The Duke Chronicle reports today on a study that concludes the U.S. child poverty rate is the highest it’s been in 20 years. I haven’t read the study so I won’t quibble with the statistic. However, I do refute a comment from researcher Kenneth Land. (emphasis is mine)
Land linked national poverty trends to Durham County’s own budget issues.
“After two years of deep recession, public sector budgets are cramped… governments are trying to balance budgets, and in many cases the tax shortfalls are leading to cutbacks in public sector programs that affect youth be it pre-K programs, be it teachers…. Durham County, for example, is struggling to find resources to not lay off as many teachers… next fall,” he said. “And some [places] are cutting back to four day schools instead of five day schools.”
Nice try, but in North Carolina, “tax shortfalls” are hardly the problem. Spending is the problem, as John Locke Foundation Research Director Michael Sanera points out in this brief overview of an analysis of five years of data in 98 North Carolina counties. Revenues consistently grew faster than population and inflation.
