Current events bring to mind two lessons from childhood: “Stop, look and listen.” and “Haste makes waste.” Although they are using different words, those are the messages that I hear Governor McCrory and DHHS Secretary Aldona Wos sending to the North Carolina Legislature.
A hastily proposed bill now in the Legislature would require every facility performing abortions to meet ambulatory surgical center licensing standards. The purported goal is to assure that the procedure is safe for women but the apparent effect is to severely limit the availability of abortion because only one facility in the state could meet the standards. Both the Governor and Secretary Wos have urged the legislature to slow down and to look at the bill and the situation carefully before acting. The governor has even threatened to veto it.
If the bill is about patient safety, the sponsors should be able to present data indicating a problem. What percentage of women have complications after the procedure? What is the evidence that the complications would be reduced in an Ambulatory Surgical Center? The absence of facts is stunning. Many surgical procedures are permitted in physician offices. Without evidence that safety would be better in a surgical center, the law will be extremely vulnerable to court challenges and we will waste lots of tax money defending it. It seems obvious, that the bill is not about the safety of patients. Instead, it is a dishonest attempt to nearly eliminate abortion services in the state under the guise of patient safety, clearly infringing on women’s rights to make decisions about their own bodies. In their haste to act, the legislators could run us into the street and get all of us hit by an oncoming car – the lawsuits which will inevitably follow passage of the law.
In a similar matter, Governor McCrory is urging caution in the tax reform debate where radical legislators would reduce the state’s revenue so much that major new spending reductions would be required – and they would do that without a plan for which budget items would be cut. They would do it in a state which already ranks 44th among the 50 states in the percent of our economic output that is collected in taxes. The legislators will run into the street without looking and get us hit by a large truck – inability to fund public education, health services, infrastructure, and public safety needs.
It is to the Governor’s credit that he is warning the legislature that haste makes waste but he is far too late in confronting the legislature’s radicals. They have already rejected the return of $15 billion of federal taxes which North Carolina residents will pay for Medicaid expansion through 2019. They also gave back federal money for unemployment benefits at a time when we rank fifth in the nation in unemployment. And they have cut spending on public education in our state which already ranks 44th among the 50 states in per student spending. Yet excellence in public education may be the single most important key to economic vitality.
In November 2012, before the takeover by extremists, Site Selection Magazine ranked North Carolina as the best state in the nation for locating a new business. The magazine cited our “combination of work-force availability and skill sets of interest to employers, proactive business-development agencies, logistics assets and higher education infrastructure” as reasons for the top ranking. The legislature is taking us backwards. To see how the rest of the nation is viewing us now, you can Google “the decline of North Carolina” and read the opinion of the New York Times Editorial Board. In part, the observation from what may be the most influential newspaper in the country is, “In January, after the election of Pat McCrory as governor, Republicans took control of both the executive and legislative branches for the first time since Reconstruction. Since then, state government has become a demolition derby, tearing down years of progress in public education, tax policy, racial equality in the courtroom and access to the ballot…North Carolina was once considered a beacon of farsightedness in the South, an exception in a region of poor education, intolerance and tightfistedness. In a few short months, Republicans have begun to dismantle a reputation that took years to build.” The growing crowds at demonstrations opposing the legislature’s actions are ample evidence that something is seriously wrong and that many North Carolina Citizens recognize the problem. We ignore these problems at our peril.
When I listen to Republican friends, the ideas that I hear are not the ones that are emerging from the legislature. Instead, I hear thoughtful fiscal conservatives who want to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and limit the scope of government’s role in our lives. While we may disagree on some issues, we share goals of economic growth, excellence in education and efficient use of tax money. We can hope that the Governor is having a change of heart and that public opposition will slow down the march of radical lemmings which is headed for a cliff over which few of us want to fall. On the other hand, maybe the lemmings who walk over the cliff will not be returning to the next session of the legislature. Maybe by letting them go ahead we can improve the legislative gene pool…just a thought…