Even as he called for unity and a shared sense of purpose in combating the challenges facing North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory must have known that as of Tuesday night in New Bern — on a get-acquainted tour of the state just days after his swearing in — the state’s political climate promises to be only slightly less fractious than in recent years.
That is not to say the governor spoke insincerely or that strong-willed politicians don’t acknowledge the value of cooperation or certainly that the state’s residents, like their brethren across the nation, don’t pray for problem solvers to take the reins of government; it says the issues the state must surmount to regain its economic health and restore its “brand,” as McCrory puts it, are inherently fraught with conflict, even for a Republican governor dealing with a General Assembly controlled by Republicans.
Bruised by Bev Perdue’s veto stamp, GOP legislators will flex their muscle on statement issues like voter ID, but the heavy lifting required to tame North Carolina’s high unemployment, to make the state more attractive to new business, to improve public education and to deal with changes foisted on the states by the Affordable Care Act won’t be done in unison, owing not only to party differences but because tough choices will highlight differences in regions and the strata of people in them.
Even supporters of tax reform, a centerpiece of the governor’s campaign, are pessimistic about its chances. Lowering the state’s personal income tax for top earners, the highest in the Southeast, and its corporate tax rate, the fifth highest, are excellent goals and should be pursued in order to attract employers and boost job creation. Making up the $10 billion in revenue by raising and broadening the sales tax, however, would increase the tax burden of middle-class and lower-income residents, not a position that politicians in North Carolina, as in Washington, want to defend.
The state owes the federal government $2.8 billion for unemployment benefits it paid out during the Great Recession. Legislation expected to be introduced soon after the General Assembly convenes Jan. 30 would cut into that debt by reducing unemployment benefits and raising the unemployment tax on some employers. Republicans generally back the idea; but conceivably Republicans like Roger West, the House member who represents Graham County at the Tennessee border, may be more aligned with Democrats like Joe Tolson, who represents Edgecombe County in the east, than with their party. Graham’s unemployment rate in November was the state’s highest; Edgecombe’s, the second highest.
The extremes that characterize North Carolina, most apparent in its growing urban center and the poorer rural regions that flank it, will likely influence votes on Medicaid expansion, costly but appealing in poor, older counties like Lenoir; on road construction and the related conundrum of the gasoline tax; and on economic development policy, where Eastern North Carolina has too often been an afterthought.
We do have much in common. Most North Carolinians have suffered the pain of a poor economy and all would benefit from resurgence.McCrory was right when he told his New Bern audience, “We’re all in this together.” We'll just never be of one mind about how to get out of it.
