Joe writes:

We’ve got to have money fast.
– Sen. David Hoyle

After screwing up multiple get-rich-quick schemes, from Dell Computer to the Global TransPark, in the past and create new programs, legislators are going back to their employers – the taxpayers – and demanding a more money to continue their spending streak.

This is no surprise to either Joe or me. Joe, after all, is the author of the eye-opening Policy Report entitled Spend and Tax: A History of General Fund Crises in N.C. and How to Prevent Them, the summary of which is simply:

The General Assembly is often said to have “tax and spend” policies, but its pattern is one of “spend and tax” policies. During economic booms, tax revenues increase and legislators fund new programs that cannot be sustained during an economic bust. When the bust comes, legislators raise taxes to pay for those new government programs.

As for me, I was criticized by the reactionary left for predicting (accurately):

Remember, when faced with an economic downturn, public officials will seek to protect government revenues at all costs, which they achieve by heaping misery upon misery on families and businesses already suffering from the sour economy.

I’ve noted the idioms as they’ve occurred concerning how different groups act during an economic downturn: families tighten their belts, consumers pinch pennies, businesses throttle back spending, and churches stretch every dollar and make it count.

Governments, meanwhile, just raise taxes. Survival of the host isn’t a concern of the parasite.

To follow up on that last point, just read the Locke Foundation’s latest press releases on how tax increases would further erode employment opportunities in North Carolina, which is already at double digits in unemployment, and on how eliminating the estate tax would lead to the creation of 42,000 jobs here. Yet what are state leaders considering?

And if they are willing to ensure lower tax rates for just one (1) new business in order to create 50 jobs, why not eliminate the death tax to create 8,400 times that amount of new jobs?