Education spending is being slashed by the GOP in NC!!! Moral Monday and liberal media told me so!  But..but…horrible video making fun of us! We’re mad!

*The video was yanked by YouTube. At this link it was re-uploaded but has since been removed. Updates at the bottom of the post explain more.

Why? Because it’s a fine example exposing the ‘group think’ in these crowds? Because the Buncombe Young Republicans were right? None of these people are very informed to start with? All of the above?

Crikey. If the Moral Monday people told you to jump off a bridge, would you? Given the video we just saw, don’t answer that.

Spending on education is increasing — and it is accounting for growth.  I’ve harped on one thing during the last NCGA session: READ. THE. BILLS.

Rep. Moffitt tried to explain that to people at the ‘Mountain Moral Monday’ but was refused access to the stage.  How’s that for opening up a dialogue? Something the Moral Monday leader says he wants yet when given the chance, rebuffed.

https://twitter.com/PeteKaliner/statuses/364741323602927616

Yes, that really happened.  Perhaps Reverend Barber was waiting for one of the sponsors instead.

Rep. Moffitt has laid it out for you in writing and pictures (alternate link) instead:

I heard on the news last week that you cut education by half a billion dollars!

Nope. The amount spent on education programs will actually increase by $400 million next year. Total spending on public schools, community colleges, and universities amounts to $11.5 billion (that’s more than half of the entire state budget) and of that, $7.9 billion will go to K-12 education. That figure is up from the $7.7 billion we spent last year on K-12 (an increase of 2.1%) and the nearly $7.3 billion spent two years ago.

This year’s state budget will spend more money on public education in North Carolina than we have ever spent.

Source: Current Operations and Capital Improvements Appropriations Act of 2013″ (Senate Bill 402) and the North Carolina General Assembly’s  Fiscal Research Division’s report “North Carolina Public Schools Expenditures, FY 2003-04 to FY 2011-12” For a printable PDF of this chart, click here.

But..but… Moral… hey, wait a minute. Spending is increasing and not just the education portion. Hmmm. Are you questioning things at all yet? Yes? No? Read the whole thing: State education spending: the facts (Alt. Link)

Now, do your homework, people. Stop listening to the loudest one yelling in the room and figure it out for yourself. You don’t have to like what you find out, but stop assigning blame simply because someone tells you to. Stop believing the hyperbole.

START HERE:

How to Read State Budgets

Key Point:

In state budgeting, there is a critical distinction between authorized spending and actual spending. At the beginning of a fiscal year, the budget authorizes an amount of money for each agency, program, and function in state government. In a sense, this is a prediction of what will be spent. By the end of a fiscal year, actual spending will come in at, above, or below the authorized amount.

UPDATE:

The Mountain Express apparently has an update to their article. (H/T to AVLLumberJack)

UPDATE (Aug. 8):

The Buncombe County Young Republicans clarified via an email to Xpress that the “2009” budget number displayed in the video refers to fiscal year 2009-10, citing this spreadsheet as their source for the information displayed in the video.

The excerpt of the Dept. of Public Instruction’s report published above specifically refers to fiscal year 2008-09. The entire report is posted here.

The Young Republicans group also provided this link as the source of their information for the 2013-2014 education spending figure displayed in the video.

Mr. Frankel of the Mountain Xpress posted an “update”, not a correction.  The Bumcombe Young Republicans’s data is clearly more recent and supports the video’s claims so let’s just post that as an update at the bottom of the page and hope no one checks that out, shall we?

Note that the article at Mountain Xpress  attempting to debunk the Buncombe YR’s bases it’s claim on another article done the day before? Will the Mountain Xpress be looking at that one as well for an “update”?

UPDATE II 8/8/13 1:00PM EST :  YouTube has pulled the Buncombe YR’s video for ‘violating terms of service’. Translated usually means: Liberals spam flagged it to get it yanked.

In this case, it looks like maybe one person complained and they yanked it.  Yet hundreds of Jihad videos go untouched. Nice job YouTube!

2:15pm EST:  The Buncombe Young Republicans responded with a message. The video is restored and now on VIMEO.