Dunn on Cotham's potential legacy (04-15-2025--Hour1)

[00:00:04] What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to 3 on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeatcalendershow.com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, get every episode for free, right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support.

[00:00:28] And I want to welcome to the program, Andrew Dunn. Andrew Dunn is the publisher of Longleaf Politics, longleafpol.com. He's also a contributing columnist to the Charlotte Observer, as well as the Raleigh News and Observer. It's all one parent company. Andrew, how are you this week, sir? I'm fantastic. Great to be back with you. Good. Thanks again for your time. We appreciate it. You got a couple pieces, one at the Observer and another at your website, Longleaf Politics, that I wanted to ask you about.

[00:00:56] Let me start with Tricia Cotham. You say that there was a time when the name Cotham was the gold standard in Mecklenburg County politics. You talk about her mom or Tricia Cotham, the state representative, but also her mom, Pat Cotham, longtime county commissioner. John Cotham also was, that's her dad, chair, former chair of the Democrat Party. So, yeah, like this was like a political powerhouse family. And then, of course, Cotham switched parties.

[00:01:27] Outrage ensued. And Pat lost in the Mecklenburg County commissioner primary, in the Democrat primary, because that's how they chose to take out their anger on Tricia, was to hurt her mom. Which makes sense, I guess, to some people, but not to me.

[00:01:42] So, Tricia Cotham, you say, is not going to be welcomed back in Charlotte's Democratic circles. That door is closed. But legacy is a different thing. And you think she's got a chance to actually build a legacy here? So, okay, explain what that means. Yeah, absolutely. And that was a great summation of the ongoing saga. And honestly, it's really sad in my mind.

[00:02:10] You know, I started covering Charlotte politics back in 2009. And, you know, at that time, as I would go around and cover events, you know, Pat Cotham would always be there. She was everywhere. I ran into her all the time. Always great to talk to. And, you know, you could really tell that she did and still does care about the community and wanted to do a good job for Charlotte.

[00:02:36] You know, and really, from that time on, the Cothams were really viewed as, you know, the types of people with good hearts. You know, Democrats voted for them. Republicans voted for them. You know, there was a reason that Pat Cotham was always or almost always the top vote getter. And Tricia Cotham was also, you know, very highly respected. And then obviously, you know, as you just described, you know, the whole Tricia Cotham party switch put a damper on that.

[00:03:04] But so, yeah, I mean, and the reaction to my column has been kind of predictable. It's been, oh, you know, Tricia Cotham's a traitor. We hate Tricia Cotham, which, again, is very sad. But, you know, the reason that I think that the Cothams have got into politics in the first place is to actually make a difference in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County. And now, you know, you're seeing Tricia Cotham come out with a new bill, a new Charlotte transportation bill.

[00:03:32] And I think we you and I talked about this. I wrote a column a couple of weeks ago on the first pass at a bill to get that referendum passed. And we talked about how there were some significant issues with it. And I didn't think it would pass, nor did I think it should pass. But when I look at Tricia Cotham's new bill, it really addresses a lot of those problems, that there's a lot better oversight. You know, the people that are going to be on this transportation authority have more expertise.

[00:03:59] You know, there's a little bit more influence in a positive way from the General Assembly. And it's also more prescriptive. You know, one of the big problems with the earlier bill and one of the things that I'm hearing from Republicans is they don't want to just cut Charlotte a big check to do whatever they want with, which is very reasonable in my view. And so this bill from Representative Cotham is more prescriptive.

[00:04:25] It says that they need to examine certain things. It takes into account more of what the towns are looking for. I know Matthews actually got off board. They no longer supported it when they found out from Charlotte that, you know, a silver line to Matthews was off the table. So this bill actually requires them to study that. So all in all, you know, I don't know if it will pass. I think it'll still be tricky and difficult. But I think this bill has the greatest possibility of passing.

[00:04:55] I think it does the best job threading the needle of what everybody wants. And if it actually comes to pass, I mean, this is going to be a signature accomplishment, you know, something that 30, 40 years from now people will still be talking about. Yeah, you mentioned Matthews and the east side sort of generally.

