Outrage Over Budget Easy

Outrage over budget easy; solutions hard

There are some things that are popular and easy to do. Say you love babies. Say you love America. Say you like apple pie.

And say you hate taxes.

It’s not exactly a courageous position. Everyone hates taxes, and no one wants to see them increased. It’s like mounting a soapbox and declaring the sky is blue.

The John Locke Foundation, a generally sensible group, is currently on its soapbox. The Foundation has been holding “Tar Heel Tea Parties” around the state decrying any possibility of a tax increase despite the state’s current budget crisis. Other groups, like Citizens for a Sound Economy, have also been weighing in on taxes.

(They’re against them).

Now, we don’t exactly have a lot of wiggle room to be throwing stones here; this newspaper is becoming increasingly cool to any form of a tax increase.

However, we do tend to acknowledge reality. The reality is this state is in a budgetary spiral that may — may — require some kind of a tax hike.

Further, it’s hard to reconcile what the anti-tax crowd is after. Most of the protests seem to center on the argument that the state should cut spending, not raise taxes.

That’s fine. And in fact, Gov. Mike Easley (who is taking a real pounding on the budget) has already requested budget cuts of state agencies averaging 7 percent in an effort to close a $1 billion budget gap. Many of the cuts involve leaving open job positions unfilled, cutting fringe benefits, travel and the like. Other cuts, like at the Department of Cultural Resources, are beginning to yield results like shorter hours and smaller staffs, not to mention the elimination of 142 temporary jobs at some 142 sites sprinkled across the Tar Heel state. Still other cuts are more ominous, such as the Department of Health and Human Services’s cancellation of $10 million worth of contracts to non-profit groups providing services to the mentally ill, the disabled and low-income children.

Cuts are being made, and there’s little doubt some of those cuts are painless and needed. For that we salute groups like the Locke Foundation. But we think the current strategy of railing for “no new tax” pledges could paint some good politicians into an unenviable corner by limiting their options to deal with fiscal crises.

If there’s any doubt such a pledge could backfire, just look to the “read my lips” pledge that torpedoed a second term for President George H.W. Bush.

A lean, efficient and fair state budget is what North Carolina taxpayers should expect. In the same spirit of fairness, it should be pointed out the tax curve in this state doesn’t always point skyward; in 1996, for example, a host of tax reductions, from a corporate tax slash to a cut in the sales tax on food, were OK’d at a projected cost of around $800 million over five years.

Needless to say, such projections don’t always pan out. And while we are firm believers in holding politician’s feet to the fire if warranted, the anti-tax pledge fever doesn’t strike us as the best policy.

Instead, a real discussion as to what services we really want to pay for might be more instructive. Would the same protester wearing a Santa Claus suit and sporting a sign reading “The Liberals Have Promised a Better Christmas Than I Can” during a recent protest in Raleigh be singing the same tune if, say, state finances got so bad the Highway Patrol were idled? If his kindergarten-aged child were forced into a classroom with 60 kids and one teacher?

Probably not.

Groups like the John Locke Foundation and Citizens for a Sound Economy are valuable voices in budgetary debates.

That energy might be better spent looking at hard choices and priorities as opposed to grandstanding.

Frugality is a virtue; painting oneself into a corner is not.