What? Do you want a cookie?

By Linda Daves
Chairman, North Carolina Republican Party

At Saturday’s debate between Senator Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan, Hagan took the opportunity several times to pat herself on the back for overseeing a balanced budget during her time as a budget writer in the North Carolina Senate. This would be a remarkable and noteworthy accomplishment if the North Carolina Constitution did not require a balanced budget of the General Assembly. In 1977, the General Assembly sent a constitutional amendment to the voters requiring a balanced budget and it was ratified on November 8, 1977. Leave it to a Democrat politician in Raleigh to claim credit for what they are constitutionally required to do. However, if Ms. Hagan would like to take credit for Democrat budgets during her time in the N.C. Senate, we will be glad to give it to her along with her long record of raising taxes, engaging in wasteful spending, and perpetuating a failure of priorities in the North Carolina budget process. The episode in the N.C. Senate last week during the budget “debate” proves just why we need to shed some light on the budget process in Raleigh. It also proves why we don’t need to send a Democrat to Washington who has been a part of the problem in Raleigh.