Becki Gray and Kory Swanson of the John Locke Foundation paid a visit to Asheville today to share the lowdown on state government. It is always a pleasure to attend JLF events, as staff, fellows, and scholars have mastered the lively art of hospitality.

Gray checked yesterday and found in this legislative session, 2760 bills had been introduced; 170 have become law. It costs the legislature $62,000/day to do its thing. According to Gray, said thing would be deciding what it wants to spend, raising taxes to pay for it all, and doing some regulation on the side. The legislature is working on regulating energy, smoking, stormwater, slopes, coasts, involuntary annexation, and elections. It has considered adding or raising taxes on everything except attorney fees, and now it is talking about increasing tuition at community colleges. The governor is flying about the state pleading with her constituents to let her raise taxes so teachers don’t have to be laid off while the legislature wants to use state taxes to pay for the campaigns of candidates who can’t raise competitive funds on their own merits.

Gray told how the John Locke Foundation is fighting some of the madness. When the state offered local governments the option of putting a sales tax or a land transfer tax on the ballot, in 72 elections, only eight tax increases passed. Gray said this was attributable in part to reports the JLF prepared that showed, for example, that many local governments were holding fund balances of between 25 and 40% of their operating budgets. The JLF also launched a program against H120, the candidate welfare bill. As a result, the bill is not dead, but “in a coma.” The JLF has worked hard to teach legislators about the axiom underlying their oaths of office; namely, property rights.