#ncga: Pay raises for Speaker Moore’s staff. A gas tax hike for US.

moneycountThe drive-bys gave us a peek at the salaries of all of new House speaker Tim Moore’s staff.  Most staffers got raises in the ballpark of twenty percent.   One aide – who had been working on Jones Street since 2012 — got a nearly 31 percent increase.  Another aide got bumped from a little over $100,000 to a paltry $120,000.

Moore — just like his predecessor Thom Tillis — has a total payroll in the speaker’s office just under $1 momillion. That’s for a dozen employees of a legislative body that doesn’t meet year-round. 

Meanwhile, the state Senate has passed a gas tax hike meant to finance all kinds of road construction — since, you know, we don’t have any money to spare for important stuff like road construction.  The drivebys have also figured that — if the bill that recently passed the Senate was already law — we’d be currently blessed with the 2nd highest gas tax in the nation.  This dog of a bill is now in the collective lap of the state House. 

Also on the radar for the legislature is $45 million in new corporate welfare goodies, plus big tax breaks for airlines and data centers.

¡ viva la revolución conservadora