Thom Tillis is exactly correct to highlight the absurdity of the General Assembly actually considering a surcharge on income taxes. But absurd as it is policymakers in this state have no other choice.
Note by “no other choice” I do not mean it is impossible for the state of North Carolina to deliver essential services without an additional billion dollars in tax revenue. This is very possible. Just not for the the group currently in power, given our current unreformed and unresponsive state bureaucracy. During the past five years what little control there was of state spending evaporated leaving only the expectation — the need — for ever-greater sacks of revenue.
The state power structure wants — demands — to spend $20b. this year. How it arrives at that number, however absurd, is quite irrelevant. This is why it is simply pointless to talk about the state’s competitiveness or long-term economic outlook with an onerous tax burden as those making the spending the decisions do not care. They want $20 billion. Now. And next year they will want $21 billion and will raise taxes by another billion if need be to get it.
And, no, voters will not vote them out of office. They can’t. Oh, sure there are a handful of “competitive” — ie, not fraudulent — districts, but not enough to derail the core direction of current state policy. As is always the case in a Banana Republic, change does not come by playing by the plutocrats’ rules.
