Sen. Phil Berger

In Sunday's News and Record, David Noer takes aim and shoots holes in the NC GOTP agenda. Definitely worth a read, great peice.David Noer: Politicians and businesses use ‘jobs’ recklessly
2013-02-11T03:00:00 Monday, February 11, 2013
Updated 03:00AM

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Trying to use fear of personal information gathering to gather personal information:

As for the claim that the law will require the government to turn over health records to the IRS, Hall said that is simply not true. Berger’s intention for the petition remains unclear. But often online petitions serve a distinct political purpose. Berger has been mentioned as a potential challenger to U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan, D-Greensboro, in 2014.“Sen. Berger is running for first shot at the primary against Kay Hagan,” said Don Taylor, a health policy expert and Duke University professor, to explain the petition.

I never thought anyone could compete with Dick Burr's "Say Anything, Do Nothing" record in the U.S. Senate, but Phil Berger has potential. And as far as truth in advertising is concerned:

Phil Berger has completely lost his grip on reality, there's never been any question that he lost his grasp of the truth a long time ago.

Ah, but now Philly is taking his prevarications to new heights.

Berger's office is now circulating a petition to drum up support for his disastrous plan to block the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA, the establishment of a state exchange, and bring healthcare to 500,000 low income citizens of NC.

Berger was called out in the News and Observer today for the claim in his petition that "the gubment will be turning over medical records to the IRS". This is some of Berger's purist bovine scatology, double distilled through a special tea bag.

Here's some real truths for you Phil my boy.
Berger represents Rockingham County and lives in Eden.

1.Unemployment for Rockingham County, 10.6%
2.Poverty rates for Rockingham County 16.3% under 18, and 15.5% for those 65 and older.

Maybe if these Alzheimer's victims joined ALEC they'd get more sympathy:

"I think it's very time-sensitive," Rep. Nelson Dollar, one of the bill's sponsors, said Wednesday – one day before the money Perdue provided can no longer be accessed..."It's an issue that we'll deal with as we go forward," Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger said. "I just don't know that what you're dealing with at this point is the kind of problem and scope of problem that seems to be described by some folks."

While Berger's reticence may be confusing to some, any farmer can tell you what's going on. It's called a pecking order, and it appears Phil Berger is using the mentally ill to teach a lesson to his House colleagues- "I'll decide what's a priority around here, not you."

Just a few reasons why a consumption tax is a bad idea:

Berger said he’s looking to institute a consumption-based tax system that includes more services subject to sales tax. While he was not forthcoming with specifics, we could see prescription drugs and doctor’s visits, higher fees for court and government services, higher fees on driver’s licenses and vehicle registrations, a hefty hike in sales tax and probably two dozen other new or higher fees we can’t even imagine.

He also intends to re-impose the full state sales tax on groceries.

Which is exactly the opposite direction we need to go to address NC's growing poverty problem. Elections do have consequences, and it appears the poor are going to suffer those consequences more than anyone else.

The dismantling of public schools continues:

We began the long process of retooling our public education system, to make it more focused on delivering positive results for our children...We will never back down from the effort to reform our public schools. No child should be forced to attend a failing school.

We've discussed ALEC's "Parent Trigger" before, but the group actually has several different cookie-cutter bills designed to shift resources from public schools to private. The tone and choice of Berger's words led me to this one, a roadmap for declaring schools educationally bankrupt:

Leaving the federal government to create one for us:

The Senate didn’t act on the House bill, with leader Phil Berger deciding to wait to see how the U.S. Supreme Court would rule. Once the court upheld most of the act last month, Berger didn’t take it up in the final days of the legislative session. Now North Carolina is facing a deadline it cannot meet.

There's more to legislating than just stripping away funding for needed services and gutting regulations that protect citizens. You also have to build some things, instead of betting on a longshot horse and then burying your head in the sand when said horse goes lame.

Is this a real conflict, or merely good cop, bad cop:

Prospects looked bright in May after the House restored $3.3 million in funding in its budget, enough to start a new class of college freshmen on their way to education degrees and careers as teachers. But the Senate budget did not fund the program, and senators prevailed when the final 2012-13 supplementary budget emerged from the House-Senate conference committee.

Real conflict or not, if Republicans in the House think they'll get a pass because they "tried" to fund this (and eugenics compensation), they're sorely mistaken. They own this stupid move just as much as Senate Republicans do, and every time they mention "good teachers", somebody needs to call bullshit outloud.

NC GOP dictionary revision #74: more and less are now synonyms:

"Our level of state funding for K-12 education for FY12-13 will also be roughly $50 million higher than the Democrats’ K-12 budget for FY09-10."

But the graph is misleading in terms of the money that was actually available to schools. It ignores key pieces of the 2009-10 and 2010-11 budgets. Taking a more complete view, the budget proposed for 2012-13 is actually $330 million less than the one enacted in 2009-10.

Call it what you want, either "spinning" the numbers or a bald-faced lie. But when the GOP leadership feels the need to mislead on something as important as education funding, it means that deep down, they know they've taken a step that a majority of North Carolinians would oppose. If they learned the truth, that is.

Using the rules to sterilize needed legislation:

Senate Republicans say they will not vote on a plan to compensate eugenics victims because Senate Democrats included the payment plan in a failed budget amendment this week.

The House (including Speaker Tillis) must be fuming over this, after working hard to straighten out the kinks and assemble a super-majority (86-31). Especially considering that Berger could waive the damned rule anyway: