NC Senate Debate

Last night NC Senator Julia Boseman and challenger Michael Lee had a debate held at the WHQR office. Yes, I'm sure most of us were glued to the VP debate between Palin and Biden last night, as was I, but there were other political goings on last night as well. Most of the information is stuff we've gone over before. But I'll go over it quickly again.

Titan:

Boseman came out unequivocally against Titan saying, “I am absolutely opposed to the incentives to Titan. …I think Titan is wrong for New Hanover County, for Castle Hayne.”

Lee on the other hand "said he is generally against incentives but that the state has laws and regulations to protect the public from harmful environmental impacts. He didn’t say whether he supports the incentives."

The thing is that while our state and federal government have laws to protect it's citizens, these laws have been stripped down over the past 7 years and they aren't as strang as they were a decade ago. Also, how can we say "well, we still have a little pollution we're allowed to dump so let's go ahead and let another corporation do that to us"? We already have a fragile ecosystem in the Cape Fear region, and we aren't helping ourselves with all the sewer spills over the past couple of years. We do NOT need to add more pollution to the area and that's the bottom line. There is a school that is currently being built a couple of miles from the proposed site. Are we going to close the school down if parents refuse to send their kids there? How are we going to protect those kids with coal burning stacks just down the road from them, by disallowing recess and PE?

OK, onward to off-shore drilling:

Senator Boseman is completely against off shore drilling. The Star News reports:

Boseman said the nation should consider drilling where an abundance of oil exists, but not off the coast of North Carolina.

“All of the research I’ve seen is there is very little oil out there,” she said.

The fact is that she's right. This is a graph by the US Energy Information Administration.



This is a projection of where our oil supply will come from over the next 20 years if we drill off-shore. As you can see we will actually continue to INCREASE our foreign oil consumption. While we are adding 200,000 barrels of oil a day we USE over 15 MILLION barrels of oil a day.

Lee, however, fully supports off shore oil drilling.

While the technology is better than in previous years, oil spills DO continue to happen and in an hurricane plagued area like ares, the likelihood of a spill increases. We are a resort community and we just can't afford the cost of a potentially oil filled shore line for so little gain. Also, if an oil spill WERE to occur we couldn't even count on being able to sue the offender and getting them to clean up their own mess, as the recent Supreme Court case Exxon vs Baker shows.

How about other energy problems in the state:

Lee stated that the gas tax in NC needs to be lowered. While I tend to agree that we have a high gas tax, lowering it will only cut out a couple of pennies a gallon which would be unnoticeable. Senator Boseman replied "that if the state lowered the gas tax, it would have to look to local governments to pay for roads, and that could lead to property tax hikes." And let's face it, we would certainly notice a property tax hike. Anyways, Republican should like the gas tax, it keeps our property tax low and while only people who own their property pay the property tax, EVERYONE pays the gas tax.

On to taxes and spending:

Asked for three things they would do to lower taxes, Lee said he would look at lowering corporate and individual tax rates and examine state spending.

Boseman suggested a hiring freeze, except for essential positions, including teachers, and cutting out state travel.

25% of corporations in the US pay no taxes at all and Lee wants to add more to that category. Corporations could have a 10% tax increase and still pay less than they did under Reagan. In a time when state and federal incomes are low and expenditures are rising, we need to make sure that everyone pays their fair share, and that includes corporations.

Lee also attacked several expenditures of late. One thing he keeps picking on is money spent at the NC Zoo for a polar bear exhibition. As someone with a Zoology degree who at one time did behavioral research as well as worked with animal preservation organizations, I find it appalling that we would looking to cut funding for our local zoo. Zoos educate the public as well as provide much needed research on a variety of things such as ecology, animal husbandry, and global climate change. We need to keep our animals in humane conditions as well as highlight certain animals over time, therefore changing the focus and drawing in more public viewing and raising more money. Our zoo is a state owned zoo and to cut funding to it is a reprehensible view, in my opinion. He also brought up other museum expenditures, that in light of the total budget are just a tiny expenditure. Somehow, it looks as if Mr. Lee dislikes education outlets for the public.

Over the past few months Boseman has been attacked for many private problems. She smoked pot (so what), she had a foreclosure which many people are getting pinched with at this time, and she had an ugly seperation with her partner. However, she has been a great Senator, helping to protect our children and our families by introducing and passing bills that made it more difficult for predators to get back on the streets, she has helped women that are victims of domestic violence, she has increased our school funding, and she has helped to bring more HIGH-TECH jobs here to the Cape Fear area. She has been effective and fair and having tried to discuss a personal issue and bill that I want passed I can tell you that she listens without judgement and explores the issue to it's fullest.