Governor Perdue speaks at the legislative retreat for the Jim Hunt Education Institute earlier this year in Pinehurst. Photo from Gov. Perdue's office via Flickr.
By Lois Alley, The Raleigh Telegram
RALEIGH – In a press conference last week, North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue pushed for a state-wide sales tax increase that would help to fund public education in North Carolina.
Perdue’s plan would “temporarily” re-instate a 3/4ths of a cent sales tax that would potentially raise as much as $750 million for education over one year.
In her statements at the press conference on Tuesday and in a video that she has posted on YouTube, Perdue, who is a Democrat, said that the state budget cuts by the Republican-controlled legislature had hurt education in the state.
“The N.C. Association of School Administrators reported recently that North Carolina has fallen to 49th in the nation in per-pupil funding,” said Perdue. “The legislature’s budget has hurt education at all levels…and has led to higher class sizes and the loss of thousands of teacher and teaching assistant positions.”
“Education has always been part of the fabric of who we are as a people in North Carolina, and it’s the key to our future,” Perdue added. “We must stop the deep and unnecessary cuts that are going on in North Carolina’s schools.”
In a time when economic conditions have hurt the pocketbooks of many folks, Perdue is taking a calculated risk that a proposed tax increase could make her unpopular with voters. Already polls have shown that she is trailing the likely Republican nominee for governor, former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory in the next election.
Predictably, state Republicans are making political hay out of Perdue’s announcement.
North Carolina State Senator Phil Berger (R-Rockingham County) said that when Perdue proposes her state budget to the legislature later this year, it will not be well-received.
“Obviously, Governor Perdue’s attempt to nip this economic recovery in the bud is dead on arrival at the General Assembly,” said Berger in a statement to the media. “The Democratic primary for governor apparently has devolved into a fight over who can raise the most taxes, spend the most money, and grow the biggest government. Governor Perdue’s latest tax-hike stunt proves she can’t fix this mess she made.”
Berger made the claim that “the governor’s proposal comes just a few weeks after her own education agency released a report showing more than 4,000 state-funded education positions were added over the past year.”
Berger’s office also has stated that Perdue’s claims of Republican cuts to the education budget are “consistently exaggerated”
“The bipartisan state budget…spent nearly the same amount on education as the budget Governor Perdue proposed last year,” said his office.
Berger has challenged Perdue to a public debate on the subject, but at this time, Perdue has not accepted. ::
VIDEO FROM GOVERNOR’S OFFICE:
Posted on Wednesday, January 25th, 2012