[00:05:15] They were always lukewarm on the transit plan because rail was such a heavy lift to get it out there because of the route where it was, you know, they thought it was going to run. They were like, well, it just, you know, we've got an Independence Boulevard, so we're going to run bus rapid transit. So it's like a bus line, but it'll have fixed stations. That was always the big deal for like the east siders.

[00:05:40] They wanted fixed stops because if you can move the stops around, then you don't get the economic development that you see in the south end. Right. Like that's that's always been their beef. And they want the rail out there, too. And Pat McCrory always talked about wanting rail out to the airport, too. But at the time, the numbers did not justify it. And to your point about not writing a blank check, I know that State Senator Vicki Sawyers talked about, you know, not wanting and this goes for for all transportation funding.

[00:06:10] They're not interested in writing these big blank checks for like NCDOT for even road projects. They want to know what you're going to use it for and how you're making those lists. And if the if the DOT can't give them the lists and they can't justify the stuff on the list, then the legislature is going to look at that with side eye. They're not they're not going to be cool with a lot of that. So it does track. Yeah, that's exactly right. And, you know, so far, the city of Charlotte has really held all the cards, done all the planning.

[00:06:38] And that's another big benefit of the bill is that it's going to take a lot more of the planning out of the city hands and put it in this transportation authority. That's going to have, you know, other voices, perhaps more reasonable voices, you know, people who look at transportation about moving people around rather than, you know, how can we give an economic boost to this area versus that area? Yeah, I thought it was important. You mentioned micro transit. We're seeing a lot of this.

[00:07:06] I think Gastonia has it now, too, where rather than paying to maintain a bus fleet, it's like, well, why don't we just give people vouchers for Uber? Yeah. Yeah, it gets them from point A to point B. And you don't have to worry about that last mile problem where you get them close with a bus stop and then they're on their own to get to the final destination unless that's right in front of the bus stop. So it like they're talking about micro transit. You also mentioned autonomous vehicle technology. That's part of the mix.

[00:07:36] Don't know. Do we know to what extent that's part of the mix? It's not spelled out specifically, but I think it's really notable that it's even mentioned. I mean, Kenny Smith was talking about this 10, 15 years ago that Charlotte keeps talking about transit that doesn't even mention the autonomous vehicles, the microtransit. It's been a huge hole in Charlotte's transportation planning. So I think it's extremely notable.

[00:08:03] This is really the first time it's come up as part of this. So the name of Tricia Cotham's bill is the Projects for Advancing Vehicle Infrastructure Enhancements, also known as the PAVE Act. And I don't know if you know this about me or not, Andrew, but I'm a big fan of acronyms for legislation.

[00:08:26] And so I actually enjoyed your piece over at Longleaf Politics, the great acronym arms race and that how there's this new legislative arms race and it's over. Who can come up with the cleverest bill acronym? And you list some of them. I did like the Cooper Act, the Closeout Operations Provide Emergency Relief, Cooper, which is a shot at former Governor Roy Cooper. You also mentioned Ric Flair.

[00:08:55] That's the name of a piece of legislation as well. We've got there was one in the RAINS Act. I think people have heard that one. But then there was also the Reclaiming College Education on America's Constitutional Heritage or the REACH Act. And that that I don't think that passes because reclaiming college education, that's not you can't just drop a word out of the title like that. That's that's my rule. Fair enough. Yeah, I'm I'm with you.

[00:09:25] I really like a good acronym bill. And this was a fun one to put together. You know, for whatever reason, it just seems like there's been a lot of these acronym bills. I mean, there's always some of them. But this year, it really seems to be part of legislators branding around a bill. So I kind of set up a framework for, you know, two things that I think make a good acronym bill. You know, one is the acronym. The short version has to clearly communicate what you're doing.

[00:09:52] But then on the back end, the full title actually has to make some sense. So my my personal favorite, which I think did both really well with the data back, you know, it's the division of accountability, value and efficiency. See, that that checks out for what it's trying to do. And then Dave refers to Dave Bullock, the new state auditor. So I thought that one was pretty great.

[00:10:16] Right. And look, this is it's a good hook to sell the messaging, to sell whatever it is you're trying to get past and to get people aware of what the bill would do. That's important. The branding is important, which to that point, I heard you use the term vote getter. I have been on a mission for like 15 years to get that word replaced in our vernacular with votainer.

