N.C. Governor Roy Cooper's Spendthrift Budget

Thank God, North Carolina has a veto proof General Assembly. Governor Roy Cooper is a typical spendthrift Democrat. The Civitas Institute detailed what his budget would’ve entailed had he a majority.


This afternoon, Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the state budget approved by the legislature. The move will likely prove only symbolic as Republicans have enough votes to override the veto.

Cooper’s veto prompts us to once again evaluate the type of budget he would have approved – namely his budget proposal. Some relevant comparisons between Cooper’s budget and the one he vetoed include:


Cooper’s budget would spend half a billion more taxpayer dollars


Cooper’s budget would mark a $1.5 billion increase in spending over the current year


Cooper’s year-over-year spending increase would have amounted to a 6.6% rise, the largest annual increase in ten years


Cooper’s budget would have raised taxes by $110 million in the first half of 2019 alone


Cooper’s budget would have expanded Medicaid, a massive expense that would blow a hole in the budget while doing little to actually improve access to care for enrollees

Additionally, Cooper’s irresponsible budget proposal has now been scored by the General Assembly’s non-partisan Fiscal Research Division. Their research shows that Cooper’s ratcheting up of recurring spending obligations would result in a structural budget deficit of nearly half a billion dollars by FY 2019-20 ($469 M – see bottom right of pg. 2).

This means that, if Cooper had his way, by this time next year budget writers would be faced with finding nearly a half billion in spending cuts or imposing a half billion dollar tax hike.

Oh yeah, let’s put Democrats back in office. Nothing says prosperity like a bloated state budget.

Source:

https://www.nccivitas.org/civitas-review/cooper-vetoes-budget-plan-led-disaster/?mc_cid=7077941b31&mc_eid=14e57077d5

House Votes to Bailout Spendthrift Puerto Rico

Washington D.C. elites in the so-called House of Representatives have decided to bailout spendthrift Puerto Rico.  This tiny island has a $2 billion out of a $70 billion debt payment due on July 1^st.  Of course, lawmakers refuse to call it a bailout.  They say the federal government is “restructuring” its debt.  Speaker Ryan declared no “extra” money will go to Puerto Rico.  Yeah, right.

These people act like this hasn’t happened before.  During the 1830’s and 40’s, states ran up outrageous debt by issuing bonds for infrastructure projects.  An economic crisis ensued rendering irresponsible states insolvent and unable to pay back investors.  Foreign governments lobbied Washington D.C.  for a bailout.  They wanted the general government to guarantee states’ debts which, of course, it refused.  Our federalist system didn’t allow such an infringement upon self-government.

Eventually, states paid off their debt without federal government help and were the wiser for it.  Here is an excerpt from America’s First Great Depression by Alasdair Roberts.

“Self-government is no longer a theory, it has been demonstrated,” said John Pettit, an Indiana delegate who had served in both the state and federal legislatures.  And time had shown its frailties: “We have not that perfect confidence in ourselves…and we take our cool and calm moments to bind and restrict ourselves - to protect ourselves against the sudden and dangerous impulses of passion and prejudice…It is to prevent the evils resulting from excitement and passion, that we take our calmer and quieter hours to bind ourselves and our fellow man.”

Many states had, indeed, bound themselves in the years following the crises.  This was manifest in constitutional reforms and new tax policies, but a more important alteration, which both caused these changes and made them durable, could be seen in political culture.  Humiliated by the experience of default or near-default, pressed by angry lenders, and oppressed by new taxes, states had abandoned the internal improvements movement.  They had replaced their sunny views about popular sovereignty with a darker conception of the rationality of political processes.  The economic crisis seemed to have taught them a lesson: that liberty without discipline was a formula for ruin.

Indeed.  Puerto Ricans should have to suffer through a crisis they created; in the end, they will be the wiser for it.  Something tells me the United States will follow shortly.

 

 Source:

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/282895-house-votes-to-rescue-puerto-rico

https://www.amazon.com/Americas-First-Great-Depression-Political/dp/0801478863?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0