Conservative John Locke Foundation Slams NC Budget Impasse
“This breakdown represents a severe failure of governance, and the legislature is squarely to blame.”
The conservative John Locke Foundation’s Joseph Harris published a piece this morning outlining how the ongoing budget impasse is hurting North Carolinians, and how the Republican-led General Assembly bears all the blame. The JLF has published multiple pieces highlighting the dysfunction of North Carolina’s Republican majorities and their failure to pass a comprehensive budget despite majorities in both chambers.
Some highlights of the article are included below:
Even more striking: the General Assembly never even sent a budget to the governor’s desk — not for a signature, not for a veto, not at all. This breakdown represents a severe failure of governance, and the legislature is squarely to blame.
Also, this is not an isolated lapse. Last year, the General Assembly failed to send a comprehensive FY 2024–25 budget adjustment to former Gov. Roy Cooper. As a result, it has now been more than two years since policymakers last sent a comprehensive budget to the governor’s desk.
North Carolinians do not care about intraparty rivalries or procedural excuses. They care about whether the government performs its most basic functions. And ratifying a budget is the one responsibility the General Assembly must fulfill to demonstrate basic competence.
This uncertainty also puts local school districts in a bind. Because the state provides roughly two-thirds of their funding, districts can’t properly finalize staffing plans, adjust for enrollment changes, or budget for salary updates.
Ultimately, voters remain the most substantial incentive, and they can insist on a General Assembly that meets its most basic responsibility. However, for the sake of the institution and the state, the General Assembly should strongly consider implementing an incentive structure that will motivate them to ratify budgets promptly.
“As this holiday season arrives, North Carolinians are facing uncertainty because Republican leadership has abdicated their most important job: Passing a state budget,” House Democratic Leader Robert Reives said. “This failure has resulted in an effective pay cut for teachers and state employees whose health care premiums have gone up substantially. Our families deserve certainty and legislators who are willing to show up and do the one job they were elected to complete.”
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