Roy Cooper released a budget yesterday that clearly outlines Democratic priorities. Republicans say it’s dead on arrival. Maybe so, but it sure sets up a fight in an election year. Cooper is betting that the priorities in his budget mirror the priorities of the state.
Cooper’s budget lays out an 8% raise for teachers on his quest to make North Carolina salaries reach the national average. It funds the shortage of school nurses and counselors facing schools across the state. State employees would get a raise of $1,250 or 2%, whichever is higher. It also funds environmental protection, farmland preservation and affordable housing. He would pay for it by halting the pending tax cuts for corporations and an income tax reduction that disproportionately benefits the wealthiest North Carolinians.
House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger are having none of it. The legislature gets to write the budget and they’re going to keep going down the path we’ve traveled since the GOP took control of the legislature in 2011. They’re going to let people keep more of the their money, as they say, and continue to underfund vital programs. They argue that their priorities have led North Carolina’s economy to be one of the fastest growing in the nation.
That may or may not be true, but the benefits of that growth haven’t trickled down very far. Adjusting for inflation, median income is about where it was before the Great Recession kicked in a decade ago. And the tax cuts they claim have spurred the growth have come with a price. Our teacher pay and per pupil spending has dropped into the bottom third in the country. Our prisons are so underfunded and understaffed that we’re losing personnel to violence. At a time when mass shootings and school shootings are on the uptick, we lack the counselors and staff in schools that might intervene before tragedies occur.
Cooper’s budget includes $25.7 million for mental health services. Republicans who claim gun violence is a mental health issue can either embrace a similar increase or admit they’re paying lip service instead of offering solutions. The public wants government to act on gun violence but we’ve seen nothing substantial from Republicans other than proposals to expand access to guns or to arm teachers.
Cooper has laid down a truly Democratic budget, one that reflects a party that believes government can help people with better education and better healthcare and one that tries to fairly compensate the people who serve the state . Republicans’ budget will likely reflect their priorities—putting more money into the pockets of corporations and the wealthy and hoping that it trickles down. It hasn’t yet.
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 >
What does it say about North Carolina’s legislative “leaders” who without studying (or even reading) the governor’s proposed budget brag that it is dead on arrival? Our constitution provides that the governor proposes and the legislature disposes, but this is not to be done in ignorance, arrogance, and political bravado. Retribution from the voters for this kind of thinking and recklessness will soon come to those legislative leaders and their followers, and it will be swift and certain.
So, be of good cheer, It is only a matter of time and the pendulum will swing back to a more representative and democratic government both in the national and state capitals.
I do not remember that Gov. Cooper was that generous when he was in the house.
Why do we need more counselors, can people go to their on private counselors?
How or what are more counselors going to make a diffference?
I’m sure there are plenty of people who do not have access to private counselors, or the funds to pay for them.
Maybe a definition of “private counselor” is called for here. Nearly everyone has some kind of access….every town in the state has clergy and many of them have counseling training, and many of them are affordable even to those who are short on coin. And a lot of them don’t get remuneration from the taxpayers for their services. As for shootings…when I was a kid we had set-aside time for voluntary religious training in public school on a weekly basis….and guns in school was unheard of unless you count the Rifle team…another fine tradition that is now history.
Welly well. We see, given the awfulness of the spelling and usage of “feedupvoter” (who apparently can’t even spell “fed up”), i.e., “on” for “own,” “diffference” for “difference,” “can” for “can’t”, and “what” for “why,” as well as the comma splice, why we desperately need to increase funding for education in this state. Lots of mediocre education going on out there!
I won’t even get started on the utter lack of critical thinking skills demonstrated by a person who apparently thinks all school kids have equal access to mental health care… sad!
So “Feedup” You vote for having a school shooting so we can identify which student is not OK, then arrest and put him in jail where he belongs? More efficient and cost efective, right?
Let me guess: you don’t have any school age children?
Sorry PJ, can’t spell or type.