Republican Paradise

Here's what happens when the unholy alliance of Tea Partiers and religious extremists get a hold of a state government:

Raleigh, North Carolina:

Before adjourning this past September, North Carolina’s Tea Party-dominated General Assembly eliminated 5,200 teaching positions and 4,580 teacher assistants, they cut pre-K classes for 30,000 preschoolers and diverted $10 million to a school voucher program. They terminated unemployment benefits for 170,000 out-of-work North Carolinians and denied Medicaid to 500,000 qualified recipients. They abolished the earned-income tax credit for 907,000 working-class residents of the state—and they reduced taxes for the top 5 percent. Then to insulate themselves from voters who might respond at the polls, North Carolina’s Republican legislators passed the most restrictive ballot access law in the nation—specifically targeting minority voters.