Thom Tillis is running for senate in North Carolina.
Last year the GOP house, senate and governor initiated a "War on Teachers", cutting resources, teacher aids and trying to eliminate tenure.
Now that teachers are leaving the state in droves Thom Tillis has a small problem.
The Republicans would like to give teachers a raise (NC is 49th in teacher pay now) so that they don't look so horrible, but they have another problem.
They cut all of these taxes for corporations and wealthy people and the tax increases on the very poor (eliminated an earned income tax), the middle class (lots of new sales taxes including on utility bills for individuals not companies) and small businesses (a tax break on the first $40,000 earned by LLCs and S corporations) isn't quite generating the money they expected. (Where have we heard that before -- Kansas cough, cough).
Oh and a few other problems exist for these financial geniuses. More tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy are scheduled for January 1, 2015 and oops there seems to be a $60,000,000 hole in the budget because their changes to medicaid didn't turn out as they planned.
Now North Carolina is a very moral state, so we really didn't like the idea of a state run lottery. Most Republicans and many Democrats resisted the lottery for years (I thought they should establish the lottery, but prohibit advertising). Repealing the lottery is in the NC Republicans newly minted platform (like two days ago).
In Article V, section 4:
Government should not discourage
honest, productive work. We oppose
gambling, including the state lottery.
Stage is set -- want to hear Thom Tillis' great idea?
Today Thom "Genius" Tillis revealed the NC Senate's budget.
It includes an average 5 percent pay raise for teachers. link
That's good, but how to pay for it?
The plan would double the amount of money – from 1 to 2 percent of net proceeds – that the lottery can spend on advertising.
Ahh spending money on lottery advertising is going to bring in lots and lots of money! Just like cutting taxes brought in lots and lots of money.
Is it immoral?
Tillis acknowledged that some in his caucus dislike the lottery, but he predicted they would support the changes. Why? Isn't that a touch hypocritical?
As long as we are talking about "what would Jesus do" -- the house proposed cutting about 12,000 of the aged, blind and disabled off of medicaid, but that is nothing like the steep cuts to Medicaid eligibility proposed by the Senate.
Tillis predicts a smooth, quick conference process.