We are sure the North Carolina state government serves some useful purpose, but of late we’re finding ourselves hard-pressed to figure out what that is.

Here are a few examples of what we mean.

Gov. Beverly Purdue, or the General Assembly, or both want to:

• Continue raiding the highway fund to pay for general fund expenses;

• Suck all the so-called education money from lottery proceeds and use them for the general fund;

• Eliminate funding to all but a single school district in each county;

• Begin forcing county governments to pick up the tab for repair and maintenance of STATE highways inside the county borders;

• Divert money from the national tobacco settlement from Golden LEAF, where there is a documentation trail which shows that money truly does make it to hard-luck localities, into the state’s general fund;

• And now, we’ve learned, the state is delaying the refund of state income tax payers because ... well, because the state seems to be worried about writing too many checks at one time.

Combine that with the fact that ever since former Gov. Mike Easley took office in 2001 Surry County might just as well have been in Mongolia for all the economic development effort the governor’s offices has put forth for this region of the state, and we have to wonder just what does Surry County and all the residents who live here get out of being part of North Carolina?

Too bad the county can’t join with its neighbors and simply leave the state. Surely, local leadership could do no worse than what we have in Raleigh.