With apologies to the Daily News, the arrogance the Mecklenburg County Commission displayed last night in passing a bloated $1.24 billion budget is stunning. Anyone one who does not like paying ever higher chunks of their income to the county can either sit back and take it or move away. That is the message coming from chairman Parks Helms and fellow Democrats.

Norman Mitchell declared all the new spending buys Mecklenburg a higher quality of life. This is news to many residents, but is still the spin of the day for a budget that doles out public assistance spending to one out of seven county residents. If you do not like that, Commissioner Mitchell invites you to leave.

“You can be sure that as soon as you leave, there will be someone there to take your place,” he says.

Which is the tax-hiking majority on the commission’s way of saying there is a sucker born every minute.