Governor Perdue's budget conundrum
Submitted by scharrison on Tue, 12/07/2010 - 3:03pm
Gary Pearce gets to the heart of the matter:
She could work with the Republicans to cut nearly $4 billion. The political goal there would be to show that she can get things done with the other party.
Or she could draw a line in the sand and fight. She could say that cutting $4 billion would cause too much damage to education and human services. She could propose extending the temporary sales tax – or even other tax increases – to make up part of the gap.
Whether it's a policy move with political ramifications or vice-versa, the budget proposal Governor Perdue submits to the Legislature should be a true representation of her vision for the state.
As far as the temporary sales tax is concerned, I would ask the Governor (and the Legislature) one glaringly obvious question: Economically speaking, what has changed that makes that sales tax no longer necessary? The answer is, absolutely nothing. In fact, we need it even more now than we did when it was enacted, don't we? Yes, we do.
The latter may never pass, of course. That’s not the point. The question is whether fighting on principle is better for her – and for the state – than going along with cuts she believes are too damaging.
Exactly. She needs to fight for what's right, and that may entail a protracted battle, forcing the Legislature to eventually override a veto. The idea of losing that battle may seem like a frightening prospect, but it's much more palatable than waving a white flag of acquiescence.
Her big test
Hoping against hope that she has more on the ball than Obama, who has lost both the economic and political high ground that his mad rush to accommodate Republicans.
That said, I'm expecting Perdue's budget to be a clusterfuck from the get-go, and it'll only get worse in Republican hands. I'll be shocked if she has the spine to stand for anything other than Grover Norquist 101.
Do good. Be nice. Have fun.
More on this from Chris
Fitzsimon over at NC Policywatch. I sure wish he or one of the other folks over there would cross-post that here. Good stuff.
My guess for what its worth
Is she is not going to touch a sales tax increase with a 39 1/2 foot poll. She will hand pick a very small and selective spending programs that are deemed important, and in all liklihood polled very popualar with the voting public and fight for them, and everyting else gets sacrificed. My adivce to all is find out which programs really matter to you and fight to see that they are in her selected few.