[00:10:40] So any help you can help any help you can offer on that front, I would greatly appreciate the use of the word votainer. I just think it's cleaner, you know. I like it. Yeah. Let me let me see what I can do. I think we can make this big. Yes. I already got Chris Cooper from Western Carolina on board. But he's like the only one so far. So but he's a good one. But, you know, baby steps. All right. Andrew Dunn, I appreciate your time. As always, sir. Great stuff.

[00:11:07] He is the publisher of Longleaf Politics and contributing columnist over at the Charlotte Observer. Thanks, Andrew. We'll talk with you next Monday or next Tuesday. Thank you. All right, buddy. See you. All right. If you're listening to this show, you know, I try to keep up with all sorts of current events. And I know you do, too. And you probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why? Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with Ground News.

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[00:12:23] So the Senate up in Raleigh has unveiled their budget plan. First thing you're going to hear is biennium. That means basically two years. All right. So their fiscal biennium budget is for 2025 through 2027. All right. So it's fiscal year starts in July. Right.

[00:12:49] And so would run through through 26 and then into 27. And that's the way they always do it. This is the long session. They run in two year bienniums. Right. Which tracks. Right. It's part of the election cycle, too. So the new class comes in. They do a budget in the first year of their two year stint. That's the long session. That's what we're in right now. They do a lot of work. The long session. They build the budget.

[00:13:18] And that's a two year budget. And then they come back in the short session next year for the second year of the biennium of their term. They come back in and then they make any adjustments to the budget. But the building of the budget happens now. So that's what they're doing now. So they unveiled their plan. This is just the Senate side. Right. The governor put out his budget plan. But the legislature basically just files that one in the garbage bin because they don't care.

[00:13:46] The Senate, they roll out theirs. The House is going to roll out its version, too. And then they go into a conference committee and they hammer out an agreement. And no, I don't think they include Democrats in any of those negotiations. And then the Democrats complain that they weren't involved in it. So they all vote no. And that's generally how it plays out when you have a near supermajority in the House and a supermajority in the Senate.

[00:14:12] So the Republican plan includes additional tax relief for all North Carolinians. Pay increases for state employees and teachers. Funding for hurricane recovery needs. As well as targeted reductions to rein in unnecessary government spending. The first year of the budget. Gosh, I remember when the budget used to be $20 billion. And now it's up to 32.6.

[00:14:41] Curse you Republicans! Creating economic devastation since taking over. That's a 50% growth in the budget since Republicans took over. And they've cut taxes in the meantime. They've cut all of our taxes. And this was, by the way, by design, this was the plan that they would keep cutting taxes that Democrats had, you know, had continuously built up year after year.

[00:15:06] They would put, quote, temporary taxes in place and then not pull them back. Making them permanent. And so Republicans got in and they're like, we're going to keep our promise. We're going to start bringing this thing down. But it is a multi-year plan. They can't just, they did not want to do it. I guess they could have. But they did not want to do it all in one year.

[00:15:28] Particularly the reduction in the personal income tax rate that, you know, you and I pay as individual taxpayers, but also the corporate income tax rate. They said we're going to keep ratcheting this down on a set schedule. Like half a point every two years or so or every year, quarter point, half a point. They're going to keep bringing it down while monitoring revenues.

[00:15:55] And so if they get to a point where they run into a budget deficit, if they, you know, if the cut to the income taxes creates a deficit, then they would freeze the cut. That has never happened. Every single year, they have tested this philosophy, which is when you reduce the income tax rate, you get more economic activity, more investment, and that generates more revenue for the state budget.

[00:16:23] And that has occurred, despite all of the, you know, prophecies of catastrophe from the left and the media. But I repeat myself. And so we are seeing the fruits of this labor. They are continuing to knock down the income tax rates. Meanwhile, the budget went from 20 billion to 32.6. That'll be this coming year. And then the following year, it'll go up to 33.3 billion dollars.

[00:16:53] So what is in the budget? Well, it's about four pages. I shall read every line item. I'm kidding. I'm not going to do that to you. I'm going to give you the highlights. This came from the Senate Republican press shop. This is their news release that they sent out. And so they highlight the top items in the budget. So the stuff that they want you to know about. Okay.

