Oh, to be as, um, *wise* as John Hood ..
North Carolina’s very own ‘Alex P. Keaton’ — and living, breathing caricature of conservatism — John Hood never ceases to amaze. He’s about my age, can snootily quote 14th century central European libertarian philosophers.. I understand he’s strutting around Raleigh like a bantam rooster shaking people down to adhere to the McCrory party line — using his sugar daddy Art Pope’s money as leverage.
Once again, John was the token conservative on this weekend’s NC Spin. He got the first question from guest moderator Doug Raymond — about a projected $200 million surplus in the state budget and how legislators might respond to it — and decided to lecture Raymond, his fellow panelists, and the viewers:
“The term surplus, Doug, needs a modifier. People often just
use ‘surplus.’ What they mean by the $200 million dollars is actually a revenue surplus. This is how much more revenue is being collected than has been projected. That’s not the budget surplus.”[…]
WTF? He’s calling out Raymond, and the people of North Carolina, for allegedly misusing a word, but uses in the same way. But, be still my heart, there was MORE:
[…] “The budget surplus includes money that wasn’t spent so when you put it all together at the end of the fiscal year you’ll end up with a budget surplus about $600 million give or take. For next year’s budget, which they will be working on, significant resources will be available. Revenue is up about six percent, but spending is only one percent higher.”[…]
I waited for all this bloviating to eventually come around to a call for giving people some of their money back. Government is not a for-profit enterprise. It’s supposed to be a zero-sum 
game. But Hood left the window open for using that, um, SURPLUS to spend even more money.
It’s tough for MISTER CONSERVATIVE to toe the line on less government and less spending when his sugar daddy’s candidate is proposing a state budget that spends even more than last year.
If we would stick to actual government responsibilities and stop giving away money to corporations that don’t need it, and other non-government entities, we could get rid of income taxes a lot more quickly so people could keep more of their income to spend, save, or invest as they see fit. That’s what I keep preaching and why I have such a hard time reconciling myself to voting for the proposed budget every year. It’s more complicated than that sounds, and I was proud to be one of thirty House members who stood up to cut some bad stuff out of the budget last year; but there’s a lot more work to do to get it under control.
Larry, I’d think I’d died and gone to heaven if every member of our North Carolina General Assembly believed and acted on your first sentence!!!
Governor McCrory is NOT behaving like a conservative, nor is he following the Republican platform when it comes to the budget. I’d like to see him mend his ways.
I watched the episode and thought Hood was somewhat arrogant. All that went out the window when that Brad Crone dude went into full out bluster mode. I am surprised they did not boot the guy after the first commercial break after he interrupted several times and spouted wacky views. Heck, he even made Blinky Fitzsimon look sane.