Berger’s telling bluster

Published April 18, 2013

By Chris Fitzsimon

by Chris Fitzsimon

If you were looking for telling indicator of the state of North Carolina’s public policy debate these days, a recent email from Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger is a pretty good one.

Late yesterday afternoon, when many people in North Carolina and around the country were still reeling from the tragic news in Boston, Berger sent out a fundraising pitch to supporters with the title “Today’s the Day.”

Here is how it began.

“Today is President Obama’s favorite day of the year – Tax Day! April 15 is your deadline to fork over a massive chunk of your hard-earned income to the government.”

Berger went on to say that “the government can’t stop glutting itself on your money” and touted the yet still to be introduced radical Senate tax reform plan he promised would give North Carolina families the largest tax cut in history, cut the sales tax and eventually eliminate personal and corporate income taxes too.

It makes you wonder how the government Berger seems to loathe would have enough money left to adequately fund schools and human services and the criminal justice system—and maybe that is the point, it wouldn’t.

Berger had an ominous warning too of course. What would a political fundraising appeal be without one?

“It won’t be easy – the same liberals who tried to turn us into bankrupt California will attack and smear us for generating prosperity and encouraging savings and investment.” It’s apparently always good to mention California when appealing to hard-right base, even when it makes absolutely no sense.

Then came a plea to send money to the Senate Republican Caucus to help pass the “proven reforms”.

Berger forgot to mention a few things. None of what he saying is proven at all. In fact, the opposite is true. Not everybody’s taxes will be reduced under the great tax shift he is seeking. The Senate proposal would end the personal and corporate income taxes and replace the revenue with a higher and broader sales tax.

A report from the N.C. Budget & Tax Center shows that would mean higher taxes for the bottom 60 percent of North Carolina taxpayers and lower taxes on the wealthiest 20 percent with millionaires getting a $41,000 a year tax cut.

That’s the substance of what the plan Berger’s is touting will do, dramatically shift the tax code in North Carolina to favor the wealthy special interests, the folks mostly likely to contribute to political campaigns.

The tone and timing of his crass appeal is equally disturbing. The bitter, partisan, anti-government diatribe turned into a fundraising pitch is Berger’s latest move to turn Raleigh into Washington, where too many elected officials pursue partisanship and politics all the time.

This is not election season in North Carolina or it’s not supposed to be anyway. Yet the elected leader of the state Senate, with a supermajority in the branch of the “glutted” government he is now part of, is sending out nasty, campaign style attacks to raise money while he is supposed to presiding over a open, transparent debate about tax reform.

It was a perfect complement to Berger’s rant that the day after he sent it out, his office issued a press release announcing that anti-government zealot Grover Norquist had recognized Berger as a national leader on tax reform.

Norquist famously said that his goal was to “shrink government down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”

Perfect company for Berger to be keeping and more troubling evidence of the extreme and dangerous ideology of the folks now running state government.

Chris Fitzsimon is Director of NC Policy Watch and an NC Spin Panelist