Raise taxes on the rich, Bev
Our state and our nation are heading over the falls. Faced with a stagnant economy, we are paddling toward the cost-cutting edge, ripping services to the barest of bones. Almost no one disputes the need to trim, the only question is how far to go. Discussions I'm hearing, however, involve only one side of the balance sheet. And just to say it, a chief executive taking that approach would be laughed out of any corporate boardroom in the world. Excellence requires sustained investment. Investment requires capital. It's time to raise some.
Start by dialing up the share of lottery proceeds going into schools, maybe even doubling it. A one year plan, just to see what happens.
In addition, create a new top tier state income tax bracket for every category of filing status. The bracket should have higher rates than the current top tier. Propose restricting receipts to funding for education. Make this policy change for one year only, with a requirement that it expire on a date certain.
Here's the starting point. If you can't manage an overhaul, just move all those 7.75% figures to 8.00%. Easy peasy.
3. Put in place a monitoring team for tracking the implementation costs, economic impacts, and risks for North Carolina, as well as keeping an eye on what other states are doing.
__________________________________
In competition with other states, North Carolina's strong suits have been public education, quality of life, and natural environment, with a thread of innovation (First in Flight, RTP, etc.) woven in. We have not raced to the bottom, the whole world knows this.
I believe those strengths deserve investment and protection.
I believe people in North Carolina and throughout America would see our state as a stronger, more innovative leader if our Governor proposed raising taxes to support such investments. Whether the General Assembly approves the recommendations is not the point. The Governor would be taking a stand that would enhance our state's reputation worldwide.
"It's irresponsible to be looking at one side of the balance sheet," said Governor Perdue in presenting her budget proposal. "We've found a way to sustain our investments in education by asking the wealthiest in North Carolina to contribute a little bit more. It's a one year plan, an experiment. And we'll know soon enough if our projections are right.
"And just to be clear, I do mean asking. We're not forcing anyone to do anything. A rich person can say, 'I've had enough,' and move to another state. I hope that doesn't happen and I honestly don't think it will. North Carolina has so much to offer as a state. Everybody, rich and poor alike, understand this. We must protect our strengths.
"If my plan to ask the richest North Carolinian to pay a bit more in taxes doesn't work, well, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I stood for what I believe is fair and right."
I'm no tax expert, and I don't even play one on television. So there's a chance this little thought experiment has some fatal economic flaws. It could have political flaws too. Lord knows, my track record in getting elected pretty much sucks.
Tagged:
BlueNC is dedicated to freedom and fairness for the people of North Carolina. If you share that vision, welcome. If your intention is to disrupt our efforts, please find somewhere else to express your opinions.
Like?
User login
Log in with Facebook
NC blogs
Applied Rationality
BackwardNC
Dumbed Down Politicos
Exile on Jones Street
Indy Week
Marginalia
Orange Politics
Pam's House Blend
Progressive Pulse
ProgressNC
The Paulatics
PoliticsNC
Public Policy Polling
QNotes
Scrutiny Hooligans
Talking About Politics
Thurman's Soapbox
Turn NC Blue
Watauga Watch
Facing South
Comments
Another cut at the case
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
I spoke with
Some folks whom I believe to be close to the Governor yesterday, and to put it simply or as you say "easy peasy" but I do not think you are going to like where this is headed because the while I do not have details, the Governor is more likely than not to cut taxes, if there to be moved at all.
I know you're right
I've heard the same. If that's what she does, it'll be just one more nail in her crowded coffin.
Why does anyone think we need to cut revenue when we have a
...revenue shortfall?
If you are in office in Raleigh -- at the state level where you can't print money and you have to balance your budget -- why in Hera's name would you CUT revenue when you have a revenue SHORTFALL?
Will someone explain this?
There is no stimulative impact to this cutting-revenue-when-you-have-a-revenue-shortfall theory.
At the federal level where you can run deficits and print money, you can MAYBE have this debate.
But it is absolutely absurd to even have this discussion at the state level.
Of course, Richard Burr thinks
you can protect North Carolina's beauty without taxpayers having to spend a penny.
More Burr incompetence on display here
No big surprise
that Burr supports the idea of a "tradeoff" that forces conservationists to accept offshore drilling as a part of their funding formula. Dripping with oil, he is.
Class warfare, circa 2011
You screw with people long enough, they strike back.
The incompetence in government is so massive
that I just can't stomach supporting a tax increase. We voted a sales tax increase here to save our libraries and some other services. Still, because the state legislature won't act sanely and revise legislation requiring all traffic ticket revenues to go to the schools, tax payers here pay an additional $700,000+ yearly to provide on-going support and maintenance for a camera ticketing system that can't be paid for from the fines levied. So, every time somebody here get a camera-ticket, I pay more tax. How's that for stupid?
