Revolting against government spending

Despite heavy rains Wednesday, about a dozen local residents came out to see the red, white and blue Spending Revolt tour bus as it rolled into town, carrying occupants with an urgent appeal to cut government spending.

“The weather cannot dampen our spirit in this effort to fight out-of-control spending,” said Dallas Woodhouse, North Carolina state director for Americans for Prosperity.

He noted that NBA star LeBron James, who is set to make about $14 million this year playing for the Miami Heat, would have to play basketball for 40,000 years to make enough money to pay off one year’s worth of the national debt — a debt he said will saddle “our children, grandchildren and their children” with a lifetime of debt, high taxes and a stagnant economy.

“It is an astronomical amount of money,” he said.

Americans for Prosperity, The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Concerned Women for America, the 60 Plus Association and other national advocacy groups have formed the Spending Revolt coalition, which kicked off a nationwide bus tour in July.

The tour began winding its way through North Carolina over the weekend, and spent Wednesday rolling through the eastern part of the state. It started in Wilmington and made stops in Jacksonville, New Bern, Kinston and Washington.

Woodhouse said the locations were chosen based on how local state legislators and members of Congress voted on taxes and spending bills.

He said Kinston was chosen because of Rep. Van Braxton’s, D-Lenoir, vote last year for state tax increases — many critics of Raleigh have derided the governor and legislature for favoring a tax increase during a recession, despite the intent of plugging a more than $1 billion budget gap.

“Going forward in North Carolina, we cannot continue to support high spending,” he said.

Woodhouse was one of four tour speakers, along with Brian Balfour of N.C. Civitas, Jon Sanders of the John Locke Foundation and Tracy Walsh, a mother of five from South Carolina, who is also a breast cancer survivor and spokeswoman for Patients First, part of Americans for Prosperity.

Walsh spoke against the federal health care reform package passed this year, known to critics as “ObamaCare.”

“ObamaCare is an affront to the basic rights given to us by our Creator — that’s life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” she said.

Woodhouse said the $787 billion federal stimulus package has “failed and failed demonstrably.”

Balfour, representing the Civitas Institute, explained how the stimulus has not helped private-sector employment in North Carolina, but has added about 5,000 North Carolinians to the federal payroll.

“It sounds more like the satisfaction of dubious wish lists,” Balfour said of the stimulus.

Sanders of the John Locke Foundation said state leaders are using one-time stimulus payments to cover gaps in their budget, a process he said was unsustainable.

“We need root-and-branch change in North Carolina,” he said. “We’ve got Wile E. Coyote spending, because we’re off the cliff, we just haven’t looked down.”

Audience members also had the opportunity to sign the bus, which was filled with messages against government spending, and some against President Barack Obama himself.

Sara Moore of Kinston came to the Spending Revolt stop after learning about it from her son who visited the Greensboro stop.

“I’ve always been a Republican, but last fall, I switched to unaffiliated,” she said. “I think both parties have handicapped this economy.”

David Anderson can be reached at 252-559-1077 or danderson@freedomenc.com.

BREAKOUT BOX:

For more information on the Spending Revolt coalition, visit spendingrevolt.com.

Also visit:

n Americans for Prosperity, North Carolina: americansforprosperity.org/north-carolina

n N.C. Civitas: jwpcivitasinstitute.org

n John Locke Foundation: johnlocke.org

n Patients First: americansforprosperity.org