From Carolina Journal Radio Program No. 740: The General Assembly’s budget staff estimates that North Carolina could face a $1 billion gap between revenue and expenses in future years. Democrats and their ideological allies have pointed to the estimate to support their complaints about recent state tax cuts. Republicans have responded that the estimates are...
Sorry if fiscal reality doesn’t fit in the neat little box that many politicians and activists prefer to pack. They travel light.
North Carolina’s state budget this year is $51 billion, not $20 billion. Even that doesn’t include some of the fiscal liabilities that will be accrued this year.
I’m not sure what lies “beyond devastating” on the map of budgetary hyperbole, but I seriously doubt that a journey of seven percentage points would get us there.
If NC cities and counties had been revaluing their property-tax base annually, the past couple of years of housing-market declines would have worsened their deficits.
Just imagine what the North Carolina Association of Educators rally will look like next year if there’s a Republican legislature.
HHS Secretary Carmen Hooker Buell and her staff have implemented some welcome cost controls in North Carolina’s budget-busting Medicaid. But to close another huge deficit this year, state leaders will have to do far more.
