Most people are aware that their energy costs are going to go up significantly if Cap 'n Trade is passed in Washington. But fewer are cognizant that new energy taxes are also being proposed at the state level here in North Carolina.
All of this seems to put to rest the premise that the Democrats are not raising taxes on working class and middle class Americans. They are seeking to do so, with gusto.
Americans for Prosperity has set up a website to enable citizens to express their opposition to the plan to raise taxes on electricity 3% - 6.75% in North Carolina. This increase would affect individual households and small businesses. Go here to tell your lawmakers to cease and desist.
I am with an electric co-op and they actually put a charge on the bill for "renewable energy mandate" because it costs them so much. This should be required by all utilities for these taxes so we see what is in our bill and why it is going up.
Posted by: cpa101 | July 06, 2009 at 01:58 PM
I propose they be required to list this new tax on billing statements as the "mandatory state rape and pillage" fee.
Posted by: Bubba | July 06, 2009 at 02:03 PM
Here's my response to our representatives in Raleigh:
As a member of Americans for Prosperity-North Carolina, I urge you to hold
the line on taxes and reject calls to enact higher taxes on electric power.
I am outraged that lawmakers are considering higher taxes on my home power
bill. I understand one proposal being discussed is increasing the sales
tax on electricity from 3 percent to 6.75 percent.
This possibility is sheer irresponsibility on the part of those elected
officials who would place such a burden on our citizens.
Where does it all end?
When will responsible elected officials come together to simply say ENOUGH!
When will elected officials demand accountability regarding the way our
tax money is spent, and take responsibility for the government's finances
in much the same way as families do for their own budgets?
I call upon you to join those of us who say ENOUGH!
Posted by: Bubba | July 06, 2009 at 02:17 PM
cpa, these taxes can be a bit sneaky. They can be given deceptive names. It seems people would almost need to be required to pay them with a separate check in order to have them understand they are being charged a tax.
Bubba, I agree that the answer is for elected officials to be accountable for their spending-- and that we need to fix the spending problem in North Carolina.
Posted by: Joe Guarino | July 06, 2009 at 03:11 PM
Here is the response John Blust is sending to those who have written him about this issue:
"I agree we should not raise any taxes to fix the state budget situation. We should do our job on this budget with the 19 billion we will have without a tax increase. Over ten percent of North Carolina workers are already unemployed and many others are struggling to pay their bills and save their homes. It would be reprehensible to take more money from
struggling people and struggling businesses.
The process by which the legislature puts together its budget is fundamentally flawed. Very few legislators have any real input into the budget decisions and only a handful of members make the key decisions.
Once the final budget is assembled, most members have only an up or down vote on the budget as a whole. There is little opportunity to amend the final proposal.
Each session, I have opposed the House rules which allow this deeply flawed legislative process to be imposed, and I have prepared a set of House rules that will return the House to being the deliberative body it was intended to be by our State Constitution. The same thing needs to be done in the state Senate that has become almost a dictatorship, rather
than a body made up of co-equal members in which every citizen of this state has an equal voice. It is wrong to operate what should be the people's legislature in the manner it is being operated. A secretive
and fundamentally flawed budget process is what caused us to miss this year's budget target by $3.5 BILLION and has lead to forced pay cuts, furloughs of state personnel, and seized funds by the Governor.
Reforming the legislative process so this type thing doesn't happen again should be our number one priority.
Here is the proposal I made in April and sent to every member of the legislature in an attempt to resolve our budget problem without imposing higher taxes on struggling North Carolinians:
This week an already tough budget situation got considerably worse. Prudence would seem to dictate a new approach to preparing the next state budget, given the exigencies of the moment. What follows is the approach I recommend:
If you have seen the movie Apollo 13 you know that due to an exploding oxygen tank, the spacecraft had to be totally shut down and the three astronauts had to survive for five days in the attached lunar module.
As they approached the earth, the pacecraft had to powered back up and several procedures followed to prepare for re-entry using only the miniscule amount of electricity left. Astronaut Ken Mattingly (Gary Senise) worked in the simulator back at NASA to come up with the procedures that would save the lives of the astronauts on board Apollo 13. Working backwards from the last essential step of warming up the
frozen parachutes, a sequence was finally found that allowed all absolutely necessary procedures to be performed and Apollo 13 and the lives of three astronauts were saved.
