Taxes | Education | Transportation | Environment | Accountability | Budget | Marriage
Reduce Taxes and Spending
We continue to have a structural problem in our budgeting process in the General Assembly. It must be addressed soon. Over the last couple of years the Legislature has been unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to get our structural problem resolved. Our problem, at least until the current recession, has not been related to income, it is related to spending. Over the past 20 years our state government spending has increased 318% while our population has only increased 42% during this time frame. In North Carolina, our government is spending almost two and a half times what we need to keep up with population growth plus inflation!
One of the best examples of this runaway spending are the recent DOT construction errors on two NC interstate highways which were the direct result of no one person being responsible for a job. Also, in the area of mental health, rampant spending has been evident with little oversight with respect to the effectiveness of this spending.
In 2009, for the fourth year in a row, an amendment to our Constitution has been presented by Republicans in the General Assembly that addresses this structural problem in our budgeting process. Each year, Senator Hunt has co-sponsored this resolution. Every year the Democratic leadership refused to allow the proposal to come to the floor for a vote. This legislation requires spending to be capped by the percentage growth in the state’s population plus the inflation percentage increase for the previous year.
Had this legislation passed five years ago, we would have had an additional $3 billion in our Rainy Day fund to help us through the current recession. The recovery stifling $900 million dollar increase would not have been needed!
We all want to protect those lowest on the economic ladder. But our government largess has expanded to include those individuals making high incomes as well as providing significant “corporate welfare” to companies worth billions. Two hundred years ago Alex de Toqueville said (paraphrased) that America’s democracy will survive until the public figures out they can vote themselves benefits from the public trough. We certainly can see that as we see "Entitlement Spending" at the federal and state levels growing exponentially. We need to keep that thought in mind as we struggle to get our spending under control.
Education
The Governor and
the current legislative leadership
have an interesting slant on education. When the national No Child Left Behind program revealed that our state educational establishment has been
exaggerating
about graduation rates, the governor’s main idea to improve high school graduation rates was to spend more money on More at Four! High School graduation rates had been bragged on at over 90% but in actuality are closer to 70%.
In addition to improving teacher pay as described below, we must improve the vocational educational opportunities for our young people, many of whom have no interest in college but want to start earning a living immediately after graduating from high school. We also need to provide computers with on line capabilities for all of our students. Not only are they a very effective way of teaching but computers retain students' attention and make learning fun!
The problem is we are missing the mark in compensating the best teachers. Would you like to be in a field that compensated the worst of your contemporaries with the same pay you received? That’s exactly what we do in our public schools in North Carolina. For two sessions in a row, Neal Hunt has introduced legislation which would allow school principals to pay the best teachers in their schools more than the worst teachers. This legislation would also allow differential pay for teachers in critical fields like math and science and more pay for teachers to go into low performing schools.
We are also spending too much of our precious school dollars for busing. The idea of course is to improve performance for low income children by moving them to more affluent schools but in this is an inefficient use of money. Senator Hunt sponsored SB 1386 which would allow children living within a one and one half mile radius to attend their neighborhood school. If some of our best teachers are encouraged to teach in low performing schools that would definitely improve those schools performances. Once that is the case, why would anyone want to ride a bus out of their district to go to another school? If children were allowed to attend neighborhood schools, another benefit would be more parental involvement.
Transportation
An efficient transportation system is critical for the economic viability of our community as well as the livability for our citizens. Wake County currently is reimbursed less than 70% of the money we pay to DOT in taxes and fees. These payments are based on the legislatively approved “Equity Formula” which directs money disproportionately to counties with less traffic congestion. The formula is based on 50% - population, 25% - the number of unpaved interstate highways and 25% - equally based on the number of highway districts in the state.
The rationale for this formula is that the more rural counties need a disproportionate share of highway dollars to help them attract new industry. There are many other considerations that companies use to make location decisions such as the quality of the educational system, the availability of qualified employees, property and income tax considerations as well as environmental quality of life issues. Simply adding additional highway dollars to rural counties has not proven to provide the incentives companies need to locate in these areas. At the same time urban areas like Wake County are suffering from the lack of funds to keep up with congestion.
