Editorial: Rebate pays for mediocrity, use surplus to make N.C. better

CBC Editorial: Friday, Aug. 16, 2019; Editorial #8454
The following is the opinion of Capitol Broadcasting Company.

The leaders of the General Assembly are crowing about a $897 million “surplus” in last year’s state budget.

There are several astonishing observations about this surplus. None have anything to do with the pats on the back that Senate leader Phil Berger and his budget chairman Sen. Harry Brown have been giving each other.

Most astonishing is that the surplus comes when these same legislative leaders have been saying – as Rep, Craig Horn last month told the New York Times about eliminating the waiting list for pre-K education -- “We simply don’t have the money.”

That’s the automatic reply when asked to address many of the state’s unmet obligations – fully-funding pre-K education; expanding Medicaid; meeting the State Constitution’s right to “quality” public schools; making sure our correctional facilities are safe and fully staffed to keep them secure, to name a few.

There are no goals, no demand for excellence, no desire to be the best. Spend as little as possible – just enough to get by.

It is the hallmark of the legislature’s leadership – a triumph of mediocrity.

This isn’t just about spending more money. It is about meeting our obligations and operating a state government with high standards and accountability.

"I actually think that the right thing to do with that is to send that money back to the people that sent it to us," Berger said in a recent interview with Spectrum TV. "What we ought to be doing is thinking about how we can provide a refund to the taxpayers of the state of North Carolina. If they sent us more money than was needed last year for the budget, then I think they deserve to have some of it back."

Well, you can’t have it both ways, Rep. Horn and Sen. Berger. Either “we simply don’t have the money” or there is “more money than was needed.”

Berger’s assumption that collections were “more than was needed” is just plain wrong. Meeting the basic needs of the state are well beyond even the surplus. Berger and his allies CHOOSE to short our state’s citizens and the quality services they are entitled to.

Now that revenue figures are available, we want the governor to change his counter proposal to the legislature to include more funding for unmet needs.

2020 cannot come soon enough.