The New Hanover County Commissioners offered Titan Cement $2.5 million of our money to come here and pollute our air and water and destroy our wetland. Another Stupid...and they hid their decision from the County Bd of Health as well as the citizenry...wonder why.
The City of Wilmington just had to have a convention center. Couldn't get anyone to build an adjoining hotel. Private equity figured it was too risky. They built it anyway. Taxpayers are on the hook.
The ABC...a state agency...lets a local ABC manager pay himself $300K+ a year and his stock-clerk son $140K+ a year. Then...after finding all kinds of ethical lapses, allowed them both to retire...again at taxpayer expense. The senior Mr. Williams is getting over $100K/yr in retirement pay...based, of course, on his previously "earned" pay history.
I find myself on this as I am about the Obama compromise. I agree that it might be better to do what's needed to help middle class taxpayers and the unemployed than to have a political fight at this moment when it's so late in the game. On the other hand the future costs are unconscionable, and this fight could have been won if Obama had started earlier and garnered support from the public.
The schmucks in Raleigh have known all these problems for a long time and I'm tired of the constant answer being to dip into my pocket. 7% of everything over @$22k in AGI and 7.75% on an AGI of $100K or more is more than enough.
Government has some very legitimate and useful purposes to do for the public what the public cannot do well for themselves...or to make those things possible thru government support. Running liquor stores and building for-profit convention centers aren't among them. Running lotteries isn't either.
Stan Bozarth
I'm recommending restricting new funds
from the tax increase to avoid cuts in education, and I generally agree with you on so many of the other fronts.
I think of that as similar to directing Congress
not to spend the excess funds paid into Social Security and replace it with an IOU. Politicians are notoriously feckless, and when it comes to other people's money they're absolutely unreliable. Like I said...I'm tired of it.
A revolution is coming. I'd like to participate. I'm handy tying knots. Let's let the consequences of shitty government become apparent now and let the people revolt.
Stan Bozarth
Additionally...when Medicaid gets zapped
and all those folks whose granny is in the nursing home at taxpayer expense...how's that gonna work out? Letter to family: Sorry folks, the state has no more money and to keep granny here is $6000 / month plus extra for in-house doctor's visits, transportation, oxygen machine rental, and so on. So, send us a check or granny will be rolled out into the parking lot and put along side the curb. Do you suppose there are any Republicans in that group...still bitching about gazillionaires having to pay even their fair share of tax to the feds (15% max on capital gains) ? Nah, everybody in need is a Democrat...lazy, shiftless, bed-wetting liberal.
I can't wait for these people to get out their pitchforks and molotov cocktails and visit some of our politicos. Better now than later.
Can you tell I'm really pissed?
Stan Bozarth
Do you consider maintaining existing tax rates
... a tax increase?
Specifically continuing the existing $.01 sales tax and the existing surtax on high incomes for another biennium.
I'm not up to speed on this...
direct me to the info and I'll tell you.
Stan Bozarth
Here's a link that's making the rounds
Check out the 2 items on the chart on the second page here.
But my general question is:
Is the continuation of existing tax rates a tax increase?
How can maintaining the status quo be defined as somehow increasing the status quo?
OK...I read it
and I guess I had forgotten about the "temporary" tax increases set to expire in 2011.
Yours is a philosophical question. Sorta like if a tree falls in the forest and there's no one there to hear it, did it make a sound?
The answer is: Yes and No.
All I can say is...these taxes were enacted for a specific period for specific "reasons." Those taxes will expire. To reinstitute them would be an increase to the previously committed sales tax and income tax rates expected in 2011. They would not be an increase over 2010.
Is there a reason for your question?
I'll just reiterate that I'm opposed. My daughter works for the Superior Court in another state. She has been mandatorily furloughed 1 day a week without pay for awhile. She's making do....and so is the Court. It's better than being fired or the state going broke. I believe there are things the state can cut. No new roads. No new cars. No money to UNC to pay tuitions for recruited out of state athletes. Tighten legislator per diem pay rules. No state vehicles for personal use. Sell the liquor stores and start getting property taxes and eliminate future pension liabilities. No out of country travel. Just to name a few...
Stan Bozarth
We could make all those cuts and more
But they won't make much of a dent in the shortfall.
Well, James, there are 100 counties and maybe 20 ABC stores per
county. So 100 X 20 = 2000 stores...sold at $1,000,000 apiece (that was just the physical construction cost for several here) that's $2 Billion...and a huge cut in payroll and retirement and health care costs...all shifted to the private sector who will then actually pay taxes on their earnings and real estate. (I tried to find a count and couldn't)
I'd say that's a pretty big deal. Just sayin....not to be contrary.
