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N.C. GOP chairman, Gaston Republicans critical of state budget
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September 21, 2009 |
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Corey Friedman
2009-09-03 15:24:19
GASTONIA — It’s been too long since Republicans have controlled the state Senate, GOP leaders say — 111 years too long.
“The last time Republicans were a majority in the Senate was ’98, and I don’t mean 1998,” said Tom Fetzer, chairman of the N.C. Republican Party. “I mean 1898.”
Fetzer outlined ambitious plans to take 12 seats in the state House and eight in the Senate during the 2010 election — including Gaston County’s District 43 Senate seat held by Democrat David Hoyle, an incumbent serving his ninth term. He spoke to Gaston County Republicans at Milano’s Italian Restaurant Thursday, the 10th stop in the GOP leader’s Budget Town Hall Tour.
A three-term former mayor of Raleigh, Fetzer attacked the General Assembly’s 2009-2011 budget, which includes a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase. The tax in 91 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, including Gaston, Lincoln and Cleveland, is 7.75 cents per $1.
“This is one of the worst budgets I’ve ever seen passed in the state of North Carolina,” Fetzer said. “It raises taxes at exactly the wrong time, and it cuts what should be our No. 1 priority.”
The state chairman explained that the biennial budget shaved funding to public schools by 4 percent, a total of $225 million. Meanwhile, Fetzer added, budget drafters included $34 million for inmate education.
“I would fully concede that education is part of rehabilitation and a part of incarceration,” he said, “but not in a year that we’re cutting the public school budget by a quarter of a billion dollars.”
Raising the sales tax during a recession and while the state unemployment rate hovers at 11 percent will hurt low-income families the most, Fetzer said.
“That’s a very regressive tax, because wealthy people can adjust their spending,” he said. “People who are working poor who generally spend everything they make to survive can’t control it as much.”
The GOP’s top dog lambasted Hoyle and pledged that the state party would match his campaign war chest dollar-for-dollar in the 2010 race. Real estate agent Kathy Harrington challenged Hoyle in 2008, losing by a slim margin of about 2,000 votes.
Harrington has not announced whether she will run in 2010, though Fetzer endorsed her as a strong conservative candidate.
“We are going to have a well-funded, competitive candidate who will run against David Hoyle and hopefully who will beat him,” Fetzer said.
Fetzer and Republican members of the General Assembly said the GOP needs to claim a majority of seats in the House, Senate or both chambers in order to correct imbalances of power.
Rep. Bill Current said committee chairmen in the Democratic-controlled House have too much power to prevent bills they oppose from being considered.
“It’s very frustrating when your rules say every bill is supposed to be heard in committee and only the ones that the committee chairs signed onto will get heard,” Current said.
Pearl Burris-Floyd, a freshman House member representing Gaston and Cleveland counties, said all bills must be sent to at least two committees. Generally, the more committees that are assigned a bill, the less chance it has of emerging for consideration before the full chamber.
“If you hear that your bill is going to three, four, five committees, you know that your bill is being buried. It will never be heard,” she said. “It’s a domination and control tactic using rules.”
Republicans hope to turn the tables in November 2010 by gaining a majority in at least one chamber. Fetzer asked party members to make contributions of $365 a year under a fundraising campaign called, “A Dollar a Day Keeps the Democrats Away.”
“We can either spend out time talking about how unfairly the Democratic majority governs,” Fetzer said, “or we can become the majority and do a better job ourselves.”
You can reach Corey Friedman at 704-869-1828.
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