A message from Senator Hunt
My emphasis for the 2010 session, will be to help create an environment conducive to job creation in North Carolina. Since small business growth is the major vehicle to create jobs, I will continue to push for business friendly measures to help us recover from the current recession. In the 2009 legislative session, we increased taxes by over $900 million! That was irresponsible in that tax increases hamper job growth. It was the result of the current leadership's unwillingness to reduce the size of the state bureaucracy. We need fiscal responsibility and common sense legislation in North Carolina as opposed to appealing to political constituencies demand for funding.
Over the years, our discretionary spending has tilted dramatically toward funding social programs
along with substantial pork barrel spending
as opposed to funding the critical needs of our infrastructure. We are having problems due to lack of funding for our roads, highways, bridges as well as deteriorating water supply (e.g. Falls Lake) and sewer systems in our cities and towns.
The Easley administrations minimal scrutiny of how mental health dollars were spent has lead to a significant waste of our tax dollars. Steps have been taken to correct the problem but it took too long and wasted tens of millions of dollars before an audit revealed the extent of the problem. We need leadership in the legislature (and executive branch) to make sure this travesty does not happen again.
The Finance Committee is currently meeting to evaluate broadening the base for the Sales Tax. That really is a good idea since we are becoming more of a "service" economy as opposed to a "goods" economy. Applying the sales tax to only "goods" has caused us to have declining sales tax revenues. The problem of course is the current leadership will be tempted to have the changes actually be a tax increase. This broadening of the tax base needs to be a revenue neutral expansion of the tax to services. Revenues will grow as the economy grows. The overall sales tax rate, the corporate tax rate and personal tax rates should be reduced to encourage business expansion and job growth.
Thank you for your support over the past five years. I would appreciate hearing from you if I can be of service to you in the General Assembly.
Please refer to the Issues and Concerns section for my view on other important topics under discussion in North Carolina. .
Neal Hunt
North Carolina Senate District 15
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