Statement on budget developments, Sept. 19, 2023
Statement from Alexandra Sirota, Executive Director of the NC Budget & Tax Center
Once again, state leaders are gambling with people’s lives and our state’s future.
They are breaking their promise to provide health care to hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians as part of the state budget – now tying Medicaid expansion to casino expansions.
It’s just one more way these special interest lawmakers are prioritizing corporations and the wealthiest few over the rest of us.
These state leaders continue to rig the rules to redirect resources from our communities to favor the rich over everyday North Carolinians. Instead of asking the rich to pay what they truly owe through taxes so the people in our state can have what we need, they would expand casinos in some communities and video gambling in all communities with no guarantee of good jobs and greater costs for us all to carry.
We can come together and demand lawmakers stop playing dirty tricks and using our lives as bargaining chips.
We can demand funding for our schools, access to health care, and affordable housing. We can demand a budget that prioritizes the people of North Carolina.
Note: The statement above is based on budget documents and legislative proposals obtained by media over the course of the last 24 hours. Whether these legislative proposals will be the official or final documents is unclear, but the direction they point to required us to respond. The NC Budget & Tax Center will continue to conduct analysis of the budget as details emerge and are confirmed, and we will be updating our blog with the details of that analysis in the coming days.
