If state lawmakers tell you there’s no money, here’s what you should ask them …

To read recent reporting, you’d be forgiven for thinking that North Carolina is strapped for cash, or for believing that state revenue is like the weather —something that happens to lawmakers — rather than something they have the power to influence.

During these next few months, as state lawmakers work during the 2025 Long Session to put together a biennial (two-year) state budget, it’s likely that North Carolinians will repeatedly hear a similar assessment from elected officials: “We simply don’t have enough money to fund the public priorities that you, our constituents and taxpayers, have identified.”

Our elected officials are well within their rights to articulate the fiscal context as they see it — and we’re well within ours to ask a follow-up question:

“Since our current state tax code is not raising the public money that we, your constituents and taxpayers, need to fund our priorities, will you vote to pause scheduled income tax cuts for corporations and the super-rich next year, ensuring that the needs of regular North Carolinians come before special, wealthy interests?”

North Carolinians are already missing out on $18 billion in annual state funding due to changes in the state tax code since 2013.¹Note: $18 billion is the additional state revenue North Carolina could raise in 2025, if 2013’s personal and corporate income tax rates and standard deduction were still in place. Those changes shake out to an average cut of $56,000 in 2025  for the richest 1 percent of North Carolinians (those with incomes above about $770,000) — a cut that is 130 times larger than what North Carolinians with the lowest incomes have received.

With further cuts scheduled over the next several years, including the elimination of the state corporate income tax in 2030, state lawmakers are moving full steam ahead with tax cuts for corporations and the super-rich, despite long-neglected needs and mounting budget pressures.

Here are some stats you can present to your state lawmaker to put those billions in lost revenue in context:

• $1 billion: Cost to fully fund the Governor’s request for Helene relief, including grants for small businesses and rental assistance. (By comparison, the House has proposed only $500 million, and did not include funding for small business grants or rental assistance.)
• $678 million: Cost for the legislature to fully fund years two and three of the Leandro plan and make good on their constitutional duty to provide all NC children with a sound, basic education.
• $580 million: Approximate cost of a state Earned Income Tax Credit that would put $600 a year back in the pockets of state taxpayers, on average. Unlike the currently scheduled tax cuts, 98 percent of this cut would go to households with incomes under $84,000.
• $500 million: Cost to fill the budget gap in the State Health Plan in 2026, which would spare North Carolinians teachers and state employees health premium hikes that they can’t afford.
• $1.8 million: Net cost to fully fund the DMV’s budget request to hire additional full-time license examiners and reduce wait times for DMV customers.

Funding all these priorities this year would cost about $2.8 billion, a number that’s dwarfed by the more than $13 billion in annual revenue that the state will lose out on when future tax cuts are fully phased in by 2031.²Note: $13 billion is the additional state revenue North Carolina would collect in 2031, if 2023’s personal and corporate income tax rates were still in place. When lawmakers tell us they don’t have enough money this year, let’s start asking them some follow up questions about how they plan to get us what we need.