It was Pope, the idea-a-minute Republican who speaks in the state House for Raleigh's Glenwood Avenue prosperity corridor, who went so far as to rip the Democrats' budget-balancing-and-financial-rescue package (no, I'm not shy about noting the tax increases) in apocalyptic terms.

"We're definitely waging the worst type of class warfare here," Pope was quoted in Thursday's N&O as proclaiming.

Of course none of us, politicians surely not excepted, are immune from the perils of hyperbole in the midst of a good argument. In the General Assembly that sort of thing has to be taken in stride.

But what is it that has our illustrious legislator so wrought up that he uses an image not unsuited to describing the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France? Warning: Perhaps at this point Mr. Pope would counsel those of delicate sensibilities just to proceed without delay to the baseball box scores. But here's what it must be, in all its horror: Asking North Carolinians who find themselves absolutely rolling in dough -- and how else would you characterize a married couple with net taxable annual income of $200,000 or more -- to pay a little extra on their state tax returns.

That, of course, is a key component in the budget-mending plan as put forward by House Democrats under the leadership of Speaker Jim Black. (And all this time the mild-mannered Black has had us wondering whether he had the gumption to summon his troops out onto the tax-hike tight rope, what with nearly as many Republicans rooting for them to lose their balance, and even shaking the poles.)

Class warfare? Well, it's true that under the Democrats' plan, plenty of middle-income folks would be no more worse off and might actually come out ahead once some modest tax breaks were figured in. Bumping up taxes on the wealthiest is a relatively easy call, it could be said, when you don't figure on having to pay any more yourself.

But logically, now, if the state needs more money, where would you turn: To those who are earning the least? Oops -- the fact is, the Democrats would do that too, in that they'd let localities raise the sales tax as part of a switcheroo that would end up saving the state almost as much as the income tax hike would bring in. So every time some family barely earning enough to scrape by emerged from the Food Lion with milk, bread and Pampers, they in essence would have contributed a few pennies to the cause.

Let's stop having fun at Pope's expense long enough to grant that as far as stipulating the state's need for more money, you can include him out.

Now we're into territory where perfectly reasonable people can disagree. Those who have a minimalist view of what state government should be doing to try to make this a more prosperous, just, healthy and enlightened place to live and work are prone to say, when the state's revenues crater as they have of late, "Cut spending and suck it up." It seems fair to count Art Pope in that category; he and like-minded colleagues are conspicuously bothered by what they see as budgetary slack still to be gathered.

Why, just last week -- as David Rice reported in the Winston-Salem Journal -- Pope helpfully suggested to his colleagues that before they went along with any sales tax increase, they ought to take a close look at the state Department of Commerce's outposts in Tokyo and Hong Kong. Hard to argue with that; let's be sure we're getting our money's worth in new business.

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