news-record.com

It’s a truism in politics that one man’s pork is another man’s vital economic development project. For example, take this Wilmington Star News (link) report on the film industry’s reaction to being named in political fliers by Real Jobs NC (link). The Republican 527 group criticized Rep. Hugh Holliman and others for giving the industry a particular tax credit.

“It's a total negative smear against the film industry,” Kelly Tenney, a television producer, told the Wilmington paper.

Well, some items important to Guilford County are also getting hit by the group. In a flier targeting a Raleigh-area legislator, the group criticizes spending on the High Point Furniture Market, a multi-million cash-cow that drives the economy in High Point and the surrounding area.

And today, a scan of a flier was posted on Twitter (link) that criticized Sen. John Snow in the western part of the state for voting to spend money on polar bears.

The 2008 budget (link) authorized borrowing $2.5 million to pay to expand and renovate the polar bear exhibit at the North Carolina Zoo, which is owned by the state. It was an item that then-Gov. Mike Easley included in his budget. At the time, I asked Easley budget advisor Dan Gerlach how he justified putting money into the zoo when the economy was struggling.

"What we're getting at is the fact the zoo...our capitol people, our hard core number crunchers...I think it's safe to say they're mortified by what they saw at the zoo in terms of the amount of capitol construction and rebuilding that needs to happen," Gerlach said. "The place is, I'm not going to say falling apart, but it needs some help."

Background on the polar bear spending and what it bought can be found here, here and here.

Over the last decade, the Greensboro-area has seen its fair share of funding from the state budget for the special projects and I would bet we’ll see more of them raised in the campaign before too long.