Editorial: For education, legislature must approve Perdue's tax proposal
North Carolina's public schools, community colleges and universities need more money. The budget cuts of the last four years have seriously undermined this state's ability to educate its young and to prepare leaders for tomorrow.
The drastic budget-cutting of the 2011 Republican-led General Assembly, coming after deep Democratic cuts in three previous legislative sessions, have led to larger class sizes, fewer courses, thousands of fired instructors and canceled programs. That's why the legislature, when it reconvenes in May, must heed Gov. Bev Perdue's call to restore a sales-tax increase of three-quarters of 1 percentage point.
Perdue's proposal would raise $850 million-plus that the legislature could then spend specifically on education. That money could be put back into basic programs and to rehire teachers and teachers' aides.
Here's a political insight for the anti-government ideologues in the Grand Old Party: North Carolinians don't think that good schools, colleges and universities are the big-government problem. North Carolina's voting adults want their children well educated at every stop.
What will a 0.75 percentage-point sales-tax increase cost us? Just 75 cents in extra tax for every $100 of purchases. And that tax won't hit food purchases. North Carolinians know that those are three quarters well spent when it means that our entire educational system will get back money it desperately needs.
The GOP legislature has vented its anti-government wrath at public education. If legislators don't restore school funding levels, they will face an electorate ready, in return, to vent its pro-education wrath at them.
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