Today’s N&O published my guest column describing what North Carolina can expect as our elected officials insist on (predictably) repeating past mistakes (raising taxes during the 2001 recession). Here is a sampling:
Albert Einstein once famously defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
In that context, what result is North Carolina’s General Assembly expecting with its pending $1 billion tax increase? If North Carolinians want to really know what to expect over the next several years, we should follow Einstein’s advice and examine past results.
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Raleigh budget makers too often look at only one side of the equation: how to extract more money from taxpayers to finance current spending habits. But the costs of tax increases should also be considered, and they amount to more than mere economic stagnation. A look at recent history shows that the General Assembly’s short-sighted decision to impose another $1 billion in taxes on a struggling economy will likely produce higher poverty, more joblessness and greater numbers of uninsured citizens.
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