If you thought the biggest political fights were between Democrats and Republicans, you should be watching the North Carolina General Assembly right now. The House and Senate are at odds on a lot of big issues. Let the sausage making begin.
Right now, the two houses are fighting over jobs programs. The House wants to take a more traditional approach to incentives while the Senate wants to dramatically retool the program. The Senate wants to rely more on corporate tax breaks to lure companies and reserve incentive for more economically distressed areas in rural North Carolina.
House Finance Chair Rep. Jason Saine recently opened a finance committee meeting with the quip, “Welcome to the House Finance Committee, where dreams are born only to go to the Senate to die.” Saine has criticized the Senate’s proposals and warns that they are hurting the state’s ability to lure companies, particularly auto makers, to North Carolina. The Senate says that their plan to lower all taxes is fairer to companies that are already here instead of just rewarding companies that move to the state.
The administration is siding mainly with the House. Commerce Secretary John Skvarla says that the Senate’s reluctance to expand incentives might make companies that are looking at North Carolina nervous. Governor Pat McCrory has also said that he’s opposed to the Senate’s plan to redistribute sales tax revenue.
The Senate is clearly still interested in transforming the state. Rural areas need more income for infrastructure projects that they will never be able to fund under the current system. And incentives have always favored new companies over good corporate citizens who have provided tax revenue and jobs for years.
When Speaker Tim Moore came to power, he said he wanted to show that Republicans can govern. The House approach to taxes and incentives is more traditional and stable. The governor is lining up behind them. Moore and McCrory seem to want to move past remaking state government and just make it work.
Thomas Mills is the founder and publisher of PoliticsNC.com. Before beginning PoliticsNC, Thomas spent twenty years as a political and public affairs consultant. Learn more >
Echoing my comment somewhere else, re-allocating these funds from urban to rural areas just means the funds will not get spent at all for the most part. If the lower labor costs in rural NC (vs. urban) are not enough to overcome whatever reasons the businesses do not want to be there, incentive money will not help.
Why is it that the GOP, both here in NC and on the national level, is dysfunctional and fractional?? Might it be that its focus on advancing conservative dogma, on trying to regress on social movements and on wonen’s/civil/voting rights, on litmus testing their own for neo-con purity, and on partisanship over compromise is getting in the way?
Nope. There’s a common misconception that the largest wing of the GOP, the conservatives, are in charge. To the contrary, big business Establishment-types run the show. That’s the reason why Republicans in Congress are only offering Obama token opposition on his amnesty program. Likewise, their abortion bill died in the House because progressive Republicans like Renee Ellmers ensured that it would.