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OMG! An issue!
posted at 2007-11-29 23:25 | Last modified 2007-11-30 00:05
Okay, I jest… a little. But it was a pleasant surprise to be invited to a presser today on a real honest-to-pete policy issue.
Richard Moore called the press corps out to Dem HQ to talk about budget reform - more specifically, to refute yesterday’s proposal by the Perdue campaign for a “BRAC”-style committee to find efficiencies in state government.
Perdue’s proposal would include a bipartisan committee of independent citizens who would submit up to ten proposals to restructure/cut $250 million dollars from state programs and agencies. Under Perdue’s proposal, the legislature would be required to give each proposal an up-or-down vote, no amendments, before they pass the budget.
Why does that matter? Perdue says her proposal would help reduce special interests’ leverage in the process. If you're not sure that matters, check out the trees’ worth of earlier blue-ribbon reform recommendations now gathering dust on legislative shelves without ever getting a vote. You can lead a horse to water…
The buck stops here
But Moore isn’t buying that argument. He says it’s the Governor’s job to make the unpopular decisions about programs to cut, and then to get the legislature to follow through – and he says former Governors Hunt and Easley showed it can be done if you’re willing to work for it.
Moore says Perdue’s committee is a “smoke and mirrors” way to find more money to spend on her pet programs, and to pass the buck for the cuts to folks who won’t be politically accountable for it. He says taking the heat is just part of the job.
Oh, sure, you say that now...
Perdue’s spokesman David Kochman responds that it’s ironic that Moore now rejects the idea of a BRAC-style budget committee, given that he openly backed a similar proposal at the federal level during his 1994 run for Congress. And, Kochman adds, Perdue's proposal is more open and democratic than Moore's.
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