The scramble on the right continues

by Chris Fitzsimon, NC Policy Watch and NC SPIN panelist, November 20, 2013.

The folks on the Right are scrambling these days with their political narrative and talking points about the state budget that the Republican General Assembly and Governor Pat McCrory came up with this summer, the damaging cuts to education, the lack of investments in PreK, the further shredding of environmental protections.

The more that people in North Carolina learn about the details of the spending plan, not to mention the tax cut for the wealthy and the tax increase for many low and moderate families, the less they like them.

State lawmakers cut too much this year and invested too little in the state safety net and education at all levels, especially public schools. That is increasingly clear to parents and families across the state and that’s what the panic on Right Wing Avenue is all about.

The head of Raleigh’s most well-known right-wing think tank tried to make the case recently that there’s no reason for concern, that the budget cuts were actually insignificant except in the “fevered imagination of liberal editorial writers.”

He neglected to point out that state spending as a percentage of personal income is at a 40-year low and has declined annually for the last four years.

And it’s not anybody’s imagination that state investments in education have been slashed, despite frequent claims otherwise by Governor McCrory and supporters of the current political leadership in Raleigh.

Parents aren’t imagining that their children’s classes are larger or that the teacher assistant is gone or that schools can’t afford textbooks. The cuts to education are real. As you have read here before, the education budget is more than $100 million less this year than what was needed to keep funding levels the same as last year.

Overall spending on public schools is down more than $500 million since 2007 when you adjust for inflation and there are almost 50,000 more students showing up for school every day. And then there is the disgrace of teacher pay, now ranking near the bottom of the 50 states.

A teacher must work 16 years to earn a $40,000 salary. Lawmakers ended supplements for teachers who earn master’s degrees and career status is gone too, replaced by contracts for as short as a year.

Teachers across the state have been explaining their frustrations in submissions to the Soapbox at NC Policy Watch, describing relying on food stamps and second jobs to make ends meet.

And they care about far more than their pay. They are struggling with larger classes, less instructional support and little money for supplies.

Supporters of the cuts and the dismantling of public schools know that trying to mislead the public about spending levels isn’t enough to counter the increasing public outrage.

Governor McCrory has created a teacher advisory committee and talks openly about the need to give teachers a raise next year—though rumors persist that it will only be a two percent increase and will be paid for by making further cuts to the university system.

That won’t do much for teacher morale or the public’s correct perception that McCrory and his colleagues in the General Assembly are driven more by their rigid ideology than a desire to make the needed investments in education and other essential state services.

Folks simply aren’t buying the obtuse and misleading interpretations of spending data from the think tanks on the right.

And teacher advisory committees are fine but they won’t solve anything either. Nor will all the hand-wringing about teacher pay and promises to do better next summer, not coincidentally in the middle of an election year.

The folks on the Right are correct about one thing. They have good reason to be panicked.

The truth is out about their woeful budget and the damaging real life effects of their regressive ideology.