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Perdue: Top 20 budget flaws
Story Date: 6/29/2012
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Source: PRESS RELEASE, 6/28/12
The Republican-controlled General Assembly’s budget shortchanges North Carolina’s children by failing to invest adequately in schools. But that is far from the only flaw in their budget. Below is a (partial) list of some of the most glaring shortcomings in the legislature’s budget.
It’s worth noting that, despite all of these failings, the General Assembly manages to lavish $336 million of tax breaks to lobbying firms, lawyers, and other wealthy businesses. Budgets are about values, priorities, and choices. The General Assembly chose tax breaks to wealthy businesses, while other pressing needs went unmet.
Their budget:
20) Fails to fund a plan to encourage small businesses in NC to hire post-9/11 veterans and unemployed North Carolinians
19) Turns its back on North Carolinians caring for a family member with Alzheimer’s or dementia by failing to fund Project C.A.R.E.
18) Stifles NC’s innovative economy and booming biotech sector by failing to fund the One NC Small Business fund and failing to provide much needed resources to take promising Ag-biotech technologies from the lab into the marketplace
17) Threatens public safety by blocking the build out of a critical statewide communications network that allows first responders to speak to each other during an emergency
16) Fails to adequately support mental health needs by continuing a $20 million cut to local mental health services
15) Threatens our young people’s health by failing to invest enough resources to effectively continue the state’s successful efforts to curb teen smoking
14) Hurts NC counties and threatens the efficiency and smoothness of our elections by depriving NC of more than $4 million of federal funding to run fair elections
13) Fails to act on a bi-partisan measure to compensate verified living victims of the state’s former Eugenics Board program, which involuntarily sterilized North Carolinians during the 20th century
12) Makes NC families less safe by providing almost no additional funds for probation officers, and thereby exploding the number of cases each probation officer is responsible for and making it harder for probation officers to oversee known criminals; this goes back on a promise made to provide the needed resources to supervise an additional 15,000 felons coming out of prison
11) Fails to restore any investments in the Teaching Fellows Program, the NC Center for the Advancement of Teaching, or the Teacher Cadet Program
10) Ignores opportunities to help businesses create jobs by failing to invest in programs to help NC small businesses sell products in the global marketplace, and failing to provide needed support to struggling small and medium sized NC manufacturing companies
9) Punishes working families by requiring the state to collect ferry taxes from people in Eastern NC who use the ferry system to get to work
8) Misses the chance to boost our surging film industry by failing to provide critical workforce training to North Carolinians seeking jobs with production crews in the state
7) Hurts rural NC communities and businesses by making deep cuts in programs that support job creation and economic growth in rural NC, including water and sewer infrastructure, entrepreneurship, and critical demonstration grant programs
6) Targets Planned Parenthood and threatens women’s health by limiting access to family planning services
5) Offers zero additional funding to increase access for Smart Start or NC Pre-K, our nationally-recognized early childhood education programs that help assure that young children come to school prepared to succeed
4) Makes it harder for working families to send their children to college by cutting $16.4 million relative to the Governor’s budget for UNC need-based financial aid
3) Refuses to stand up for our servicemen and women by failing to provide tuition assistance for military veterans and their dependents, and failing to invest in programs that support the morale and welfare of military families, including a program to assist children of new military families with transition and peer support
2) Denies meaningful raises for teachers and other workers; the raises in Gov. Perdue’s proposal were 50% larger than the raises in the General Assembly’s budget
1) Threatens our children’s future because, if the General Assembly’s budget passes, K-12 schools across NC would receive $190 million less next year than they received this year
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