North Carolina state government is in a budget pickle, which has folks gnashing their teeth over the prospect of — shudder — actual cuts. But in today’s Daily Journal, Locke Foundation President John Hood points out that other states — namely our neighbors South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Florida — function just fine with governments that have substantially lower costs.
Writes Hood (emphasis is mine):
Some on the Left consider 8 to 10 percent reductions in state spending to be unconceivable. This reveals more about their own lack of perspective than it does about the fiscal realities of the moment. Over the past two decades, our state and local governments have taken on far more responsibilities than can be financed at current income and sales tax rates. There is essentially no political constituency, outside the ranks of special-interest lobbies and public employees, for big increases in those tax rates, given the precarious finances of so many private businesses and households.
In other words, there is no practical alternative to bringing state government’s costs into line with fiscal reality.
How can North Carolinians survive if their government ends up costing 90 percent of its previous total? Just ask the residents of South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Florida. All of them live in places where the cost of state and local government is at least 10 percent lower than in North Carolina. Many of them are struggling in the current recession, of course. But so are many North Carolinians – and many New Yorkers and Californians, where government costs a great deal more than in the Tar Heel State.
