The North Carolina gubernatorial candidates squared off in Raleigh Friday in their second and final debate of the campaign season.
The North Carolina gubernatorial candidates squared off in Raleigh Friday in their second and final debate of the campaign season, zeroing in on the issues of fiscal responsibility and education in a heated exchange of political attacks.
Seated side-by-side for the hour-long debate, Democratic Gov. Mike Easley and Republican challenger Patrick Ballantine answered questions posed by WRAL-TV news anchor David Crabtree, hurling criticisms at one another while touting their own platforms and credentials.
Ballantine, a former state senator and self-professed “fiscal conservative,” framed Easley as a tax increaser responsible for weakening North Carolina’s economy. He presented himself as an advocate of across-the-board tax cuts that he said will “create more jobs and stimulate the economy.”
“It’s two totally different approaches,” Ballantine said. “He’s for taxing and spending. I side with businesses and working families.”
Ballantine also accused Easley of unnecessarily raiding several state trust funds and taking money from local governments during his term.
“The dog must have eaten your homework,” Easley said, refuting Ballantine’s accusations.
He argued that his financial policies and use of trust fund monies to balance the budget stemmed from the need to handle the massive budget crisis he inherited upon entering office—a crisis he claimed Ballantine helped create as senate minority leader in the late 1990s.
“Patrick Ballantine had voted for $3.3 billion increased spending, over $800 million a year,” Easley said. “That’s why the budget was out of balance. That’s why I had the big hole I had to dig out of.”
Presenting his opponent as a “good times” spender, the current governor criticized Ballantine’s vote to cut education funding by 3 percent during the “tough times” of the budget crisis while the state’s public schools were “packing kids in trailers.”
Easley also attacked his challenger’s recent promise to raise state employees’ salaries by 15 percent over the next three years, accusing Ballantine of misleading the workers—whose political arm, the Employees Political Action Committee, recently endorsed him.
“I want to give state employees a fair raise… but I will not lie to them,” Easley said, claiming that the state budget cannot support the raise and Ballantine has yet to show how he will generate the money that can, if he intends to slash taxes.
“He has to come up with some specifics,” Easley added.
Ballantine, however, said he has plans to produce $1 billion in savings for the state by instituting tort reform, streamlining government offices and operations and making use of the state’s abandoned surplus property. He called his proposals “common sense.”
“[I am] somebody who rolls up their sleeves and gets into the budget, doesn’t just tax and spend and spend and tax,” Ballantine said. “That’s all this governor knows.”
The candidates also clashed on the issue of the state lottery—Easley’s pet plan for generating education funds. Ballantine said he would veto a lottery bill because it is “bad public policy” that would produce less than 1 percent of annual state revenues.
“I can find anybody on the street to find more than 1 percent savings in state government,” he said.
Easley, however, promoted the lottery as a necessary new source of education revenues that could fund the More at Four and Head Start pre-kindergarten programs, help reduce class sizes and support local governments with under-funded schools systems. The governor said he supported amending the state constitution to ensure that lottery monies go directly to education.
“I want every penny going to the kids and not a dime to politicians,” he said.
Ballantine also scrutinized Easley’s immigration policies, criticizing the governor for signing a bill two weeks after the attacks of Sept. 11 that facilitates the process by which illegal immigrants can acquire driver’s licenses. He accused Easley of encouraging Hispanic immigrants via radio ads to take advantage of the provision, which he claims spurred a rush of illegal applications.
“It was like a Duke basketball game. The illegals were camped out at the DMV office,” Ballantine said.
Easley denied producing any radio messages and noted that he issued an executive order requiring possession of a Social Security number or federal tax identification when applying for a license.
Despite intense criticisms of each other’s policies, Easley and Ballantine agreed on a number of pressing political issues. Both said they did not support extending benefits to same-sex couples and would sign a constitutional amendment defining marriage as legal only between a man and a woman. They also expressed opposition to private school vouchers and cutting Medicare provider rates.
Both candidates said they disapproved of the recent proposal for a moratorium on the death penalty—a two-year hiatus proposed by advocates who want to conduct a study of the punishment system.
Easley, who has spent much of his tenure battling criticisms about his review of clemency requests, said the system “always needs improving” but is “working well.”
Ballantine agreed with Easley and lauded his opponent’s handling of the issue.
“I support him on the tough decisions he’s made as far as clemency,” Ballantine said. “That’s got to be the hardest decision that any person can make, and I can’t find any fault with him.”
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