Editor’s note: The following remarks were delivered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Sept. 22, 2008 by Representative Marcy Kaptur, a Democrat who represents Toledo, Ohio.
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, here is the latest reality game. Let’s play Wall Street Bailout.

Rule one: Rush the decision. Time the game to fall in the week before Congress is set to adjourn and just six weeks before a historic election so your opponents will be preoccupied, pressured, distracted, and in a hurry.
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There’s a new guy in town and it’s about time. William “B.J.” Lawson, a creative young physician and entrepreneur, is running against incumbent Rep. David Price for U.S. Congress. B.J. is running as a Republican, but when you meet him, you’ll quickly realize that you are facing our next generation of leader. I hope the local press will cover this extraordinary candidate for Congress.
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Chris Fitzsimon

The possibility of a national economic meltdown and the debate over a government bailout of Wall Street is understandably dominating the headlines these days. But there is also a growing sense of dread among some state lawmakers about state budget prospects for next year.
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A rational pause

The 300 East Main Street project is big, both in size and in how it is likely to change the eastern edge of Carrboro’s burgeoning downtown.

The project, the result of a decade of discussion and “visioning,” and at least four years of serious back and forth between the town, developers and some of the key entities — mainly The ArtsCenter and Cat’s Cradle — that will be affected.
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Pricey Harrison

Americans are still hurting because of the high cost of gas. Here in North Carolina, we’re still paying over a dollar per gallon more than we were one year ago today. In response, North Carolinians are driving less, because they know they need to save money to pay for other expenses, like rising food costs and health care.
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Meg Gray Wiehe

In less than two months, North Carolinians will be electing our state’s next leader. The gubernatorial candidates, Pat McCrory and Beverly Perdue, have different visions for the direction they want to take the state. They both, however, have touted plans to make new investments in the state, which means they need to have the resources to pay for them. Yet, there has been a lack of attention paid by either candidate to North Carolina’s outdated revenue system. To ensure the state has the resources to implement their visions, we need a bipartisan debate about how to create a more adequate, equitable and modern revenue system and a commitment from both candidates to lead that reform upon taking office.
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Peter Kramer

September is celebrated nationally as Recovery Month, a time to recognize the possibilities and promise of a life free from addiction. This year’s theme is “Join the Voices for Recovery; Real People, Real Recovery.”
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Infrastructure challenged

This has been a banner month for rain in a wetter-than-usual summer season. There’s cause to celebrate the fact that our reservoirs are now nearly full and the two-year drought is abated.

But the return of wet weather brought with it a not-so-subtle message that Carrboro and Chapel Hill have significant challenges ahead.
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Paige Johnson

Recently, Americans celebrated the 88th Anniversary of women’s suffrage in the United States. One hundred forty-four years after the founding of this country, women - representing more than half the population and having birthed the other half - won the right to vote.

In spite of their numbers, women were the last citizens to be granted the right to vote in this country. This quintessential American story of triumph after struggle is filled with wonder, courage and inspiration. Yet, the official anniversary of this incredible achievement, celebrated as Women’s Equality Day on Aug. 26 receives little fanfare, much less media coverage.
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As airport plans pit the university against rural Orange County, another issue is affecting about 100 largely rural Orange and Alamance County families: the decision by the county boards to consider altering the county line. In 1849, Alamance County was split off of Orange when surveyors drew a line from a “gum saplin” on the Person County line to a “birch shrub” on the Haw River. However, more than 100 years of practice mean that this “line” has been superceded for years by a tax line that is not straight. Our own property has been part of Orange County for at least 50 years, and probably much longer.
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Our Orange County commissioners are getting closer to selecting a site to build a county-wide trash transfer station. Please support the Eubanks-Rogers Road neighborhood in their effort to remove Eubanks Road as a potential site for this new facility. Eleven potential sites have been identified. Most of the other sites are west of White Cross Road along Highway 54 or off of the I-40 and Old 86 intersection. Every current and future garbage truck in the county will travel the selected route to the waste transfer station. From there all the trash will be dumped and loaded onto extended semi-tractor trailers for shipment out of the county.
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Outrage, anyone?

In case you’re confused about what exactly it means when the federal government withdraws Medicaid funding for a hospital or other health care institution, here’s the translation: It means the place isn’t safe.
Federal investigators have made that assessment and recommended no more federal funding after looking into allegations about Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro.
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By Chris Fitzsimon

Numbers released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday show thousands of families in North Carolina are no better off than they were seven years ago and many are having a harder time making ends meet.

Poverty, income and health-care data improved slightly from 2006 to 2007 nationally and in North Carolina, according to the annual population survey, but the poverty rate and percentage of people without health-care coverage is still significantly worse than in 2000.

The American Community Survey (ACS) found even more troubling trends: 17.2 percent of North Carolinians did not have health care in the last two years, a 2.1 percent increase. The national uninsured rate fell by a percent.

