There has been a lot of back and forth between our local officials and our federal officials recently. One incident is the op-ed piece by Easley calling out the federal representatives for create a "budgetary black hole" and rigging the system against the poor here. The other is Sue Myrick attacking Basnight and Black in a letter, which Jim Black responded to in kind. WRAL has an account of the interaction here.

I have held back on blogging about these incidents since I do not really consider them worthy of our time in and of themselves; however, the existence of these two public debates simultaneously is interesting.

Could it be, like the papers are suggesting, that Easley is merely looking for a national stage. But why then would Black and Myrick be going at it?

I think there has been a widening gap created between our moderate to conservative Democratic state party and the ultra-conservative Republican national party. Or alternatively the state officials are tired of having their budgets cut endlessly by the national government and getting no replacement in services. This is a huge problem as a large chunk of state budgets go to programs required under federal law. Since the mandates are not decreasing but the funding is, the state is crunched by required spending on one hand and nonexistent funding on the other.

If I were in a more opinionated mood, I would espouse an opinion and back it up, but I want to listen now. What do you think is going on?