Living within our means. It's a wonderful, even essential concept - but does it require that we shouldn't borrow money?
There may be some pay-as-you-go purists out there, and more power to 'em if they can avoid accumulating any debt. Getting in too deeply was the mistake that has led to thousands upon thousands of home foreclosures and messed-up lives.
More rational, however, are folks who carefully weigh their capacity to repay and cold-bloodedly analyze their need for what they're tempted to buy. If they can borrow and buy without overextending themselves, by definition they're within their means. And their need is met - even if they couldn't afford to pay for it up front.
The household context doesn't map precisely onto decisions about the state budget, but there are parallels.
What a shame that the folks at the Tar Heel kitchen table over on Jones Street are so dead set on cutting taxes that they're like homeowners who won't take out a loan they could easily repay so they can go ahead with critical repairs or preventive maintenance. That's classifying as "critical" something that must be done to protect the property's value, and that if put off will simply end up costing more.
The billion bucks or so that extending the temporary penny-on-the-dollar sales tax surcharge would bring in wouldn't solve all North Carolina's budget problems, not by a long shot - well, not by another billion and a half. Some pretty drastic spending cuts still would be in order. Gov. Beverly Perdue, who recommended keeping three-fourths of the temporary tax, saw as much and did what she had to do to propose a balanced budget.
Not good enough, said the General Assembly Republicans who want to make Perdue and her Democratic allies look like people who can't control themselves at the all-you-can-tax buffet.
So the budget they deposited on Perdue's desk forgoes the tax extension and hacks even more brutally into state services. It amounts to a straight-on clash of priorities.
Perdue will have to answer for her willingness to make shoppers and other purchasers take an almost imperceptible extra hit at the cash register. GOP legislators will have to answer for a whole range of spending cuts - all of which could have been mitigated, if not avoided entirely, by keeping the higher tax in place until the economy regained traction and state revenues flowed sufficiently without it.
It takes little imagination to picture Perdue inking up her veto stamp.
Take education funding. How can a governor in the tradition of moderate chief executives going all the way back to Terry Sanford, Democratic and Republican alike, who knew full well how important it was to the state's economy to invest in the public schools, stand for a budget that would sink our per-pupil spending to among the very lowest in the nation? She even began her professional career as an educator. This is her home turf.
Remember, Perdue's own budget made painful cuts. But how could she tolerate one that whacked even further into health programs, the court system, environmental protection? In so many cases, too, the cuts will likely mean more expenses down the road - for example, eliminating special courts that can short-circuit drug offenders' descent into violent crime.
The GOP agenda seems to have four main prongs:
1) Shrinking the size of government, which means lower taxes - always popular but not always wise,
2) Giving business interests more leeway to operate as they see fit, even if it means looser rules to protect the environment and consumers,
3) Addressing social conservative priorities such as stricter rules for abortions, and
4) Manipulating election procedures to gain a partisan edge.
The "business-friendly" orientation - as if North Carolina Democrats in the mold of former Gov. Jim Hunt haven't been closely attuned to business' needs and role in boosting the state, and as if there weren't plenty of enlightened business folks - is couched in terms of creating jobs, a key concern. But it has been carried to the point where it yields a blinkered view of progress. It focuses on the interests of those who feel they don't need a rising ride to lift their own special boats.
If you're comfortably well situated, you may not feel the urgency of keeping social programs up to snuff. You may feel as if too much of your tax bill goes to support freeloaders and bureaucratic paper-pushers. You may feel that your business could become even more profitable if those regulators would just leave you alone.
But what counts is perspective - the understanding that this community we call North Carolina flourishes only to the extent that everyone has a fair chance to participate. That means no one going without the education they need to advance and get a decent job - no one hobbled by lack of health care. And a successful community also safeguards its precious assets, be they natural or cultural or historic.
It all takes not only wisdom but also money. Good leaders, of either party, will recognize when critical investments must be made in the structure of state.
