<< Back 6/19/02 This confiscation looks a lot like plain thievery SMN A lot of well-meaning people in Western North Carolina have been had. In his infinite wisdom to try and find short-term fixes to the state’s continuing budget deficit, Gov. Mike Easley has decided to take the money citizens spent on the special Friends of the Smokies license plate and drop it into the general fund. That’s more like stealing than budget fixing. The Friends of the Smokies license plate was introduced a few years ago as a way of raising funds to help the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The plate sales have been extremely successful for two good reasons: people here have strong cultural and historical ties to this park, and they were tired of it being continuously underfunded and its buildings, trails and other facilities deteriorating; and two, the Friends of the Smokies has proven itself a great steward of the money it gets, working closely with private citizens, local government entities, corporations and park officials to enhance the experience visitors have when they visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. And now, damn it, everyone driving around with one of those plates should be incensed. To get the special plate, citizens pay $20 extra when they go to get their annual state vehicle registration renewed. Now, money handed over voluntarily by taxpayers to a private, not-for-profit entity, has been confiscated. And it’s not just the Friends of the Smokies who have been taken to the cleaners. Others have paid extra for special plates to help other cultural organizations and even college campuses. All told, $194,548 from the special registration plate fund and $89,735 from the collegiate cultural plate fund have been transferred to the general fund. Friends of the Smokies officials say they have lost $24,480. Some in the General Assembly are questioning the legality of Easley’s move. The governor is acting under his emergency powers to balance the budget, but some argue that the state is merely collecting this revenue on behalf of a private group. If that thinking holds up, then the confiscation could be against the law. There’s not a person in the state who doesn’t want the budget crisis to end, and most are willing to do their part to help. But when the state begins diverting money freely given to a charitable organization merely because it serves as the collecting agency, then things have taken a sharp turn south. Easley needs to put his gun back in his holster and find some way other than robbing people to balance the budget.