From the look of things in Raleigh, the General Assembly is likely to approve about a billion dollars in tax increases this month, all to help fill the $4 billion-plus budget hole created by the recession. As if new taxes in hard times aren’t hard enough to handle — even when they are necessary — Perdue and other state leaders are insulting taxpayers by calling some of the increases “temporary.”

In 2001, North Carolina faced a budget hole. Newly elected Gov. Mike Easley and legislative leaders promised that the sales and high-income tax increases they passed would be temporary. But each year, when it came time for those “temporary taxes” to expire, they would be extended, and the promise to let them die soon would be renewed.

At one point, some of the taxes were allowed to expire, but at least one quarter of one percent of sales tax became permanent. We still pay it today.

There’s no reason for taxpayers to think anything will be different when these latest so-called temporary taxes are set to expire. There’s no evidence the economy will come roaring back to life and that state revenues will balloon. To the contrary, it looks as if slow economic times are ahead for quite a time.

Click here to read the full editorial from the Winston-Salem Journal…