Jonah (and Veronique),

The post about the government lobby transforming budgetary restraint into large-scale homicide reminded me of the headlines I read this morning here in North Carolina, where there’s a battle underway (as in most states) between conservatives and liberals about how to close the state budget deficit. In NC’s case, the gap is edging close to $5 billion in the latest estimates for the coming fiscal year, or nearly a quarter of the General Fund budget. Yesterday, several dozen liberal activists and state-funded nonprofits held a press conference to demand tax increases and criticize a proposed no-new-taxes budget. This afternoon, a couple thousand grassroots conservatives will assemble outside the state legislature in Raleigh to state their opposition to any more tax hikes.

So how was one of yesterday’s liberal speakers quoted in the state newspapers today about the no-new-taxes proposal? “I truly believe that some people would die because of this budget.”