My new brief posted today at www.nccivitas.org examines the 30-year spending binge North Carolina lawmakers have embarked upon since 1979. Some quick observations:
•North Carolina’s state budget – even after adjusting for inflation – more than tripled in the last 30 years.
•By comparison, the state population grew by 61 percent.
•In other words, real expenditures in North Carolina’s state budget grew at more than three times the pace as population.
•If real (inflation-adjusted) General Fund appropriations had merely increased by 61 percent over that 30-year time span, the fiscal year 2008-09 budget would have been only $11.1 billion.
?Last year’s actual budget was $21.4 billion, $10.3 billion more – or 93 percent greater – than if inflation-adjusted, per person state spending had been limited to 1979 levels.
?Even if the inflation-adjusted state budget grew by 122 percent – or twice the rate of population growth – during that time, appropriations would have amounted to only $15.3 billion in 2008-09, $6.1 billion less that the actual approved budget.
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