BECAUSE SHE SAYS SO: Gov. Beverly Perdue dropped a $1.6 billion list of proposed tax increases. The sugar meant to help the bitter pill go down: some of them are temporary. The Republicans were not convinced. Speaker Joe Hackney says Perdue's pitch could help budget negotiators actually get somewhere.
POLITICAL NUMBERS: The state wasted $635 million, or 25 percent of the money it spent on community services over three years. Meanwhile, Rep. David Lewis, a Dunn Republican, launched a campaign to show that the Democrats are using faulty math in describing a budget deficit. And early this week, the legislature enacted its 272nd law of the still-going session.
BULGING INBOXES: Perdue toughened the state's policy on e-mail retention, wiping away nearly all of the discretion employees had on deciding whether a message should be kept. Some state government delete keys will appreciate the rest.
IN OTHER NEWS: Federal investigators continue to look at more details of Mary Easley's work at N.C. State University. A Senate team chugged milk fast enough to win $200 for charity. And in a debate over whether to make state laws gender neutral, Rep. George Cleveland, a Jacksonville Republican, noted that he had lots of respect for "the female race."
Comments
Re: Dome Memo: Promises and counting
July 11, 2009 - 5:34am — bnartistIt doesn't help when you claim the state wasted $635 million and the link substantiating the claim puts that number between $177 and $226 million. The fact that it's spread over three years is lost in the confusion. The Beaufort Observer explains it thus:
The annualized "waste" is thus $59-$75 million at best. Also lost in the confusion is the fact that many Republicans voted for the Mental Health Reform bill that pushed these services in the direction of private providers. These Republicans included free market champion James Arthur Pope. Now Tom Fetzer & his Republicans want to claim there wasn't enough of the government red tape they constantly decry. Also forgotten is the fact that Fetzer was part of the Martin administration that "raised" taxes including the Highway Use Tax, another much abused political football. Fetzer is a professional spin doctor and McClatchy has been spun.
Re: Dome Memo: Promises and counting
July 11, 2009 - 1:11am — TheNextCaliforniaHhhhm, so bniolet, do you suggest that because the constituents are making less money and spending less money that the answer is for the government to take more money from them through taxation?
That doesn't sound like a formula for success in my book. We cut our household budgets and our personal spending, the government should do the same.
Re: Dome Memo: Promises and counting
July 10, 2009 - 11:39am — bniolet (author)dahedgehog,
If you follow the link provided in the Dome Memo, you will see the following paragraph:
We wish there was a simple answer. But the fact is the size of the deficit depends on how you calculate it. Each side of this argument has their own way of crunching the numbers.
Re: Dome Memo: Promises and counting
July 10, 2009 - 10:34am — dahedgehogMeanwhile, Rep. David Lewis, a Dunn Republican, launched a campaign to show that the Democrats are using faulty math in describing a budget deficit.
This seems like a great opportunity for a reporter to step up and inform his or her readers! Are Democrats using faulty math? Is Rep. Lewis wrong? As a reader, I'm unable to make any sort of informed opinion from the reporting offered via this blog.
Given that this is an argument over math, there is presumably an objective answer. As a reporter, you should work to provide your readers that answer, and serve your primary function of informing your readers.
By presenting this issue in terms of he said/she said, you do nothing to better inform your readers. Instead, partisans leave here assuming that their opponents on the other side are lying. Nonpartisans just throw their hands up in the air in frustration. It's a lose-lose situation. But it's a lose-lose situation that could be rectified....with actual reporting!
Step up and be a reporter, bniolet! Your readers need you!