And the spending goes on and on and on …

 

 

 

North Carolina is broke — or so we were told during the fight  over the state budget during this last session.  Stuff got cut out left and right.  The N&O, The Democrats, the NCAE and state employee reps all howled over the budget cuts.  We were told money was tight, that we needed to get a handle on spending so we could get our financial house in order.

Well, Boss Bev has signed an executive order extending unemployment benefits for the long-term unemployed whose benefits have run out.  Imagine that — right in front of a tough reelection fight.  (Never mind that we already are wrangling with a massive debt to the feds regarding unemployment benefits.)  How did we get here?  Let’s see:

North Carolina’s debt to the federal government continues to grow as a fund used to pay unemployment claims is not collecting enough revenue to keep it fiscally sound. The state now owes more than $2.5 billion to the federal government because of a negative balance in the North Carolina Unemployment Insurance Trust Fund.

North Carolina Budget and Tax Center director Alexandra Sirota said there are two main reasons why the debt is now at its current level.  “In the 90’s we made the decision to cut taxes on employer’s contributions to unemployment insurance trust fund and therefore were set up, by the time of the first recession in the 2000’s, in a really inadequate position to meet the claims that were coming in,” said Sirota.  And she added that the latest recession came and still has the economy struggling to recover.

Earlier this year, lawmakers authorized the Department of Commerce to study the problem, but that had not started six months later.  However, House Speaker Thom Tillis said he expects the study to get underway soon.

GOP leaders say they hope to get a solution to the unemployment fund in time for next year’s legislative session.

Hmmm. Payroll tax cuts caused this huge debt to pile up. Isn’t that THE SAME THING BarryO and the Dems browbeat Congress into passing right before Christmas? Unbelievable.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any more outlandish — It does.  A state government panel has recommended the payment of $50,000 to EVERY living survivor of a state-sponsored sterilization program. There are an estimated 2000 survivors of this state program.  So, if we do the math, boys and girls, that comes to $100 million dollars.  We don’t have the money to pay unemployment benefits, but we’re going to shell out $100 million to people sterilized by the state of North Carolina in the early to mid-2oth century.

We’ve got all kinds of activists seeking tax money for reparations to make amends for historical events like this sterilization, slavery, forced relocation of Native Americans, and internment of Japanese-Americans — all of which were perpetrated by Democrats before I was born.  If you want money for your problems. send the bill to The Democrat Party.  They made those messes.  Not me. 

These sterilization payments are nothing more than an attempt by Raleigh politicians trying to save their necks by buying forgiveness and reelection.  They don’t care if they have to flush our state’s economy down the toilet in the process.

We can’t count on Republican or Democrat politicians to do the right thing to preserve some kind of future for the next generations of North Carolinians. The media enables the crooks and scalawags in our capital city.  We have to get in their faces.  

The people did just that to Bev Perdue in The Dean Dome the other night.  

(Note to The N&O’s John Frank:  I was at the game, too.  At least half of the crowd was lustily booing Bev.  No one booed Holden Thorp.  You ought to be ashamed of yourself.)