Sometimes over these last few weeks, Republican leaders in the General Assembly have spoken of the job reductions in state government that will result from their budget-cutting as if they were numbers on a blackboard, as if putting state employees out of work were more a tough math test than anything. It's not. Losing a job is traumatic at best, catastrophic at worst, and disheartening and frightening for the worker, his or her spouse, their children, even their parents.
Take the number of people who'll lose their jobs thanks to the budget shortfall of $2.5 billion and the refusal of Republicans to consider extending an already existing, temporary one-cent sales tax that would bring in around a billion dollars and save thousands of jobs. Multiply that number times that person's family members. Then multiply it by extended family and close friends. That's how many people will personally feel the consequences of good workers losing their jobs.
Then, consider that in Wake County, where many state workers live, the impact of thousands of jobs lost will be felt by businesses that will lose customers, and will in turn perhaps have to lay off people themselves.
Math test? Not for anyone.
Gov. Beverly Perdue has demonstrated the political courage it takes to stand by keeping the sales tax, or three-fourths of it. She knew before she announced it that Republicans would cast it as a liberal, tax-and-spend stance, and not a job-saver, which is the more accurate description. Keeping the tax, which most people forgot about after its installation in 2009 (when the financial crisis was in full throttle, not that it's backed down a lot) and which is relatively painless considering the good it does, means saving jobs, protecting vital services and helping families. Period.
It's true that many private-sector workers have been subject to layoffs during this Great Recession. But state (and county and city) employees are in the public service business, often compensated at rates lower than many would receive in the private business world in exchange for at least an expectation of job security and in recognition of the fact that they provide work that benefits not just a single company but a large population. That's a fair deal for them and the public.
The Republican leaders on Jones Street are not bad people. They're not heartless people. They're certainly not stupid people. But they swept to a majority of both houses for the first time in 100 years thanks in part to what has come to be generally called the "tea party crowd," which tends to oppose government programs and taxes of most descriptions. The leaders have to keep their tea-party newcomers happy or risk chaos. Standing by their "promise" to end the additional sales tax thus becomes more important than it ought to be.
They still could stand by that promise, if they were willing to keep, say, part of the sales tax through this year and end it next year. Instead, they're going to kick thousands of people to the street in the name of pleasing their political supporters. It is a sad and cruel sight.
How cruel? The prospective layoffs called to mind a friend of long-standing, a career supervisor in a large corporation who was faced with the order of downsizing a department. The company was a good one, and its actions reflected changes in the marketplace, not politics. He met with the employees designated for layoffs one at a time. None was angry.
"There was a sense," he remembered, "of what am I going to do now? And for me there was the realization that these people were losing their jobs not because of ineptitude, or breaking rules. They were good people, great people. It was the structure and the workload."
After meeting with one long-time employee who thanked him for his friendship but mentioned, "I'll have to call my daughter now, because she's going to have to come home from college ... " he was rushed to the hospital by ambulance. A severe anxiety attack was the diagnosis. The cause, really, was his own compassion.
"It just hits you that losing a job is a life-changing experience for the person and all the people around him," he said. "People who tell friends in the position of losing their jobs that 'it'll be the best thing that ever happened to you' don't know what they're talking about."
One lousy cent would save thousands of people from that fate, and most North Carolinians I know would happily pay it a while longer if it kept neighbors in work, families covered by health insurance and the helping hands of some state agencies open. This small tax, as it turns out, could be a lifeline to many.
