State Treasurer Richard Moore and other candidates for governor attacked one of Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue’s relatively good ideas. Perdue has suggested taking the idea of BRAC – combining a number of small cuts into a big package that the legislature can only vote up or down with no amendments – and applying it to the state budget. I complimented the idea in op-eds and policy reports, but said that efficiency is too narrow a measure. Similar ideas have been proposed at the federal level.

Perdue has the better of this argument, a combined package of measures is the only way legislators can say “no” to special interest groups and lobbyists. If it were easier, the budget would not have grown 20 percent in the past two years or be at $20.7 billion today.