Henderson Daily Dispatch

Legislators Laying Up 1941 Trouble

Daily Dispatch Bureau,
In the Sir Walter Hotel.
By HENRY AVERILL
Raleigh, Jan. 23.-Policies and trends of the current General Assembly have developed to the point where many careful observers are fearful it is laying up a vast store of worry and trouble for its 1941 successor.

The thought of this school of opinion is that the current body of lawmakers is going to get by as easily as possible, dodge the issue of balancing general fund expenditures in North Carolina and thereby pass the buck to those who follow it two years from now.

It is pointed out that after less than three weeks of the session, there are two facts which stand out crystal clear:

First: This legislature is not going to look for any new sources of revenue unless it is backed into a corner and can't dodge or twist its way out.

Second: This legislature is not going to appropriate any money for
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Legislators Laying
Up 1941 Trouble

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any new project or proposal unless forced to do so by overwhelming pressure.

The result of this first fact is what may plague the 1941 legislature.

Every estimate of the budget from administration source indicates a continuous and growing general fund deficit. The only plan so far advanced to cover this deficit is to hide it by taking $7,000,000 of highway funds and transferring them to the general funds.

The result, it is feared in many quarters, is that the 1941 Assembly will find itself faced with a yawning general fund deficit and a highway fund already raided to such an extent that there will be even more need for expenditures on the roads than the $40,000,000 now regarded as a minimum by the Highway Commission.

And the 1941 legislators will then be unable to continue the brisk sleight of hand trick by which the current general fund deficits are being covered up.