9th District Senate candidates square off

By Michelle Saxton
Thursday, September 30, 2010

Thom Goolsby

Jim Leutze

North Carolina’s 9th District state Senate candidates are focused on tackling one of the biggest issues the next General Assembly faces–the painful task of cutting at least $3 billion from the state’s $19 billion budget.

Larger shares of budget funding are doled out to education, health and human services and Medicaid, highways and crime control, Democrat Jim Leutze said during an interview Friday, Sept. 24.

"Cutting any one of those is going to hurt somebody," Leutze said. He is the former chancellor of the University of North Carolina Wilmington, 1990-2003. Ideas for cutting the budget often sound great until you consider the negative effects, Leutze said. Closing small prisons or a library, for example, could mean the loss of jobs or services.

"It means, to a certain extent, interfering in people’s lives at the most basic level," Leutze said of budget cuts.

The deficit could be closer to $5 billion, his opponent, Republican Thom Goolsby, a Wilmington attorney said during an interview Monday, Sept. 27. Goolsby’s law firm specializes in criminal defense, personal injury, traffic tickets and DUI /DWI.

"Nobody’s even looked at all the different programs they have that do the same things in various departments," Goolsby said. "We have literally nickled and dimed our budget up billions of dollars over many years."

Herculean task
"We have a herculean task and an incredible mess that has been left to us with overspending and bad judgment," Goolsby added. Goolsby favors a zero-based budgeting approach to address the state deficit, starting over and looking at what must be funded.

"It basically calls for all the state departments to present the spending, the money that they need for their services," Goolsby said. "What we do then is we prioritize based upon constitutional and regulatory constraints. We line those things up and we fund what we’re able to, and everything else doesn’t get funded."

Goolsby and Leutze are vying for the seat left open by Sen. Julia Boseman, D-New Hanover, who chose not to run for a fourth term. Both candidates see the race as an important political one with regard to the overall General Assembly structure.

"We need 26 votes for the Republicans to take the Senate," Goolsby said. "Mine is one of six to eight decisive races that we believe we will win to give us control of the North Carolina Senate for the first time in well over 100 years."

The loss of experienced leadership from southeastern North Carolina, including Boseman, Sen. R.C. Soles, D-Brunswick, and Sen. Charlie Albertson, D-Duplin, was a concern for Leutze, who said there are many state programs essential to the region’s prosperity.

A native of Charleston, S.C., Leutze holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland, a master’s degree from the University of Miami and a doctoral degree from Duke University. He served in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of captain, and worked as a legislative assistant for U.S. Sen. Hubert Humphrey. He also held the position of professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to UNCW, Leutze was president of Hampden-Sydney College from 1987 to 1990.

"We have a university here that we want funded," Leutze said. "We have a community college here we want funded. We have a port here that we want improved and the river dredged. We want better highways around Wilmington to deal with our traffic congestion…we have the film industry that we want to have some subsidies and incentives for."

"Political power in the state can move from this coastal region to the Piedmont in a heartbeat," Leutze added.
Job creation

Job creation is another big priority for both candidates.

"Where we’re going to get our state back to work is by reducing taxes, reducing spending, reducing overburdens of regulation and freeing up private industry to create jobs," Goolsby said. "It’s not going to be with more government programs."

Goolsby favors a Taxpayer Protection Act, which he said would reduce the growth of state government based on population growth and inflation, and require that 10 percent of the money be put back into a Rainy Day Fund.

"It’s another Republican bill that’s dead on arrival every year," Goolsby said. "Those two things will help us grab hold of our budget and start getting it under control."

Leutze created the international affairs program, "Globe Watch", which aired for 15 years on public television networks nationally and internationally. He narrated and produced five or more public television documentaries addressing environmental issues and their global implications.

Leutze’s campaign emphasizes the economy, education and the environment. All are linked he said because educated citizens and a good quality of life are needed to attract jobs.With public education, Leutze would like to add entrepreneurship and vocational courses to high schools. Entrepreneurship studies could help students learn early on what is involved in starting their own business, where ideas come from and what they can do with their ideas, Leutze said, adding that math skills could be incorporated.

"Americans are, I think, by nature creative and entrepreneurial–risk takers," Leutze said. "New small businesses down here could be started with entrepreneurial talent."

Vocational training for carpentry, plumbing, computer programming and other areas might help students who are bored with school and have no plans to go to college prepare for a job, Leutze said.

Goolsby supports lifting a charter school cap, which now is at 100 schools, and giving a $2,500 tuition tax credit to anyone who home schools their children or puts them in a non-government school.

Charter schools must function with higher criteria and test scores than public schools to stay open, Goolsby said. The tuition tax credit would save the state $5,000 per student because the yearly cost to educate a student in a public school is about $7,500, he said.

Other issues that must be addressed include problems with Medicaid, Leutze and Goolsby said.

"There is fraud and abuse in the Medicaid program," Leutze said. "It is a large program and it is very difficult to police."

Republicans plan to address some problems with Medicaid by opposing President Obama’s health care plan, Goolsby said.

"We do need to make sure that physician reimbursement is not cut any further," Goolsby said.