Baffled as to why this AP dispatch isn’t bigger news.

GOP state Senate honcho Phil Berger is actually floating the idea that businesses might have to pay higher unemployment taxes because the state of North Carolina is dead broke and owes the feds $2.6b. for benefits the state didn’t not have the money to pay out — but did anyway. Follow that?

To fight unemployment, you’d tax jobs?

More basically, two wrongs make a right? How about telling the feds to go pound sand. Point to the millions in unfunded mandates the state catches and call that repayment of the trust fund loans. Anything but actually raising employment taxes in the face of a jobs deficit that has scarcely budged since the recession started.

I’ve got to believe that Mecklenburgers Bob Rucho and Thom Tillis are much too smart to follow Berger’s lead — or just have enough self-preservation instincts to run away from a terribly bad idea whose time will never come. Besides, almost two years ago it was clear the trust fund was in serious trouble — and only $470m. had been borrowed from the feds. You mean nothing has changed with Republican control of the General Assembly?

Bonus Doh: Think state entitlements are bad? Check out the federal situation. The US is on track to go broke in 2025.