of dummies), seeing the need for a short-term social net, and wanting a proper business environment - are all appalled at this mess.

Who would have thought what should have been a turning point in our state's history when the crooked Democrats were kicked out of power in 2012 after 100 years - would have turned into a complete disaster in a mere two years with the approval ratings for the state legislature reaching record lows of 18% in our state.

Sadly, when voting... we simply are stuck now with choosing between the worse of two evils.

An article with some good background - How North Carolina Turned So Red So Fast
http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-north-carolina-southern-progressivism.html

Of course, the budget gap in our state just keeps getting bigger as the projections for the amount of income tax is being collected with the new "lower" tax rates continues to sink like the Titanic.

State tax cut costs ballooning
http://www.wral.com/state-tax-cut-costs-ballooning/13841265/

New figures from legislative analysts confirm the 2013 cut to individual income tax rates is costing the state far more than originally projected.

Last year, Republican leaders authored a plan to cut income taxes from a three-tiered marginal system of 6 percent, 7 percent and 7.75 percent to a flat rate of 5.8 percent for 2014 tax year.

According to a memo Thursday from legislative analyst Brian Slivka and chief economist Barry Boardman, the updated cost of the tax cut is $680 million for the current tax year.

That's $205 million, or 43 percent, higher than the original projection of $475 million.

The cost for the 2015 tax year is also projected to be $200 million higher than original estimates – $890 million rather than $690 million. Additional tax cuts are set to take effect Jan. 1.

In the memo, Boardman and Slivka explain that the revision is due to the fact that North Carolina wages have not grown as quickly as projected last year.

(more at above url)

When your entire projection of the total amount of state taxes that will be collected is based on the premise that everyone's income in state will go up by a minimum of 50% in a two year period due to your "enlightened" economic leadership..... then it is likely you totally suck at math and there is not a big enough FAIL stamp to describe your lack of understanding about basic economics.