[00:17:20] Number one, funding to replenish the rainy day fund, taking it back up to four point seven five billion dollars. And that puts it back to what it was prior to Hurricane Helene. Democrats are outraged over this. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain. And Cabins of Asheville is your connection.

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[00:18:40] Call or text 828-367-7068. Or check out all there is to offer at cabinsofashville.com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Got a message from Russ who says, You remember the $20 billion North Carolina budgets? I have an elementary school memory of my dad venting about the fools in Raleigh are going to spend a billion dollars this year. A billion dollars. Yeah, one billion. That's like half of the city of Charlotte's budget now.

[00:19:10] And Mecklenburg. And the school district. Got a message here from Andy who says, If you search the budget report for the word eliminate, the results will add up to over $67 million in budget cuts. Some DEI-related items are also cut, like the HUB and Minority Male Success Initiative.

[00:19:38] The Human Relations Commission also eliminated. So that's good. That's good to hear. So they are replenishing the Rainy Day Fund. Let me jump ahead. Like I said, there's a massive document that the state Senate Republicans put out. Yeah, Hurricane... Where is it? Yeah, Hurricane Helene Relief. So first off, you've got the Rainy Day Fund pushed back up to $4.75 billion.

[00:20:07] Which, by the way, just as an aside, I have not verified this, but I suspect with near certainty that this is the case. That the Rainy Day Fund actually kicks off a bunch of interest for state coffers. You put that kind of money into an account, into CDs and stuff, and it will just generate interest while it's not being tapped. And that's a very good idea, right? Make the money, generate more money.

[00:20:37] And it's there if you need to use it. You just have to wait for the CD to mature. But at any rate, so there's that. And then there is the allocation of $700 million for Hurricane Helene recovery needs, plus $633 million more in temporary and permanent repurposing of funds within the Department of Transportation to support recovery. So they're moving $633 million around.

[00:21:05] This was temporary and permanent repurposing of funds. So some of it will be supplanted in the following budget cycles. But what it means is that you're putting about $1.3 billion towards Hurricane Helene recovery. And that is in addition to the $1.4 billion that has already been put towards recovery efforts.

[00:21:31] So we would be at $2.7 billion total from the state alone. Now, I mentioned Democrats are not happy. Here is a statement from the state Senate Democrat leader, Sidney Batch. Quote,

[00:21:58] The Senate Republican budget is a blueprint for neglect and cowardice. Instead of investing in the people who, by the way, whenever a Democrat says investing, they mean spending money. Okay? And I'm going to give you the economic philosophy of Democrats, particularly North Carolina Democrats, but this is really writ large. Every now and again, you might find an exception to this rule, but this is the philosophy. See a penny, spend a penny.

[00:22:29] That's it. All of it needs to be spent. That's how we got into structural deficits in this state. We were running deficits every year. I always point this out because people have, a lot of people have arrived in North Carolina that were not here when Democrats were in control. I'm talking like 15 years ago. Well, 17 years ago now, probably. We had our tax refunds withheld.

[00:22:59] So like you, you file taxes, which by the way, happy tax day, everybody. I didn't get you anything. Um, and so the, the tax refunds that people were due were withheld by the state because they didn't have money to push out the door. They needed the money to keep the, the, uh, the budget running to keep the books operating, right? Keep the lights on, pay the bills.

[00:23:26] And so they delayed the refunds by months. They did the same thing to, I forget what the term is for it. It may, it's not reimbursements, reimbursements, but it might be, it's something like that though, where this, the, the local jurisdiction. So like the city collects money and then sends it up to the state or maybe the state collects it. But either way, the money is supposed to be allocated between both of the jurisdictions, city and state.

[00:23:55] So like if it's a sales tax, for example, right, the state is supposed to send that money back down to the, to the cities. And they withheld that too. They tried to seize that money because they were running deficits. When we hit the economic recession in 08, 09, we ran up massive unemployment deficits. We took out loans from the federal government.