The “Equity Formula” needs to be revised to include a congestion index criterion. Congestion is currently not even considered when distributing highway dollars! Urban areas are the economic engines for the entire state and we need to revise the formula to make sure we have the dollars we need to keep ahead of our transportation needs.
Protecting our Environment
Senator Hunt's philosophy is to not inhibit development but to insist that it be done right. There is no reason we should allow our environment to be fouled by development when it can be done in an environmentally friendly manner. Neal's 35 year background in development, as vice chair of the Wake Count Open Space Committee, his seven year voting record on the Planning Commission, and three years on the City Council and as chairman of the Comprehensive Planning Committee will support his being both pro-growth and at the same time, environmentally friendly. There is one story Neal likes to tell to indicate his interest in preserving our trees, and water quality. When he was with Wachovia, we were financing the K-Mart located on College Road in Wilmington. There was a beautiful live oak located just off the road in front of the site. The developer said he was going to cut it down. Neal asked why? His response was that he didn't want to have to sweep the leaves off the parking lot. Neal told him to forget the loan if he cut that tree down. Thirty five years later its still there. Go by and look at it. It is one of only a few along this stretch of road and adds dramatically to the streetscape.
Shining the Light on Legislative Activities
Term limits for the President Pro Tem of the Senate and the Speaker of the House as well as the major committee chairs would be a good first step in shining the light on legislative activities.
Many legislative activities are dominated by the political party that is in power. While it is appropriate for the majority party to be in control of legislative proceedings as well as directing committee assignments, several areas of abuse need to be corrected. For example, it is inappropriate for millions of dollars in slush funds being made available to legislative leaders without the formal approval of the legislature. As a second example, raids on trust funds specifically allocated for other purposes should not be allowed without legislative action. The annual raid on the Highway Trust Fund for uses other than improving our highway system is dishonest to
North Carolina
voters. The raiding of the Highway Trust Fund has slowed but our highways are showing the result of 20 years of underfunding.
In addition to inappropriate slush funds and the recent revelations of political payoffs, and corruption, one of the most egregious situations in the Senate (and the House) is the practice of burying popular bills in committee to avoid members having to take public positions on legislation they oppose. For example, Republicans have for years presented legislation to control state government spending. The Democrat leadership does not want their members to be on record as voting against these spending limits since their negative positions would definitely lose them votes. So to avoid being on the record on this legislation, no vote or debate is ever voted allowed in the Democrat controlled committees. Senator Hunt pledges to work toward every piece of legislation with at least 4 sponsors receiving at least a recorded committee vote so the public can see where their politicians stand on a particular issue.
Marriage Amendment
Senator Hunt is a co-sponsor of the Marriage Amendment which would add a constitutional amendment to our North Carolina Constitution requiring that a marriage be only between a man and a woman. The sponsors of this believe the amendment is necessary to protect us from activist judges that might overturn our existing law prohibiting same sex marriages. Massachusetts currently allows same sex marriages and when a gay married couple from that state moved to Oregon, the couple sued to overturn Oregon’s state law. An extremely liberal activist judge agreed with the gay couple and ruled Oregon’s law unconstitutional.
There is little doubt that the same thing will eventually happen in North Carolina despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of our citizens support marriage being only between a man and a woman. As of November 2005, eleven states voted on whether to have a constitutional amendment prohibiting homosexual marriage. It passed in all eleven states by an average margin of 70%. In 2006, seven out of eight states approved the Marriage Amendment after eleven out of eleven approved it in 2004. North Carolina voters should have the same opportunity to express themselves on this constitutional amendment.
Zero Based Budgeting
For the past five years Senator Hunt has co-sponsored legislation to require each state government department to periodically justify its expenditures as opposed to simply adding a percentage to the previous year’s budget. For example, every five years each department would be required to document their financial needs for the coming year. Unfortunately the current leadership does not see the merit of this and the other common sense legislation described above and has not allowed a vote on any of these important subjects.
