Legislative leaders have failed to engage with the Governor’s counteroffer after his veto of a budget that continues to cut taxes for big companies while failing to invest in our children’s education, our workers’ opportunities for training, and our community’s infrastructure to protect our air and water.
Senator Berger and Speaker Moore seem to believe that inaction on a two-year spending plan for the state and even leaving town without a budget is perfectly acceptable since the state can operate under a provision in state statute that Republican leaders established a few years ago that sets out the spending rules when no agreement be reached between the legislative and executive branches.
And yet North Carolinians and communities across the state know that there is nothing acceptable about their inaction in the face of the responsibility they have been given to steward our tax dollars and support our collective well-being.
The failure to follow a budget process that seeks to negotiate priorities in the face of mounting community needs is a dangerous practice to engage in. As has been evidenced with the use of federal shutdowns, the breakdown of the budget making process allows for problematic decision-making that is often ad-hoc, is beholden to special interests and a small segment of the legislative body, and ignores the responsibility of elected leadership to come to agreement on where to invest taxpayer dollars.
As the days and weeks drag on without engagement with the Governor’s counteroffer, legislative leaders will be forced to confront increasingly challenging budget issues. Stop-gap spending bills that have made their way through the Senate and House respectively can’t possibly address these challenges in a comprehensive and thoughtful way.
There will be no ignoring the need for a state budget as state employees receive their first paychecks without step increases, federal funds languish without the ability to deploy them, schools go back in session and there are more children than there are resources, and their policy choices like Raise the Age or Medicaid transformation require funding for implementation. Read more