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Friday: RIP, "Senator No"
posted at 2008-07-04 11:29 | Last modified 2008-07-04 12:47
This just in - Former US Senator Jesse Helms has died. He was 86. No cause of death has been announced yet, but he'd been in failing health for sometime.
Helms was elected to the Senate in 1972 - the first Republican to win that post since Reconstruction, I think. He served 5 terms before retiring in 2002. He was a hero to hard-right conservatives, but stirred up no end of controversy on the national political scene for his rants against "pointy-headed liberals," his fight against reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act in 1982, and his "racial quota" campaign ad that helped him defeat African-American Democrat Harvey Gantt in 1990.
Rob Christensen at the News and Observer (which Helms liked to call the "Nuisance and Disturber," I'm told) has a great write-up on Helm's life and career.
Budget breaks
Senate Leader Marc Basnight and House Speaker Joe Hackney announced they'd reached a budget deal late yesterday afternoon. It's up for floor votes next week.
No big surprises except for a lot more borrowing - more than 850M, spread over the next few years, to finance construction projects around the state. Hackney said those projects will put a lot of people to work.
"It’s a stimulus package for the state to get these buildings going. And we know the growth is coming, so we’re gonna need the buildings. And we’re within all the guidelines."
I'll have more on it here later, but here's some of the big stuff:
- The two big tax cuts (gift tax and earned income tax credits) are still there, but their effective dates have been pushed back a year, saving the state a combined $30M in recurring funds.
- It does NOT include a controversial provision giving Gov. Easley the power to increase teachers' raises if extra tax revenue came in. Hackney said that didn't look likely to happen, anyway.
- No other special provisions, either - Basnight said they'd all been turned into studies or directives to state agencies.
- They didn't cut as much as Easley told them to.
If you really have nothing better to do on July 4th, you can page through the whole enormous PDF here. But if you're looking for an overview, Greensboro's Mark Binker has a nice rundown, plus extra video of yesterday's announcement on his blog.
The N&O's Dan Kane has GOP reaction to the increase in borrowing. And Dome has a hilarious photo of Easley budget advisor Dan Gerlach with Basnight. Thumbs up, everyone!
Comments? Drop me a line.
