Moral Monday Redux

Now for a walk down Memory Lane.

When word came out that the Rev. William Barber and the old “Moral Monday” crowd was getting the band back together for a stroll in downtown Raleigh to honor the 10th anniversary of their founding near the NC Legislative Building, we couldn’t help but remember one of their finer moments:

The calculation back in 2014 by legislative experts of just how much the Moral Monday group’s loud demands would really cost North Carolina taxpayers.

The number came to an estimated amount of $10 billion dollars.  Outrageous. 

In addition to the Civitas Institute (an organization that since has folded into the John Locke Foundation) examining the numbers, much of the estimate was based on a draft of a budget amendment released by Senate Leader Phil Berger’s office based on cost estimates of the Moral Monday group’s demands put together by legislative staff.

The effort began when Berger sent a letter to then state NAACP President William Barber requesting the coalition’s desired policy recommendations.  After Barber responded with his list, legislative staff went to work with adding machines humming.  They examined the various points of “the people’s agenda” and put real numbers to just how much the protesters’ requests would cost - including “health care for all” and that “NC must provide immigrants with health care.”

After years of hearing liberals carp about all the dreamy government programs they wanted, putting actual dollars to their ideas revealed the lunacy of giving liberals everything they want – it’s unaffordable.

The accounting exercise served to delegitimize the Moral Monday crowd’s outcries then, and if they get active again, we anticipate the sharp pencils and adding machines will get cranked up once again when the anti-reform crowd asks for taxpayers’ budget dollars to pay for their leftist dreams.