Driving Tar Heels To The Poorhouse

Jimmy Carter’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget, Bert Lance, may have resigned in disgrace but he left us with an enduring adage, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”.  The Republicans in North Carolina would do well to heed that advice. 

Legislation is beginning to make its way through the Republican controlled North Carolina General Assembly that would take automobile insurance rate oversight away from the Insurance Commissioner.  The Insurance Commissioner is an elected office in North Carolina and Democrat Wayne Goodwin won reelection in 2012.  Call me partisan and cynical, but I see returning on investment to donors and an attempt to nullify the votes of North Carolinians in this move.

North Carolinians currently enjoy the 7^th lowest auto insurance rates in the country and the lowest in the South.  Only Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota enjoy lower rates.  There are no impending pull outs of auto insurers from the State; so what is the problem?  The answer is: there is none.  If problem solving isn’t the motivation what could be?  I have a theory; giving a return on investment to Republican political donors.

When going through the 2012 third and fourth quarter financial reports for the McCrory campaign, as in Republican North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory, I found over $60,000 in donations from the insurance industry.  This number is low because I only looked at donations in the four figure range.  I know for a fact that there were donations of less than $1,000 – I just didn’t include them in the number.  Also excluded were any unreported money given to issue advocacy groups.  I find it interesting on how much money comes in from people listed as retired and homemakers.  I did not look at the financial donations to Republican members of the State Senate or House of Representatives.  The bottom line is that while, in and of itself, $60,000 is more than pocket change it also dramatically understates the total investment the insurance industry made in the North Carolina Republican slate in 2012.

The Republicans can talk all they want about the free market and deregulation but how can this move possibly help the average North Carolinian?  It simple cannot!  If the industry is deregulated does anyone honestly expect rates to decrease?  The reality is that rates will increase and the true reason will go largely unnoticed with Republican financiers profiting at the direct financial expense of the constituents that elected Republicans are sworn to serve.

The Republicans are hoping to sneak this one in quietly.  For what impact I may have I intend to make a little noise.  This is just one example, and a small one at that, Republicans in state capitals across this land are attempting to repay their financiers by privatizing, deregulating and selling off State assets.

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