ashe

Does the Republican Party have any leadership?

The Republican Party in general has supported trickle down economics since the 1980's in rejection of Keynsian economics which carried us through the Depression/WWII/Korea until late 1960's when Lyndon Johnson fully committed to both guns and butter. You can sustain that and the oil shock of 1973 set the seeds of a long but fully due recession.

We have cut taxes below the level needed to sustain entitlements that most Americans support and we have incentivized moving manufacturing offshore so that folks who own stock in Wal-Mart can profit. If you are part of the ownership class you are doing great and have been for a long time. If you are purely labor - your *** has been in trouble for a long time.

One of the current splits you see in the Republican Party is over trickle down economics as lower income Republicans have figured out they are not benefiting, although they don't know exactly why. Trump has tapped this root.

Republicans used to be for sound money and non-foreign intervention as late as 1951. Eisenhower changed the party to an interventionist part and Reagan changed it to a non-sound money party.

The last real Republican President was George H. W. Bush and NC's last real Republican Governor was Jim Martin. That's a long time ago.

The problem in Raleigh is that the Republican Party is not one party - it's a hodgepodge of "Business Republicans" - the kind that used to run industry and government in the Triad, Religious Republicans who are more interested in certain values, mainly between Charlotte and the Foothills, old fart Mountain Republicans (people who were Pubs before such a thing became fashionable in the late 1970's, Yankee import Republicans who have relocated to NC from New Jersey, NY, and Pa - like Bob Ruccho from Matthews and brought NE US problems to NC, and quasi white supremacists for lack of a better description.

Democrats historically in NC were also of different stripes and notoriously split between Rural Conservatives and Urban Progressives, as well as a Mountain/Piedmont/Eastern split and they held the white supremacists until the late 60's, but the Governor, Speaker and President Pro-Tem were more similar in their view of government than today's Republicans because some Republican Groups want no government at all.

Essentially there are not enough basic Republicans to make policy and they have to satisfy various factions, because they don't want to have to include Democrats to make policy. The U. S. House has the same problem.

Because the Republican and Democratic party both fought what should have been the beginning of the 7th Party Structure you have significant segments of misplaced Democrats and Republicans.

There are enough voters to make a new middle party, but the election rules prevent what would be a natural middle of the road party like Germany's Christian Democrats. That middle party would naturally contain Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, the Bush Dynasty, etc., this is a party that is sound money and interventionist. There are now a lot of Democrats who are too far left regarding unsound money and lack of intervention, but they are given oxygen by the Dick Cheney's of the world.

There is a basic social compact that exists between all Americans that is not found explicitly in the Constitution. The movement from a rural to an urban society stresses that compact. That compact is that a society can tolerate only so many desperately poor people before they become a threat to the middle and upper class.

Republicans used to worry about sound business practices now they chase marriage laws, birth certificates, and a slew of bull ****. This allows the Democratic Party left wingers to gain more control over the Democratic Party and the logical middle gets shredded. You used to be able to depend on Democrats to run the day to day of government, not steal too much, and the Republicans to keep them from spending everything and play the important role of minority party.

What goes on in Raleigh is just a microcosm of the larger problem across the country.

I don't think this was miscalculated by the Republican leadership any at all. They knew taking away these deductions from the largest bunch of working and faithful taxpaying North Carolina citizens (the middle class) was going to create this bubble for them. It also gives them something to crow about during an election cycle, claiming fiscal conservatism. You give them too much of a benefit of the doubt, Heels.

I don't necessarily think that tax cuts for corporations are an awful thing, if done correctly. I think it should be more incentive driven, for instance if you increase your workforce my a certain percentage in a given year, then you qualify for a lower rate. We all know that simply cutting the corporate tax rate does little to spur economic growth the way it should.

Bluheel got it exactly correct. The tax cuts were given, but were made-up and then some by the extra taxing on consumables and loss of deductions. Voting Republican is proven not to be good for the middle and lower class earners in our community, state, and nation. They call in their votes promising tax cuts, an end to abortion (which, they haven't delivered on yet - no pun intended), and putting God back in our government.

Veterinary services should be taxed. If people can afford to spend thousands for hip replacements and other procedures to keep dogs around even though nature is saying "let this inbred POS die", then they can pay tax.

The state has run deficits for years. Jim hunt even borrowed 120 million from a retirement system. Did you really expect them to run a deficit?

Don't forget the sales taxes added to some services plus they're looking at taxing additional services including veterinary services. It's all a very regressive approach ......cut taxes on corporations and higher earners, give the middle class enough to say they got a tax cut and then hitting them with new sales tax, credit cuts, and fees.

As you said yogi, thats the other part of it. Not all of it. Wonder who put the oyster shell credit in?

I was especially alarmed by the credit for recycling oyster shells.

Since you asked, dog, here's some of it and it all hits the middle class.

Yes it was a surplus, and they made many changes that needed to be made. Reform of the unemployment benefits was big, and paying it off the debt will be huge for business in NC. I do think they have gone to far on Education but that is a different argument.

What were the deduction changes? Yogi?

Deductions changed for the middle class and created the bulk of the surplus. And those changes were certainly not in favor of the the largest group of taxpayers in the state.

It's still a surplus

Partially true, stupid, but not nearly the whole story.

No yogi, the surplus came from less paid out in refunds and more paid to settle up last years taxes.

Basking, that surplus was due to less tax payout to the middle class. Hardly something to crow about.

Budget surplus years are often the result of revised tax laws in the year prior. It really doesn't have that much to do with fiscal conservatism by one party or another. More often than not, NC has had one of the other (the House and the Senate) being controlled by different parties. In several of the years in recent memory of budgets being passed past the deadline, a Democrat Governor was dealing with a Democrat controlled House and a Republican controlled Senate. In the end, I think the best work of our state government was done when that was the case (House and Senate of different parties). It allowed for compromise. With the system we have now with top to bottom Republican control, they can't agree on anything, outside of the fact that they want to privatize the public school system. If the idiots in our state keep voting Republicans into office, you'll see education take even greater hits, as they bleed our schools into destruction. You can already see the effect their war on education has caused in that companies are not choosing North Carolina due to the lack of public school funding.

So the first republican controlled state government created a surplus right after the worst recession in our history.

And yes, Democrats missed the deadline as well many times. If I am not mistaken, that was a key campaign point to some Republicans in 2010.