Republicans Look At Taxes

Press release from the Al-Pam Republican Club

The Al-Pam Republican Club held it's February 1st meeting at the Golden Skillet in Plymouth, NC. A large attendance was on hand as President Chris East opened the meeting.

East began with a list of announcements regarding current events.
References were made to the Dare County Lincoln-Reagan Dinner as well as the Reagan Day Dinner for the counties of Camden, Currituck, Pasquotank, and Perquimans.

East then introduced the speaker for the evening, Mr. Dallas Woodhouse.

Woodhouse is the communications and grass roots director for the Americans for Prosperity. Americans for Prosperity work for the people of the US to advance each individuals right to economic freedom, and reducing size of social government is essential to ensure individual liberty and prosperity to each North Carolinian. Mr. Woodhouse stated that "in a nutshell, Americans for Prosperity is an advocacy group that fights for the people, are free market fundamentalists, are against all tax increases, and are for free market education."

Recently, the AFP have been trying to reduce the number of "earmarks" in the federal budget. "Earmarks" are inserting pork-barrell products into the federal budget just before being passed and are never voted upon. The AFP have been working against 3 huge earmarks. A 500K grant for a municipal swimming pool in Peoria, Ill; 500K grant to a midwest university to study waste in federal government; and a 400K grant for a teapot museum in Sparta, NC, in which we paid for in state taxes due to our democratic run state legislature. President Bush stated in the State of the Union address that "he wants to make sure all earmarks are public and voted upon.

Dallas then stated that there are 100's of millions of dollars proposed in state tax increases right now in Raleigh. There is a 1/4 cent scheduled to go off of the state sales tax in July. In December, Gov. Easley (D) said "it may not be wise to follow through with the cut as scheduled. The budget can absorb the loss in revenue but here's the question, do we really want to?" He then stated that, "there are all kinds of possibilities for that money." In a statement made by Senator John Kerr (D-Pitt) in the Wilson Times, he stated that, "Raising taxes is the only way to meet the needs of NC. We'll do what's right, but it's going to take some taxes. It is true that 1 billion dollars of taxpayer money is going to Google to relocate in NC."

Another iniative that is being pursued by the AFP is a Taxpayers Bill of Rights. The AFP have successfully passed this in Colorado. If the Bill fo Rights had been in place last year, it would have limited the growth of state government to 5.5% or about 970 million dollars. Instead, it grew 10.0% to 2 billion dollars.

The AFP are also trying to remove the cap on charter schools. Charter schools are public schools that are built with private funds. Essentially they do not require property tax increases to build. Charter schools promote competition and new ideas to students. There are currently over 100 operating. Woodhouse says that the good thing about charter schools is that "if it does not do well, they shut it down immediately. Which is the opposite to a public school, If a public school in failing, we don't shut it down, we just give it more of the taxpayers money."

The AFP are opposed to the lottery. "It has caused a structural deficit in the budget. Local governments have been encouraged to raise county taxes to account for the shortfall in lottery money. The lottery as analyzed to begin with is only leading to higher taxes," stated Woodhouse.

Lastly, Woodhouse spoke about the latest craze in state government. There is a proposal to ban smoking statewide in public places. The AFP believe that this issue should be left up the property/business owner and not be infringed upon by the state government. Ultimately, it boils down to the state legislature trying to impose heavier social laws on citizens.

The meeting was then closed after East stated that the next meeting will be on March 1st in Camden County. For more information, contact Chris East at (252) 793-9547 or al-pamrepublicanclub@hotmail.com and check out this web site americansforprosperity.org