Budget cuts are GREAT, so long as it happens to OTHER schools!

Sen. Jim Davis

Rep. Roger West

Meet Rep. Roger West and Sen. Jim Davis.  They look like pretty nice guys, huh?  Well, they're on my naughty list this year, and I'll tell you why.

I get bills emailed to me from the North Carolina General Assembly.

This morning, I find HB 796 in my inbox.  I read it quickly, not thinking much of it... "An act to allow all permittees....brewery....malt beverages...wait, WHAT????"

It appeared to be just a bill about brewery permits.  But there were three distinct sections to this bill...the first was about breweries, the second was to allow high school students to take noncredit courses at community colleges, and the LAST part was to "allot small county supplemental funding to the Cherokee county schools."

I knew that both Rep. Roger West and Sen. Jim Davis are republicans, so I went and double checked...and sure enough, both of them voted FOR HB 200 (the NC Budget) multiple times.

Now, I was REALLY furious about the NC Budget, primarily because of the massive cuts they dealt to the NC Public School system.  I called every legislator I could to try and convince them not to support it.  The cuts have been disastrous to the school system.  I just finished drafting a research brief about Pender County Schools, and all of the schools, ESPECIALLY poor schools with tons of kids on free lunch, have seen their student test scores drop since 2008.  Before 2008, test scores were steadily rising every year.

Legislators have done a horrible thing with this budget, and it appears that Rep. West and Sen. Davis realized this.  So they used their connections to tack some funding on to an unrelated bill, and I'll be damned if they didn't get it passed.

Rep. West and Sen. Davis, you should be ASHAMED of yourselves.  You showed that you're perfectly content with letting the rest of North Carolina school kids suffer, so long as you get to give breaks to business and get YOUR schools funded!

I hope all of you take the time to send them a little message to tell them how disgusting their backroom deals are.  And how you only wish they cared about kids OUTSIDE of their district as much as they apparently do about students in Cherokee County.

Rep. Roger West
Raleigh Phone: (919) 733-5859
District Phone: (828) 837-5246
Email: Roger.West@ncleg.net

Sen. Jim Davis
Raleigh Phone: (919) 733-5875
District Phone: (828) 342-4483
Email: Jim.Davis@ncleg.net

Read the whole bill here: http://ncleg.net/Sessions/2011/Bills/House/PDF/H796v3.pdf