Home > So, what do you think? > Archives > 2008 > May > 12 > Entry
General Assembly and general chaos
North Carolina legislators will put on their Sunday best Tuesday for the opening of the General Assembly’s “short session.”
It’s a little like taking a college course in summer school — abbreviated terms, speedier assignments and a constant awareness of the clock. In this case, though, the legislators aren’t thinking about long weekends at the beach. They need to rush back home to politic.
The General Assembly sets its calendar to accommodate them. The tradition is to do some financial housekeeping in the short session and leave the heavy lifting for the odd-numbered year, when the legislature will be in Raleigh for six … seven … eight months or more.
The legislature has a $150 million surplus to play with, which seems like plenty of money to me, but it’s far short of the billion dollars or so the General Assembly had each of the past two years. That may not please the lawmakers much, but it’s good news for the rest of us. They can’t waste as much of our money, if they have less of it to begin with.
The General Assembly also faces a couple of interesting bond possibilities — one for roads, the other for University of North Carolina system projects. The bonds would be placed on the November ballot, if the lawmakers are so inclined.
Given the opposition voters showed last week in 18 counties that were considering sales tax increases, I’m not sure this is the best time for the legislature to be coming up with more ways to spend taxpayer money.
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