Budget targets
Published April 12, 2014
by Gary Pearce, Talking About Politics, April 11, 2014.
This is how spending priorities get set in Raleigh.
The Republican legislature is facing a revenue hole. And there are three big pots of money: public schools, the UNC system and Medicaid.
At the same time, the GOP is facing a political hole on schools. Last year, the legislature declared war on teachers and public schools. Their target was the NCAE. But they found out that a lot of teachers and parents live back home. And they’re mad.
So the legislature will scrape up every dollar it can to minimize the political backlash in November.
The UNC system? Republicans – and Art Pope – don’t like the universities. After all, those institutions, especially Chapel Hill, have a way of turning out liberals and Democratic voters. And, for the first time ever, neither the Governor, the Senate President Pro Tem nor the Speaker has any UNC ties.
So off with their heads!
Then there’s Medicaid. And, as one lobbyist observed this week, “No Republican legislator knows anybody on Medicaid.”
Guess who gets whacked?
