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BIG CITY: Government in denial

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Staff

By Kirk Ross

Having recently followed yet another epic budget debate in the North Carolina General Assembly, let me assure you that you are not alone if some of what you might have heard transpired has left you scratching your head. There is, indeed, a lot going on. And a bunch of it doesn’t make sense, no matter how hard you look at it.

The amount of flux in the state budget seems to be at an all-time high, with almost all of the change focused on the spending side of the equation. One feature of the short session’s budget adjustment that heightened the uncertainty was a shift in the designation of funding for scores of programs from recurring to non-recurring or one-time. That means that long-running, effective programs like the state’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund, already hard hit by budget cuts, will have to go hat in hand each legislative cycle to get any funding at all. That is a terribly inefficient way to run a government and one of dozens of examples of the law of unintended consequences poised to wreak havoc. You can’t just knock the legs out from under something like, say, one of the main ways the state improves water quality without seeing a serious downside.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the balance sheet, GOP leaders are so determined to buck any attempt to raise revenues or even amend the tax code in a way not strictly revenue neutral that they’ve boxed themselves into a corner. (Somehow fee hikes and tuition increases don’t figure in to the anti-tax rhetoric, yet they are every bit as much a hit on the wallet.) For a group that likes to compare family budgets to state budgets, they sure don’t get the idea that you can’t always cut your way out of a jam. Sometimes you need more income.

Like every year, the budget is about tradeoffs.

The afternoon and evening budget debate that took place last Wednesday night featured a cascade of amendments that underline some of the tradeoffs we’re making.

The budget bill had some language tucked away in it that offered a break to corporations that want to donate scholarships to private schools, an unvetted piece of legislation that went straight to the head of the class. It was essentially a big payout by the taxpayers to private schools and their corporate supporters, and it never got a committee hearing.

Balance that with several amendments to preserve programs and institutions throughout the state that were shot down along mostly party lines. The programs on the chopping block were small relative to the overall size of the budget, but made a big difference in their respective locales. Each time they came up, the majority pulled out its pockets, said there’s just nothing left and called the question.

In the middle of it all they stopped for a special reception held just across Jones Street at the new museum. After some crab cakes and chardonnay they got back to picking the budget winners and losers.

What lost out were the kinds of things that pay off in the long run – services to help the elderly stay in their homes, to feed hungry children, to battle drug addiction and so on. Setting aside the future for short-term gains is one of the realities of the budget process, but this year it was taken to astounding levels. There was also plenty of politics behind the numbers and the special provisions. The state is shutting down a juvenile facility it spent millions to build and open in 2008 in order to keep open an antiquated one in the district of a member of the House leadership.

You can certainly complain that much of what is going on in Raleigh is the result of ideology, but don’t count out petty politics, provincial infighting and just plain boneheadedness as major factors.

There are times when it appears that the people drafting these pieces of legislation seem to know what they’re doing and other times when they don’t.

Not sure what scares me most.

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