justing's blog

On Tuesday, Governor Perdue presented the General Assembly with a pathway to balanced budget. The pathway calls for raising the revenue necessary to protect public schools and other core services in health and public safety. Combined with $3.8 billion in cuts, the pathway modernizes the state tax code in a way that is fair to working families.

You can read the plan here.

The fiscal year has already begun. Local governments, schools and service providers are in limbo regarding what resources will be available for the coming year. The General Assembly must work quickly to pass a budget.

So we need your help. Contact your legislator. Tell them to pass a budget that raises the revenue necessary to protect public schools and core services.

In an email yesterday Governor Perdue said:

We cannot allow this recession to devastate our children’s education and our state’s future, and I hope you will join me as we continue to take that message to the General Assembly.

Join Gov. Perdue to protect our state's future. The legislature is debating these issue right now. We need your emails and phone calls to tip the scales.

Gov. Perdue just sent this message out to her email list:

For more than a year North Carolina, along with many states, has felt the impact of the national recession, which many of you have already experienced first-hand.

In that time, our state’s unemployment rate has almost doubled and now stands at 11.1 percent — 7th highest in the nation. Just as North Carolina’s families have been hurt by the recession, so has our state’s budget.

The General Assembly is working to finalize a budget that, because of a decrease in revenues, has a $4.7 billion shortfall for the 2009-10 fiscal year and even more next year. It is one of the largest shortfalls in the country, and it is the largest in North Carolina’s history.

On Friday afternoon we sent out the latest newsletter from the Office of Governor Bev Perdue.  Hopefully you all are on our email list already, but if not, I have reproduced the newsletter below.  It details all the key moments from Governor Perdue’s busy first week.

Email communication is going to play a key role in the Perdue Administration, and I want to encourage everyone to sign up for the email list.  You can do that by clicking here.

You can help us by forwarding the newsletters to friends or directing them to this post right here.  We appreciate the help!  Working together along with tools like our website, our eTownhall, social networking, and North Carolina's blog network we are going to create a vibrant back-and-forth dialogue between citizens and state government.

Pat McCrory’s campaign just doesn’t get it. The Solid Waste Management Act of 2007, which McCrory said he would have vetoed, was about stopping huge regional landfills that would import trash from up and down the east coast. All the newspaper articles, editorials, and even the bill’s sponsors say that’s what the bill was about. When McCrory told the N&O that he would have vetoed the bill, he named “jobs” and the “economy” as reasons, specifically.

In the middle of the night, last night, McCroryManager (aka Richard Hudson, McCrory’s actual campaign manager) was busy posting away in the comments on the Winston-Salem Journal’s website. The Journal had written an article about Perdue’s stance against these huge landfills and the need for better economic development than 270ft high piles of trash. You can read Hudson’s comments here: http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/oct/25/perdue-trash-jobs-wont-help/

But even the Winston-Salem Journal itself, was for the Solid Waste Management Act, opining that it “will likely keep the rest of the East Coast states from using North Carolina as a dumping ground.”

Maybe you’ve seen our campaign’s ad about McCrory wanting to turn North Carolina into the garbage capital of the East Coast. Pat’s already trying to spin his way out of the issue, so I wanted to make sure you all were reminded about the background behind this important issue.

The Issue:

Pat McCrory was asked what bills he would have vetoed. He said he would have opposed the Solid Waste Management Act of 2007:

“House Bill 1492, Solid Waste Management Act of 2007: I would have vetoed this bill for several reasons including the fact that it cost North Carolinians jobs, hurt our economy and raised taxes.” [News and Observer, 8/31/08]

The Background:

The Solid Waste Management Act of 2007 was an important piece of legislation that protected North Carolina’s economy and environment by keeping out mega landfills that would approach 300 ft. high – taller than the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

Perhaps you read Rob Christensen and the News & Observer's front page hit job on Bev Perdue this morning. The article "Dole, Perdue content to avoid debates" is terribly misleading. If Bev were trying to avoid debates, then she's doing a really bad job at it. She's agreed to 5 televised debates. Five.

Sure the criticism is warranted for Elizabeth Dole. She's participated in just one debate – in June! But Bev has another debate scheduled for next week with McCrory and Munger.

Five debates is 2 more than McCain and Obama and one more debate than the last three gubernatorial general elections COMBINED. That's right – in 1996 there was 1 debate, in 2000 there were 2 and in 2004 there was 1.

In last night’s debate, I’m sure you noticed Bev held Pat McCrory accountable for his outrageous opposition to requiring insurance companies to cover basic health care needs. Read more here.

On his 2008 NFIB questionnaire, McCrory checked “oppose” to the question “B2. Mandating insurance coverage of certain specific benefits by employers?” McCrory did not elaborate his answer as he did for other questions.

So basically, Pat McCrory doesn’t want mandates to cover some of the most basic health care procedures – siding with insurance companies over the health of North Carolina’s citizens.

These mandates cover procedures like mammograms and prostate screens, and guarantee coverage for emergency care among other things.

Adam Searing over at Progressive Pulse wrote about this specific topic months ago: Bring Back the ‘Drive-Through Delivery'

We can’t let Pat McCrory get his hands on the state’s health care system – he’s too dangerous.

When Bev Perdue announced that she was stopping the negative ads and was going to run a positive campaign, she reserved the right to defend herself against misleading attacks. That's what this ad is about. Setting the record straight in a manner that deals with the issues not tearing down the other candidate.

Of course y’all remember when Bev announced last week that she was going to stop the negative ads and run a positive campaign. Since then the campaign has been overwhelmed with positive emails from voters impressed that a candidate is eschewing the traditional negative campaign in favor of a campaign that focuses on the issues that matter most. Click here to read a sampling.

That reaction is quite different than what the pundits, media and the Moore campaign have had to say – one said it was “political suicide” and another said “political graveyards are filled with the bones of candidates who refused to fight back.” If you want to help prove the pundits wrong, and send the message that voters are more interested in a candidate who will build North Carolina up rather than tear the other candidate down, then we need your help, because Primary Day is only 18 days away.

What can you do to help Bev Perdue?