As of ten days ago, North Carolina is in a new fiscal year… except, you wouldn’t know it looking at the General Assembly, which, once again, still hasn’t passed a budget.
The budget works mostly like any other bill: once the House and the Senate pass their versions of the budget, the bill goes to a conference committee to iron out the differences between the two versions and create a final conference report.
In an ideal world, we’re supposed to have this done by the end of June so that the new budget can go into effect at the start of the new fiscal year, but these days, it feels like we rarely hit that deadline. Year after year, the budget gets delayed (if you can remember back that far, in 2021 we didn’t pass the budget until Thanksgiving) and North Carolina gets held back from making progress, but this year, the delay is especially egregious.
This year, the GOP has their supermajority. They won it because Tricia Cotham lied to voters about what she believed, but by god, they can finally override the Governor’s veto again. They’re completely free to work out the budget among themselves, no Democrats in the room, no input from anyone with a different point of view—and they still can’t manage to figure it out.
When their leadership was last asked about it, they said they might have something by the end of the month.
John, when it came to passing an extreme abortion ban, the GOP were more than happy to ram that legislation through the House and Senate so quickly that we’d barely had any time to read it before we were voting. But the budget? Well, it’s pretty clear where the NCGOP’s priorities are these days—to Republicans, forcing divisive culture wars onto voters is clearly way more important than ensuring that our state government has the money it needs to actually function.
The GOP likes to talk a lot about fiscal responsibility, but the way they’re acting feels pretty irresponsible to me.
And right now, my likely general election opponent is one of the top Republicans on that conference committee, ten days late on their report and no sign of getting their work done anytime soon. It’s clear that his priorities aren’t focused on keeping our state government running, either, and I’m frankly worried about what that would mean for our state if he ever became Treasurer.
John, our campaign is the main thing that stands in the way of that happening. So can I count on you to stand with us in prioritizing good government, fiscal responsibility, and building opportunities for our neighbors? Your contribution will help us reach voters, get our message out there, and take our vision for investing in our people right to the Treasurer’s office.
