North Carolinians are still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, but a new report from the NC Budget & Tax Center shows that the recent federal debt deal threatens to make things worse by weakening efforts to improve education and worker retraining; cutting back on research for innovation and growth; allowing our roads, bridges, and schools to continue deteriorating; and reducing access to health services.

To make matters worse, the deal ignored the country’s highest priority by neglecting to include any efforts to put people back to work, even at a time when interest rates are so low that investors will actually pay the federal government to hold onto their money.

The first round of $750 billion in cuts will fall hard on North Carolina’s public schools, economy, and military communities. Roughly half of these cuts will hit federal domestic investment spending, one-third of which flows through state governments into local communities to support public schools, workforce development, law enforcement, health and human services, and infrastructure. The other half (at least for the first two years) will hit spending on national security, mostly the military, which is a critical part of many North Carolina communities and their local economies. Read More…