This is essentially the approach used in Chapter 11's and non-bankruptcy restructurings. Essential core functions are preserved, costs are brought under control, and the non-essential is eliminated so that a viable entity that can survive in the economy, can emerge.
We now need to take a similar approach in preparing the next budget by restructuring state government. We need to start working back from the most essential state government functions in the order of reverse priority. For example, we need to fund the necessary number of K-12 teachers. Then fund the necessary number of university and community college professors and put that in the budget being constructed. Go one-by-one through the essential functions and positions like judges, DAs, clerks of court, etc. and build the budget from ground up funding only the absolutely necessary. When that is completed, determine how much revenue availability is left and fund things that are great for the state to do, but less than absolutely critical, until the available funds are used up.
As for personnel, it does not make sense to treat every employee the same way in some furlough approach. A thorough examination of each position and employee should be made and the highest performers and
those most critical must be retained, while the lower-performing and less essential are let go. If the Carolina Panthers had to slash payroll, they wouldn't furlough all-pro players along with those from
the taxi squad. A one-time peer review could be used to help determine those who are not as essential or who are not performing up to par. We all have heard stories about some employees who do not pull their weight due to their political connections or other reasons. As an example of the wasteful overspending, we have legislative staffers making more money than the Superintendent of Public Instruction at a time there are threats to lay off teachers in this state and increase the taxes that unemployed workers will have to pay. One Senate staffer makes $144,000!
We need to go through the budget, line-by-line, and position-by-position
and eliminate the unnecessary and less necessary and start this process right away. Given the gravity of this situation, the old approach of a budget prepared out-of-view by a few is not going to work this session.
We need to give every member a seat at the table and a voice in the process. Then we can all take the credit and the blame for what we have to do to repair this dire budget situation.
The House did not prepare a prioritized budget from the ground up, so I am very likely going to vote no on the final budget. Instead, the House once again followed the same process that failed so dramatically last year. Now the House is set to raise taxes by approximately one billion dollars per year on already struggling citizens of this state who cannot
afford to pay more. We have over $19 billion coming into the state's coffers this coming year, even with the bad economy. We could craft a workable state budget and provide for effective and efficient state government and a first-class education system with $19 million if we prioritized our spending and did our job right.
If I come back for another term, I will attempt once again to first fix the process, so that we can give the people of North Carolina a much better state government than we have given them these last few years. So far this session, as the people of North Carolina struggle economically, the legislature has refused to take up proposals designed to reform the failed budget process that has lead to our present difficulties. This unacceptable performance is inexcusable.
In December of 1862, at perhaps the bleakest moment of the entire Civil
War, Lincoln told the Congress: "The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise to the occasion. As our case is new, so we
must think anew, and act anew." We in the North Carolina legislature must take Lincoln's words to heart in the face of this stormy present and think anew about how to address the state budget and bring this ship safely to shore."
Posted by: Bubba | July 07, 2009 at 08:29 AM
Bubba,
The problem is you are preaching to the choir. Blust is not the problem and he is trying to make changes. It is the establishment of Basnight and company that needs to hear from the people of NC as he and his cronies are the only ones who can make any changes. Good luck with that though!
Posted by: cpa101 | July 07, 2009 at 09:44 AM
Bubba and cpa, John Blust is absolutely right. Once again this underscores the necessity of electing good candidates.
Posted by: Joe Guarino | July 07, 2009 at 10:12 AM
The problem is that Blust is our elected representative, and the problem children are the ones we can't vote against. Thus, they do not listen to us. I suspect that the problem children are elected by like-minded voters, who do not have a clue how such legislation adversely affects them.
Posted by: Stormy | July 07, 2009 at 12:38 PM
If you think that what is happening in North Carolina is egregious, check out what is happening in Missouri. Electricity users are being charged for not using electricity. Truly amazing.
http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics/story/1307200.html
"JEFFERSON CITY | Some Missouri residents and businesses soon could see a new charge on their electric bills — a fee for using less energy.
Though it might seem illogical, the new energy efficiency charge has support from utilities, most lawmakers, the governor, environmentalists and even the state’s official utility consumer advocate. The charge covers the cost of utilities’ efforts to promote energy efficiency and cut power use.
The assumption is that charging consumers for those initiatives ultimately will cost less than charging them to build the new power plants that will be needed if electricity use isn’t curtailed."
Posted by: Stormy | July 07, 2009 at 01:15 PM