Taking some vacation time to look through the budget, the Democratic leadership of the General Assembly have put a collective finger in the collective eye of North Carolina voter and taxpayers.
- The bill and money report made it online late last night/early this morning and voting starts this afternoon. So much for transparency and open government.
- When counting receipts and expenditures in a consistent way, the budget would spend $100 million more than was actually spent in FY2008-09. The budget counts $19 million, but we need to add back in $1.4 billion in federal money to get a true comparison with the $20.3 billion final expenditures for the year ended June 30
- Adding programs, such as those Terry pointed out in education, expanding SCHIP enrollment, and bringing the annual gift to the Kannapolis Research Campus to $22.5 million.
- To spend as much as they want, legislators are pulling $1 billion a year more in sales taxes,draining $200 million more from businesses and high-earning individuals, adding $90 million in yearly taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, and killing a subsector of the economy with click-through tax on Amazon affiliates and others who direct traffic to large retail sites, adding $55 million in new fees (some of which may be justified)
