Perdue can help herself by vetoing budget

Republicans rode into town determined to make big changes. After more than a century in the legislative minority (except for a brief period in the 1990s when they controlled the House), Republicans held substantial majorities in both the House and Senate. They promised big — no tax increases, a budget passed long before July 1, improved schools, a better business climate.

Three weeks before the end of the fiscal year, the budget is finally on Gov. Bev Perdue's desk, and the best thing Perdue might do is veto it. Perdue has complained that the budget shortchanges education, and the chairman of the state Board of Education has vehemently complained about the budget, which, among other things, eliminates teacher aides after kindergarten and phases out the Teaching Fellows scholarship program. With five Democrats voting for the budget, Republican leaders have a veto-proof majority in the House. Nevertheless, Perdue has nothing to lose in vetoing the budget. She can make her point more effectively than she has in all the speeches and press conferences while challenging Republicans to stand behind their actions. Perdue's criticism of Republican budget cuts has resulted in an uptick in her popularity ratings, although she still has a long way to go to get re-elected. Pat McCrory, who is running hard to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee again, has to hope that Perdue will quietly let the budget pass.

Legislative Republicans have done more than pass a budget that undoes much of the educational strategy and tactics of the past 20 years. They have unashamedly aligned themselves with business interests to the detriment of the public in bill after bill. The broadband bill, pushed hard by the giant national corporations that have virtual monopolies in most areas, forbids new municipalities from getting into the broadband business, as Wilson and a few other cities have done. Although titled with other words, the bill is really a monopoly protection bill. Most North Carolinians will not have the option that Wilson residents have, to choose a cheaper, faster cable TV and Internet provider. Republicans pushed a bill that would prohibit Raleigh and other cities from ensuring that rental housing is safe and habitable. Republicans even tried to prohibit the Department of Transportation from forbidding left turns on some highways because some business people complained that the left turns, though dangerous, were good for business. They even tied the extension of unemployment benefits to budget cuts, making out-of-work North Carolinians pawns in a game of political chicken.

Republicans may be able to proclaim that they have won majorities and passed a new kind of budget, but Democrat Perdue can only help herself by vetoing the Republicans' budget. By 2012, as voters realize how cozy Republican legislators are with big corporations and how little they care about the plight of individual voters, the GOP gloating might be over.