| mySPIN |
 Get ready for the Debutante Ball
by Tom Campbell
April 22, 2010
The dance begins. We’re not talking about the dance with the stars or even the recently concluded big dance from the NCAA in college basketball. The dance we’re watching is the annual state budget pirouette. It began with the Governor laying out her suggestions for spending for the coming year.
While Purdue’s posture and footwork were technically correct, the performance lacked a lot of details. In response, legislative leaders just as dutifully responded that the governor’s proposals are a good starting point, a mannerly thank-you bow in dismissing this partner before moving on. The real dance, the Debutante Ball, formally begins May 12th when all 170 legislators, appropriately attired and rehearsed, perform their steps, accompanied by a legion of admirers with their own dance cards to fill.
So we begin again the budget box step in anticipation of a spending plan hopefully enacted before the beginning of the new fiscal year. Between now and then expect to hear the dance partners (House and Senate) posture about the lack of money, the tremendous needs and the tough decisions that must be reached. We’ve attended this cha-cha before and know how it ends. Later, rather than sooner, a handful of lawmakers will meet behind closed doors, make decisions and on very short notice require that the entire legislature vote on what they’ve decided.
Governor Perdue talked, as have legislative leaders, about cutting out low priority programs but everyone knows that once an item is included in the continuation budget few programs are ever eliminated. Behind every line item is an audience eager to defend their pet program. We must establish a zero based budget process where every program regularly goes through an examination and priorities are established. This should involve hearings in which the public has the chance to participate and decisions are made in public. Such a process would lengthen the dance but would be much more pleasing. While state expenditures need change, the revenue side of the equation must also be reformed. Our leaders have known this for years but have refused to address tax codes drawn when we were largely a manufacturing economy.
Unless we are badly mistaken the budget dance will play out this year as it has for many years. We will go through the motions, everyone understanding their role and somehow our elected officials will declare the process over and adjourn to their re-election campaign dances. But this ball is neither pleasing to watch nor a work of art. North Carolina deserves better than this annual cotillion of awkward missteps. |
|