The ACS also found that 14.3 percent of people in North Carolina live in poverty and almost one in five children do.
Median annual household income was $44,760 after adjusting for inflation, roughly the same as it was seven years ago.
The national statistics were much the same. Robert Greenstein with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out that the drops in standard of living since 2001 mark the first time in history that poverty and family income are lower at the end of an economic expansion than at the beginning.

And don’t look for improvement any time soon, either nationally or in North Carolina. Greenstein points out that poverty is higher now than it was in 2007, and the economic slowdown continues.

There are plenty of things federal lawmakers can do to ease the pain, like finally passing an expansion of children’s health insurance and helping states with Medicaid costs.

State lawmakers can do things too, such as finally getting serious about eliminating the waiting list for child-care subsidies that is now 29,000 children long and investing more heavily in affordable housing and health care.

The new numbers also come amid bizarre claims by folks on the right and misinformation and half-hearted responses from politicians. One think tanker in North Carolina recently claimed that Social Security causes poverty.

Many self-proclaimed conservative candidates for the General Assembly and statewide office blame insurance mandates and the legal system for the health-care crisis, ignoring the compelling evidence that neither plays a significant role.

The talking points are designed to distract us from the crisis of 1.5 million people in the state with no health-care coverage. Many candidates who want voters to think they are progressive reject the right’s slogans, but offer few solutions of their own beyond the constant refrain that education is the solution.

Education is vital, but here’s a secret they never tell you. Living in poverty makes it harder for students to do well in school. If we want to help children, we have to help poor families lift themselves out of poverty by helping with child care and housing and other basic needs.

But don’t fret. Sure, 28 percent of the people in Robeson County live in poverty, 1.5 million people in the state have no health insurance and income inequality is on the rise. But state lawmakers are on the case.
They’ll be back in Raleigh Wednesday for a special legislation session — to help the recreational-boat industry.

Chris Fitzsimon is director of NC Policy Watch.

By Elaine Mejia

A Wake County superior court judge recently issued a ruling in a 10-year-old lawsuit against state government brought by several of North Carolina’s local school districts. The lawsuit alleged that the state constitution requires that the state’s public schools receive the revenue from all public “fines and forfeitures.” Revenue from criminal fines has always been given over to public schools.

The issue at hand is whether or not civil fines should also be turned over to the schools. These are fines such as those levied against operators of overweight trucks traveling the state’s highways or penalties paid by residents who owe back taxes. In 2005, the state Supreme Court determined that the schools are owed this revenue and this latest superior court ruling upholds that finding and specifies the amount owed.

So, how much money is at stake? Well, $749.7 million, to be exact, and that’s a lot of dough even for the state’s public schools, which require about $10 billion per year to operate in their current form. That’s the equivalent of more than two years of state lottery proceeds.

It should come as no surprise that within hours of the ruling, both House Speaker Joe Hackney and Senate leader Marc Basnight announced that the state does not have the funds to pay back the schools without raising taxes or cutting other programs, so they intend to replace current state funding for schools with the revenue from fines and forfeitures.
So what have the schools accomplished? They certainly made their point – the state constitution intends for them to have that money. But in reality, all they have accomplished is to replace their general-fund dollars, which come mostly from the stable and typically fast-growing personal income tax, with revenues from fines and forfeitures, a source that grows only when fines are explicitly increased and as the state’s population increases. Undoubtedly, this new revenue source will underperform relative to the needs of our public schools in the long term.

The lesson to be learned from this story is not to seek or accept a “dedicated” revenue source to support any important public service unless it meets two criteria. First, it should provide 100 percent of the revenue needed. Second, the dedicated revenue source should grow at the same pace as the anticipated costs. Accepting dedicated revenue sources that do not meet these criteria (fine and forfeiture funds and lottery proceeds being prime examples) can do more harm than good.

It’s hard not to feel sorry for public schools. Their advocates spent significant time and resources over many years pushing for the state to create a lottery. The lottery has resulted in very little money relative to the schools’ needs and it can be argued that much of the lottery revenues have merely supplanted other funding for schools. Moreover, public schools and their allies now have to deal with the impact of the lottery’s advertisements, which often feature happy school children in well-equipped classrooms.

In the wake of this latest court “victory,” the schools will now have two underperforming and yet high-profile revenue engines: the lottery and fines and forfeitures. Schools and their advocates will have to fight even harder against the public perception that the schools’ needs are met. Ironically, by winning these short-term battles public schools may be helping themselves lose the war.

Elaine Mejia is the director of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center.

Airport questions

Thank you for reporting the N.C. Legislature’s ratification of Senate Bill 1925, which essentially gives UNC the power of eminent domain, allowing them to acquire or condemn property in Orange County in order to build a new municipal airport. We are alarmed at the recent decision and believe that the government is over-reaching its authority by transferring this power to UNC. We cannot fathom how the tiny (if any) commuting convenience of the AHEC health-care professionals represents “the greater good” and, on its face, this recent decision seems to violate our private-property rights under the Constitution.
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