Our state legislators and The Charlotte Observer claim that our oh-so-broke North Carolina state government desperately needs new taxes to provide more revenue for school classrooms, roads and water and sewer facilities.
   "The notion that the state can meet these needs by cutting its budget elsewhere is not only unworkable, it's not even honest," the Observer's editorial board claimed in a May 27 editorial.
   Or is it?
   Give this excellent article by the Carolina Journal's Don Carrington a read and decide for yourself how broke the state really is. Carrington chronicles how the state paid out over $5 million of your money to build Dolly Parton's brother Randy Parton an entertainment venue called "The Randy Parton Theatre" in Roanoke Rapids. It's part of a larger boondoggle that was supposed to generate tourism.

           
 The Randy Parton Theatre                                           Randy and Dolly Sing at the Theatre Opening

   Carrington writes that given Roanoke Rapids 55,000-person population, it would take the whole city just nine weeks to see the two-hour variety show the theatre will host. Randy Parton, who will be given a $1.5 million artist's fee annually, has no documented experience running a venue of this kind, the Journal reports.
   That didn't stop the state from forking over cash in the form of $500,000 for marketing, $399,000 from the state government's Golden LEAF Foundation for water and sewer, a $1 million Community Development Block Grant, a $500,000 Rural Economic Development Center grant and $2.5 million in road improvements by the Department of Transportation.