Democrats' Risky Stick-Ups

Big business and big labor are institutions with major image problems – except among Democratic politicians and strategists.

RALEIGH (By John Hood, Carolina Journal Online) – Judging from recent political controversies, it’s clear that state and national Democrats think they will benefit politically by sticking up for Big Labor and Big Business. I don’t get it.

Let’s start with Gov. Beverly Perdue. On Tuesday she issued her first veto of a major piece of legislation. Did the governor choose to pick a fight with Republicans over education policy, or voter ID, or health care reform, or some other issue about which her Democratic base feels passionately and with which she might rally support among swing voters?

No. Perdue chose to veto a bill that would have reduced North Carolina’s fiscal deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars a year – thus making tax hikes or state-employee layoffs less likely. She chose to veto the bill on the grounds that it limited her ability to give grants to large corporations.

I’ll shed employees, cut services, and raise taxes, Perdue is telling the voters of North Carolina, but I refuse to cut corporate welfare.

This is a strategy for political recovery? Add in the fact that the giveaway programs Perdue used her veto to protect – such as Golden LEAF and Job Development Investment Grants (JDIG) – were set up by a disgraced former governor, Mike Easley, from whom Perdue needs to be running away as fast as possible, and you have a political mess.