Are we there yet?
Published June 20, 2014
By John Hood
by John Hood, John Locke Foundation and NC SPIN panelist, June 20, 2014.
I know you’ve been there. It’s time for supper and you have neither the time nor the supplies to cook. So you and your family members or friends all pile in to the car to head out to a restaurant.
Then the arguments start. They come in two varieties: where arguments and howarguments. The former are almost always more contentious and harder to settled than the latter.
If you want to eat at your favorite Italian place, your son wants to eat at his favorite Mexican place, and your daughter wants to eat at her favorite Chinese place, the stakes are high. Only one of you can get what you really want. On the other hand, if you all agree to visit the Indian buffet — and you really should, by the way — but disagree about how best to get there through the traffic, you may still have a spirited argument. In the end, however, you all get to eat what you want, plus one of you wins vindication for being the best highway navigator and the other two aren’t all that put out by being wrong.
Why am I dwelling on the nature of dinner-destination arguments? Because they remind me a great deal of the current political debate in North Carolina.
Over the past four years, Republicans have won control of the General Assembly, the governor’s office, and a majority of the state’s county governments. Out of power in North Carolina for the first time in more than a century, Democrats aren’t just disappointed or dismayed by these developments. Many are fearful or livid.
Even in the best of circumstances, such a change in political fortunes would generate tension, dissension, and heated argument. Republicans are still learning how to craft and implement policy. Democrats are still learning how to amend or effectively criticize policies they can no longer block from passage.
Nevertheless, these factors can’t full explain what’s going on in Raleigh right now. It doesn’t explain why some left-wing protestors feel entitled or even obligated to occupy offices and disrupt the proceedings of the General Assembly. It doesn’t explain why opinion writers at the Raleigh News & Observer and other media outlets seem oddly fixated on advancing conspiracy theories rather than engaging the real issue of the day.
I think the problem is that most Republicans and conservatives think they are engaged in how arguments while many Democrats and liberals think they are engaged in where arguments.
On the Right, most assume that although North Carolinians may disagree about means, all have a shared end of making their state a better place. Conservatives believe that during the past two decades in particular, state government had gotten off track — that increases in its fiscal and regulatory costs had not been accompanied by commensurate increases in the quality and desirability of services provided. They believe that cutting and reforming the tax code, applying cost-benefit tests to regulations, and introducing greater choice and competition in the delivery of public services would achieve better results.
That doesn’t mean the Republicans seek to destroy the government. They assume that district-run public schools and state-run colleges and universities will continue to be the primary means of public education. They assume that North Carolina will continue to provide a health care safety net — although they’d like to see a fundamental rewrite of Obamacare and a clearer division of labor between something like Medicaid (limited to the truly poor) and a truly competitive market of private health plans and medical services (with equalized tax treatment and means-tested subsidies). They also assume the state will continue its other traditional roles of enforcing the law, protecting public health and safety, and financing infrastructure, although they have different ideas about how best to fulfill those roles, too.
To many Democrats, however, these ideas don’t sound like different routes to a shared destination of improving North Carolina. They believe that Republicans want to take them somewhere else entirely — a dystopia conjured out of some liberal college professor’s worst nightmare.
That’s not where North Carolina's headed. I suppose they’ll just have to see when we get there.
June 20, 2014 at 10:05 am
Rip Arrowood says:
"Over the past four years, Republicans have won control of the General Assembly,..."
"Republicans are still learning how to craft and implement policy..."
Are they slow learners, unprepared, or what?
June 20, 2014 at 7:14 pm
Norm Kelly says:
It's always hard to argue with John. He is so too the point, using facts to back up his point(s), covering a topic so well that there's not much else to say.
However, I have a different take on what's really happening in Raleigh. I'm not as kind as John is, or concerned at all about how anyone else 'feels' about me. I don't have a public position like John to be worried about.
It doesn't seem like a difference between the 'where' and the 'how' argument that John uses as his example. Based on what I'm seeing from the left, both pols and their supporters (or the protesters to be more accurate) is that this is an argument about both 'how' and 'where'. For most libs, it's also an argument about 'why'. Nothing Republicans are doing is seen as acceptable to libs. There's not a single line item cut in the state budget that libs agree with. There's not a single tax cut that libs agree with. There's not a single regulation easing that libs agree with.
Perfect example. Even though the libs were in control when the Duke coal ash ponds were created, allowed to exist, known to be leaking into neighboring waterways, the libs blame the Republicans for being slack on regulation. The libs even blame the Republicans for allowing the coal ash ponds to exist. It has nothing to do with libs NOT enforcing the existing regulations when they were in charge. It has everything to do with Republicans NOT wanting to implement more regulations or more stringent regulations. Why does it make sense to libs to write new regulations when they aren't enforcing the existing regulations? If what's already on the books, like illegal aliens, isn't enforced, why would writing new laws/regulations do ANY good at all.
So, it seems that libs disagree with Republicans on EVERYTHING. It's not just a question of where Republicans CUT the budget, it's not just that Republicans want to let those who earn money to keep more of it, it's not a question of how the Republicans are doing what they are doing. For libs, it's a question of why ANYONE believes these steps need to be taken. When the libs controlled Raleigh, they had no qualms about spending 10% of the total budget on a single line item, even putting the state $2Billion in debt. Yet, libs fight and argue with Republicans about their desire to get that single line item expense under control, as well as getting the existing debt paid off. Not just how to do it, but libs question the need to do it at all.
Most items in Raleigh are being handled the same way by the libs. Questionable stands on just about every topic. It appears the libs in Raleigh are not currently looking out for what's best for the majority of citizens. It appears the libs don't have our best interests or the long term health of the state in mind. The libs appear to have their platform high on their list, as well as buying votes for their continued term in office. This is not what the state legislature is supposed to be about.
