It might look like we timed things this way ? oh, heck, let?s just claim that we did and look brilliant.
The North Carolina House is currently fashioning its 2004-05 budget plan, for a vote possibly late this week or early next week. It reportedly will include about $180 million more in budget savings than Gov. Mike Easley recommended, including nearly $100 million in health and human-services programs (these will still grow, I hasten to point out, just not as rapidly as the governor proposed).
It just so happens that here in the Locker Room today will be the debut of a new regular feature, ?Raising the Issue,? in which debaters from the John Locke Foundation, the North Carolina Justice Center, and other North Carolina policy groups will clash on key state issues. Today?s opening salvo (scroll down) happens to be on the issue of saving taxpayer money in HHS: ?Are North Carolina?s health and human services programs the right place to find significant savings to balance the state budget??
I?ll be debating this issue for three hours this afternoon with Rob Schofield, policy director for the NC Justice Center. The real-time debate begins here in the Locker Room at 2 pm. For those of you who have become addicted either to posting or reading a wide variety of Locker Room material, don?t fret. We?ll return to regular programming at 5 pm. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy ?Raising the Issue.? Rob and I will have some fun as we joust, but we are also going to be discussing an important issue and providing lots of links to additional reading material if you?d like to follow up on key points.
