Laughable praise for transparency from the Right

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, August 7, 2015.

It’s more than little ironic that a column this week by a prominent think tanker on the Right was headlined “Making Transparency a Top Priority.” The column praises a provision in the Senate budget that would create a website where state and local governments would post their budgets and expenditures in a user-friendly format.

Nothing wrong with that idea, more accessible information about public budgets is a good thing, but the “transparency” provision drawing praise comes in a budget stuffed with secret provisions involving huge policy changes that were never debated and that most Senators didn’t even realize were in the budget they approved.

The provisions would end health care retirement benefits for new teacher and state employees, create new exceptions to the state’s open records law, threaten special downtown tax districts, and change the marketplace for health care in the western part of the state. And those are just a few of them.

The Senate budget is the opposite of transparent and so is the way the Senate itself is being run. That was never more obvious than this week as the Senate Finance Committee unveiled and passed three draconian constitutional amendments, a new plan for economic incentives, and a revised local sales tax redistribution scheme all in just over an hour.

Committee Chair Bob Rucho repeatedly told committee members that he intended to vote the bills out of committee even though they represented massive changes in state tax policy involving billions of dollars and none of the proposals had been made public before the meetings.

The constitutional amendments would limit the state income tax rate to 5 percent forever and create a misnamed Taxpayer Bill of Rights, which would artificially limit state spending every year using a flawed formula that would make it impossible for lawmakers to give teachers and state workers raise and still meet the fundamental needs for state operations and investments every year.

Colorado passed a so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights and it has been a disaster.

Even misguided supporters of the plan surely would admit that it deserves full debate and discussion and testimony from all sides, including Republicans in Colorado who now regret adopting the amendment.

But none of that happened. There was a half hour of discussion, then a voice vote to approve it, and then the committee turned to a version of a proposal for local sales tax redistribution that members of the committee didn’t fully understand.

When Senators asked questions about a chart provided with the sales tax bill, they were told staff would get back to them later with answers to their questions—after the vote was taken and the committee approved the sweeping change to tax policy.

The startling display was the latest of many episodes of abuse of the legislative process this session—so enough already with the praise for transparency.

This is easily the least transparent General Assembly in a generation and the folks in the think tanks on the Right—who used to join with progressive groups complaining about the legislative process when Democrats cut corners—remain quiet as their Republican allies subvert democracy again and again and ram through their ideological agenda with little time for debate or disagreement or even an honest discussion about what their draconian policies will mean for the people they are supposed to represent.

- See more at: http://www.ncpolicywatch.com/2015/08/07/the-follies-231/#sthash.rbNt0k7l.dpuf