Easley, Champion of the Rich

An important article in today's N&O suggesting rather pointedly that when Gov. Mike Easley, a Democrat, says we've got to lower the tax rate on the richest North Carolinians because it's driving away corporations that want to relocate here, that he's, well, fibbing. Or at least he & his boys have failed to produce any proof of that claim:

"North Carolina should cut income taxes for the wealthy, Gov. Mike Easley says, because executives looking to relocate or expand businesses are shunning the state.
But Easley's administration has been reluctant to offer many examples of that, leading critics to say his evidence is flimsy. Several major corporate site consultants say a company would rarely use a state's personal income tax rate as the main factor in deciding where to set up shop."

And then, deeper in the article:

"When reporters last week pressed for reasons why Easley is supporting this reduction now, senior budget adviser Dan Gerlach echoed the governor's comments on losing business. 'There are a number of consultants who told us ... once they saw [N.C.'s income tax rates], they crossed us off the list,' Gerlach said. The administration has refused to identify those consultants or cite examples other than that of Louisiana Pacific, a building supply company that in 2003 considered moving its Portland, Ore., headquarters to Charlotte but chose Nashville, Tenn. Gerlach said the income tax was a big factor in losing that company and its 150 headquarters jobs. Mary Cohn, a spokeswoman for Louisiana Pacific, said she wouldn't describe it 'quite that way.' 'There are many factors,' she said. 'Tax structure is one thing, but there are the schools, the quality of life, the location with our operations, the available business space.' "

The guv and his boys are making this stuff up to stampede the state legislature.

Everyone agrees that cutting the top rates in North Carolina will benefit disproportionately the top 1 percent of wage earners. The top 1 percent of wage earners had an average income of $692,000 in 2004, and these are the fat cats that the Guv, a friggin Democrat, feels he has to coddle, while he wants to slap an additional burden on the rest of us wage slaves, including new taxes on candy, newspapers, telephone bills, theater tickets, etc.

I think we should slap a tax on the guv and his boys and anyone else heard to bemoan the plight of those making a measly half-mil a year.