Recent editorials from North Carolina newspapers:
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Jan. 13
The News & Observer of Raleigh on taxes and state fees:
North Carolina’s Republican lawmakers tout how much they have cut taxes, but they’ve also quietly allowed an increase in what are essentially hidden taxes - state fees.
From the 2011-2012 budget year - the first after Republicans took full control of the legislature - until the budget year 2015-16 (the latest numbers available), the total for state fees collected by all state departments jumped nearly $1 billion from $5.1 billion to $6 billion.
Some of the increase reflects the state’s rising population - more people paying more fees. But the nearly 20 percent rise in fee revenue since Republicans started writing budgets far outstrips the 6 percent increase in population since 2010.
In large part, the rise reflects the state’s shifting to students the cost of attending a state college. One line in the fee table - revenue collected from “tuition and fees” - is more than $600 million higher than it was in 2010.
Republicans hardly invented lawmakers’ preference for raising fees instead of taxes. With Democrats in control, total fee revenue more than doubled from 2000 to 2010, rising from $1.8 billion to $4.4 billion. And the tendency is not confined to North Carolina. Arturo Perez, a fiscal analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures, said, “Over the last 10 years or so we’ve seen fee increases occur at the state level where in the past it would have been a tax increase.”
But the continued rise in fees under Republicans undercuts their claim of returning money “to hard-working North Carolinians.” Middle-income families may save a few hundred dollars thanks to cuts in the state income tax, but they’ll lose money back to an expansion of the sales tax and higher fees.
Fees should be directly related to the cost of delivering a service. Some revenue from state fees does go directly to agencies. But higher fees are also being used to increase general revenue, making them back-door taxes. In 2015, the legislature ordered an increase of about 30 percent for DMV fees, enough to generate an additional $150 million a year for road and bridge improvements. These broad increases are the most regressive because a person often has no choice but to pay a fee.
Increases in court fees and fines are the most egregious. They are often imposed on people who are unable to pay and who then accrue more fees for failure to pay. The Charlotte Observer recently reported: “Fines and court costs generate $700 million for the state’s general fund - much of it fueled by General Assembly decisions to increase court fees by 400 percent over the past 20 years.”
UNC law professor and N&O contributor Gene Nichol, along with researcher Heather Hunt, recently released a report for the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund that focuses on the injustice of using higher court fees and fines to fund North Carolina’s courts.
The report’s conclusion says in part: “It deprives many poor defendants of the essentials of due process, frequently leading to incarceration and other punishments based merely on their poverty.”
The report further notes that funding courts through what amounts to user fees doesn’t work. Rates of collection are low and court debt can lead to incarceration that costs taxpayers more than what’s owed.
The growth in state fees comes amid an increase in fees in the private sector. Banks have made billions of dollars charging high fees on overdrafts, credit card companies have done the same with late fees and the airlines have stuck with baggage fees imposed to offset rising fuel costs even as the cost of oil has fallen.
Fair dealing requires that fees should be modest, necessary and directly applied. Otherwise, businesses should honestly raise their prices and governments should openly raise taxes to support government services. A fee for service should be just that. It shouldn’t be an opportunity to exploit customers or a way to lower taxes and fund government operations by more regressive means.
Online: http://www.newsobserver.com
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Jan. 14
The Charlotte Observer on Martin Luther King Jr.:
Martin Luther King Jr. was not a well-liked man. He was one of the most polarizing figures in the United States during his final few years of life. He was not the cuddly creature we re-invent every King Day to lie to ourselves and our kids about how he only wanted us to get along. His approval rating began to rise only after he was no longer here to demand America live up to its ideals.
King wanted peace, but not at the expense of equality. He wanted little black girls and little black boys to play together, but not if it meant pretending racism didn’t exist. He respected authority, but challenged those wearing badges and carrying batons and sitting in the Oval Office.
He wanted moral clarity, not cheap comfort. Were he alive today, he’d still be hated by those wedded to the status quo. Because he’d notice the poor still being vilified as lazy. He’d see large corporations, like Walmart, brag proudly about modest pay increases then quietly announce thousands of layoffs. The GOP would still have enacted a tax law skewed to the rich then pass work requirements for Medicaid benefits - something they have never required of wealthy Americans receiving government largesse. He’d know the government pays private collectors triple what they retrieve in back taxes from the low-income while high-income tax cheats skate.
That’s why we should shelve the “I Have a Dream” speech. It has been used too often as an excuse to not have to face hard truths or fight for the most vulnerable among us.
Online: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/
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Jan. 14
The News & Record of Greensboro on Dreamers:
Democrats don’t hold much power in Washington, but they should use every bit they’ve got to protect the Dreamers.
Those are the 700,000 young adults brought to this country illegally as children who hold temporary legal status granted through former President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
President Donald Trump revoked DACA in September but also “deferred action” for six months, giving Congress time to enact a replacement. With just six weeks before the deadline, Congress has done nothing.
Both Democrats and Republicans, as well as Trump, are trying to make deals. Trump wants Democrats to back a $33 billion immigration security plan. Also in play is the approaching expiration of the latest short-term spending plan. Unless Congress acts on that by Friday, the government could partially shut down. Democrats want protection for Dreamers in that bargain.
Congress should easily agree on this. Americans do. A Politico/Morning Consult poll in September found that 58 percent of Americans said Dreamers should be allowed to stay in the country and become citizens if they meet certain requirements. That goes beyond the provisions of Obama’s DACA, which included no path to citizenship. Another 18 percent said Dreamers should be allowed to stay with legal status but not citizenship. And only 15 percent favored deportation.
Yet deportation will happen if the Dreamers lose their legal status in March. It won’t be hard for the government to find them as they provided plenty of personal information about themselves to enroll in DACA.
Democrats’ first choice is the reasonable course of passing a simple DACA bill. Trump briefly agreed to that in a bipartisan meeting last week until Republicans explained his bargaining position. But some GOP initiatives also deal separately with Dreamers. N.C. Sen. Thom Tillis introduced a bill last year that carries tough requirements for recipients but also offers the opportunity for them to gain citizenship after many years of compliance.
Holding those young people hostage to a $33 billion immigration enforcement bill is unfair. Most of that money - $18 billion - supposedly would pay for Trump’s border wall boondoggle. The funding would stretch over 10 years, and the wall still wouldn’t fortify the entire border. Parts of it wouldn’t be a wall at all. And Mexico won’t pay for it. The next president could cancel the project, but not before billions of dollars were wasted.
Other funds could be employed more menacingly - for internal immigration security, which means rounding up people from communities like ours where they work, worship, spend money and pay taxes. Dreamers could become targets unless Congress ends their dilemma. If Republicans want to own a border boondoggle and a policy of arresting Dreamers, they shouldn’t expect Democrats to help.
There are more modern methods of enforcing border security, while internal security should focus on illegal immigrants who commit crimes. Deportations of good, law-abiding people must not be a priority.
The recent decision to end temporary protective status for 200,000 Salvadorans admitted during the George W. Bush administration likewise doesn’t make sense. Nearly nine in 10 of these long-time legal residents are part of our labor force, and nearly 40,000 work in the construction industry, where there’s a documented labor shortage.
Trump’s “base” might cheer the deportation of any foreigners, but immigration policies should advance our national interests. When immigrants contribute to our economy and our communities, let’s keep them - starting with the Dreamers. Democrats and Republicans alike must stand with them.
Online: http://www.greensboro.com
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