Stan Bozarth
Contrary is good
but this isn't a solution. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done, in fact, I'm in favor of privatizing vice (gambling, liquor, betting, etc.) and getting the government out of those businesses.
But the budget shortfall is an annual affair, not a one-time problem to be solved by selling assets.
No economist I've heard from believes that 2012 will be substantially different from 2011 in terms of unemployment and wages. We're entering a completely restructured environment where productivity improvement in the private sector have permanently obviated the need for the same levels of employment we had, say, five years ago. Those jobs aren't coming back, not here in the U.S.
Or said more accurately, if they do come back, they will come back with wage levels comparable to Mexico or China. This is the right-wing's wet dream ... and I give it strong odds of happening. But it won't resurrect the economy, not even close.
The result will be more people in need of more services with fewer dollars to pay for them. That's another Republican wet dream - the good old death spiral. Cut the heart out of public education, for example, by firing teachers and over-crowding classrooms. When schools then fail to perform up to snuff, the case can be easily made that government run education sucks and should be dismantled even further.
That's the path we're on, the race to the free-market bottom, where public schools are like Art Pope's Dollar Stores, full of poor students and marginal teachers, delivering shitty services that make them indefensible.
I stand for excellence in government. I think we should be paying more for the best talent we can get, while dumping shoddy performers in every function. We suck on both of those fronts.
James, I agree this is not a solution.
I also agree many things have changed from even just a few years ago. Some things were already in transition and some changes are emerging as does new technology.
I have zero experience in government. But, like you I've done lot of other things that give me some expertise.
Here's my bottom line: The things I mentioned above are band-aids with some on-going value. Certainly not anywhere near enough to fix the problem as stated. If we want to fix something we have to know what's broken.
Lets talk about education: Beyond the seeming gov't preoccupation with where children go to school rather than what they're taught and how well they understand it, some fundamental changes are in order...economically and educationally. I can't write all the words needed to explain but:
We need to focus on the essentials of teaching kids what they need to know to function in America and the world. They need to be able to read, write, spell, add, subract, multiply and divide, make change, and have a basic understanding of geometry, geography, and government....with reasonable doses of history that explain who we and other peoples are, and how we got to where we are. An intro to chemistry, physics and electricity, thermodynamics (gas laws), weather, and how to balance a check book, and basic biology and human health and fundamentals of reproduction. That ought to be accomplishable by the end of the 10th grade. Parents ought to be involved in making sure these things happen.
We need to stop building multi-Million$ basketball gyms and football stadiums at high schools.
At the end of the 10th grade students ought to be given an opportunity to continue their education and take advanced academic topics (Trig, algebra, physics, chemsitry, computer science, advanced biology/medicine, whatever..) or an option to enter some functional occupational training...and get some hands-on experience in say...carpentry, plumbing, electrical, solar energy, etc..
Either way, they should be required to maintain a C average or be cut loose to make their way. And if they don't want either option...do not force them to stay in school.
Those who excel will likely go on to colleges or other higher learning institutions. We do not need to care whether or not they get a football scholarship.
Organized athletics could be done by "little league" organizations with the parents helping with uniform/equipment expenses...and so on.
My ideas likely will gore someone's ox. They're just ideas. But we've got to focus on what is important and do an outstanding job...and stop making schools be babysitters for parents whose kids would prefer not to be there...or who want to be there only for the social aspect.
Costs would be equal or lower, results would be more useful and probably better, and the students would actually leave with skills they can use and must have.
Now...is this or some better idea going to happen? Perhaps only if we force it financially. I say demand change concurrent with tax increases. How else do we get anything?
Stan Bozarth
The reason: There's a difference in $3.7 and $2.4 billion
Cutting the state's budget by $2.4 billion will cause less harm to people than cutting it by $3.7 billion.
Keeping those temporary taxes for another biennium is one way to mitigate the harm that inevitable cuts are going to cause.
We've had this tax structure for one biennium. Since neither the Democrats or the GOP is showing any appetite to update the tax code, and since our business climate still ranks highly with these taxes that have been on the books for a biennium, why change it now?
Even the corporate-centered folks at Kiplinger don't expect the economy to turn around in any significant way next year.
Look at the chart again. After two cycles of state budget cuts -- it's down to levels of the 1990s -- wouldn't you prefer to cut only $2.4 billion instead of $3.7 billion?
OK, usernamehere, I'll go with that.
I 'll support keeping those taxes another two years. Not that my opinion matters, but you make a good point. And yes, both will hit me.
Stan Bozarth
What is the advice to
What is the advice to Dumplin' from Marc and Joe? That is the real question. Marc and Joe have never let us down yet so I feel confident they will save the day.........or at least an hour or two.