Laboratory of Plutocracy

I am urged by a loyal reader to turn a jaundiced eye on the parlous state of our adopted home of North Carolina, and in particular on the actions of its Republican General Assembly. If it were anyone else asking, I’d decline on the grounds that between the federal government, the Russians, The Middle East and popular culture I’m depressed enough.

But okay, since I can’t say no to her, here’s the deal. North Carolina has long been a bipolar place as I discovered 46 years ago when I arrived. En route to graduate school I was greeted by a looming, ominous billboard in a tobacco field that said, “You’re now in Klan County.” This is the progressive state of Terry Sanford and the Research Triangle Park and the reactionary state of Jesse Helms and our own mini-Koch brother, Art Pope.

In 2010, he helped fund and engineer an election that, for the first time since 1896, gave the state a General Assembly where both houses were under Republican control. In 2013 a Republican Governor completed the trifecta and a great experiment is under way. Louis Brandeis said states could serve as laboratories of democracy. In North Carolina, Dr. Frankenstein is running the lab.

North Carolina has been systematically turning its back on a history of robust (for the South) support of education, health care and infrastructure in order to enact the sort of conservative wish list its fans are itching to inflict on the nation as a whole.

Environmental protection of the Haw River, that provides drinking water for one million people, has been underfunded and neglected. Duke Power’s pollution of the Dan River has been countenanced by the governor, a former Duke executive. Republicans have, predictably, refused to accept federal Medicaid expansion funds for the poor or to set up an Obamacare insurance exchange.

Taxes have been cut by $2 billion – on the wealthy and corporations. A new round of $1 billion more in cuts for the same beneficiaries has been proposed. To pay for this largesse, public schools have been cut by $277 million, thousands of teachers eliminated, and community college funding cut by $1 billion. Since there’s no free lunch, community college tuition has risen 70 percent since 2008. Teacher pay has gone from 25th in the nation to 45th and is heading for dead last. A tax deduction for medical expenses for seniors has been taken away, and food stamps and unemployment benefits dialed back.

In addition to this programs of robbing from the poor to give to the rich, the General Assembly has passed one of the most stringent voter suppression laws in the country in order to keep the poor, minorities and students away from the polls. Anti-abortion laws have been enacted and gun laws eased to allow concealed weapons in bars, in cars on campus, at funerals and on playgrounds. What could go wrong?

Will the pendulum swing back? Don’t count on it. Though Obama won the state in 2008, amid talk of its becoming purple, he lost in 2012 and was the first Democrat to carry it since 1976. Right-wing money helped fund the takeover of the General Assembly and is likely to keep on coming. Why not? They got what they paid for – lower taxes and a suppressed vote for their opponents. The General Assembly now is trying to redistribute sales tax revenues from the populous, prosperous (more liberal) cities where they are generated to rural areas where grateful Republican voters will have another reason to get out and vote.

This is government of the haves, by the haves, for the haves. “North Carolina: Building a poorer, less educated, less competitive, less healthy, disenfranchised electorate for a redder state tomorrow.” And now you know why I didn’t even want to think about this topic. P.S. Don’t drink the water.

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