Americans For Prosperity Promote Good Tax Policy

The Down-East Republican Club welcomed Francis X. De Luca of the Americans For Prosperity (AFP) to their meeting last night. The AFP and the AFP Foundation is a non-partisan tax payer organization that is promoting the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights for North Carolina citizens.

Mr. De Luca talked about the serious problem that we have with the current legislative body here in North Carolina, since the only way to return to freedom is to reduce spending. Our legislature does not seem to understand that. Even though we started this year with a $2.4 billion surplus, our current legislature has spent almost all of it. Only just under 5% was used to reduce taxes.

Francis X. De Luca, Americans For Prosperity

This is the largest increase in spending in North Carolina history. The sad part is that much of this was spent to increase ongoing commitments, such as major hiring of new personnel, 1,400 more than the 4,000 incease that was already planned. As a result, next year we will be over $1 billion short, and unless fiscal discipline is different than this year, a major tax increase will be required.

In addition, Mr. De Luca noted that the legislature issued another $600 billion in new bonds.

With all of that, the legislature did nothing to solve the Medicaid crisis for the counties, and they have actually rigged it so that the counties will be forced to raise taxes next year to solve the problem. This is not a good time in North Carolina for the taxpaying citizens.