Statement on NC House passage of Constitutional Amendments in Bad Budget Deal
From Alexandra Sirota, Executive Director of the NC Budget & Tax Center:
Lawmakers are advancing constitutional amendments that would lock North Carolina into an economy designed to benefit wealthy households and profitable corporations while making it harder for everyone else to afford life, build security, and get ahead.
These amendments are part of a bad budget deal whose consequences the public has still not seen. Will state leaders have the money to stabilize North Carolina’s child-care system? To provide meaningful pay raises not only for teachers but for all state employees and retirees? To protect the health care, food assistance, and other supports that were cut by Congress and President Trump? North Carolinians deserve clear answers.
Whatever magic math appears in the June budget proposal, legislative leaders have already made their priorities unmistakably clear: first, lock their ideology into the state constitution by protecting tax breaks for the wealthy at our expense; second, offer short-term, inadequate solutions to the real affordability challenges families face every day.
Voters expect lawmakers to do the job they were elected to do — make responsible decisions, solve problems, and be accountable for the consequences. Instead, lawmakers now suggest voters should be asked to shoulder the responsibility for tax policy choices they were never consulted on in the first place.
Voters were not asked whether North Carolina should eliminate taxes on corporate profits even as corporate earnings soared and families faced rising costs and falling wages.
Voters were not asked whether millionaires should receive more tax breaks while schools struggled to keep qualified teachers in the classroom, communities lost jobs, and neighbors faced barriers to health care and putting food on the table.
State leaders created this affordability crisis through years of choices that prioritized tax giveaways over the well-being of the people of North Carolina. If they are unwilling to take responsibility for the consequences, it’s time for North Carolinians to hold them accountable.
