Gov. Beverly Perdue says the state needs a $1.5 billion tax hike. But does she really think that’s possible? John Locke Foundation President John Hood writes today that the governor’s call was simply politics 101.
The Perdue team knows that advocating $1.5 billion in new taxes will antagonize many North Carolina voters. Already saddled with weak approval ratings and an unfavorable political climate (grand jury investigations of your Democratic predecessor in the governor’s mansion tend to have such effects), the governor’s decision to endorse a huge tax increase may seem ill-advised, even reckless.
But I think it was simply designed to placate her angry base. The teacher union is used to deferential treatment in the Legislative Building, so the rage now evident among many of its members – however disconnected to fiscal and economic reality – is very real. The final budget deal won’t have a $1.5 billion tax increase in it. Perdue will sign it, anyway. Still, she will have championed the NCAE’s cause, satisfying a political obligation. And perhaps, by the midterm elections in 2010, the voters won’t remember who said what to whom – or so the strategists may hope.
So let’s get real about the budget. JLF’s Joe Coletti provides a practical, “Can-Do” plan in this interview.