[00:24:23] I think our loan was about $2 billion because we were, we were sending out money under the unemployment insurance system, which by the way, employers pay that businesses pay that, which means what? It means it's coming out of your paycheck. It just, it's just never in there in the first place, right? The, the businesses pay the unemployment insurance rates. And if they fire more people, they pay higher rates. So it's an incentive for them not to pay or not to fire a bunch of people, make good hires, right? And keep people on the books anyway.

[00:24:52] So we ran deficits with the federal government because we had loans. Well, you had deficits in the program. And so we had to take loans from the federal government. When Republicans took over and Pat McCrory got elected governor, this was 20, well, Republicans won in 2010, took office in 2011. McCrory wins in 2012. And they go about reforming that unemployment program.

[00:25:18] And they pay off the debt to the federal government within like, I think it was within two years or something. So they paid that back, which then of course lowers the unemployment insurance rates for the companies because you don't have this big debt, this liability hanging out over the program's head. So that then lowers the cost for employers, which means you can now have more money to hire more people, right? Invest in your company, give raises, whatever.

[00:25:48] So the, the proponents of this Democrat spending philosophy, and then you get into the Medicaid problems that they were running. They were running a multi-billion dollar deficits on Medicaid. It was a mess. It was just an absolute mess. Republicans come in. They're like, we're going to reform this tax system. And Democrats, you can't do that. Oh my gosh, we're going to go bankrupt. Like, you mean what you guys did,

[00:26:13] but you are no position to tell us that we are going to cause a bankruptcy when you guys have been running multi-billion dollar deficits for years on end. So I don't believe Democrats when they talk about this, because their philosophy is still the same. See a penny, spend a penny. She says in her statement, instead of investing in the people who make this state work, Republicans are continuing to hoard taxpayer dollars in a rainy day fund. There you go.

[00:26:43] That's the philosophy right there. Don't put money aside for a rainy day fund where we, you know, in case of an emergency, wait, so we should just spend the rainy day fund? Yes, that is what Democrats want to do. Roy Cooper wanted to do it, right? They want to take the rainy day fund, which again, is more than likely generating revenue for the state. You build up the reserve. And by the way, there are state law,

[00:27:10] there are state laws that require cities and counties to have healthy rainy day funds. I think it's 16%. You got to have a 16% rainy day fund of your total budget. So they constantly want to raid this, this pot of money. And they say that Republicans are undermining critical agencies and ducking their responsibility by kicking tough decisions over to the house of representatives. Well, don't worry. They're going to go into a conference committee and hammer out the differences.

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[00:28:38] Mail orders are accepted to get all the details at createavideo.com. All right. Sydney Batch, the Senate Democrat leader up in Raleigh, put out a statement after the Republicans released their budget plan. And she says that the budget does nothing to keep our community safe. It offers pathetic raises to public servants, abandons our law enforcement officer. By the way, do you think that this is the case? Like, do you really think that Republicans are abandoning law enforcement officers? Anyway,

[00:29:08] it short changes the public infrastructure North Carolina desperately needs. At a time when families are squeezed by rising costs, schools can't find teachers for their classrooms and emergency services are stretched to the brink. Senate Republicans have made the active choice to sit on billions of taxpayer dollars. So this is how they view a rainy day emergency fund. Is there just sitting on this money? Right.

[00:29:37] It's like a savings account. You sit on it. Dave Ramsey talks about this. You should have six months of bills, like six months worth of whatever your bills, you know, monthly bills are six months of living expenses saved. That's your emergency fund. You lose your job, right? Something happens, whatever you need to be able to have a pool of money to tap into. While you get back on your feet,

[00:30:07] that's what a rainy day fund is. That's what a reserve fund is. Okay. She goes on to say, making matters worse, worse than all of that. That sounds really bad. But Republicans have spent years leaning on temporary federal funding to give themselves political cover, avoiding investments in core services while funneling state dollars to pet projects like private school vouchers. But with federal cuts looming, their strategy is collapsing.

[00:30:36] So I would point out here, I don't take you seriously. Sydney batch, Senator batch, because you have been demanding the expansion of Medicaid. Republicans finally did it. They finally caved joining like 45 other states or whatever it's been. And that is exactly what you are now criticizing Republicans for doing, leaning on temporary federal funding.

[00:31:03] That's what the Medicaid expansion is. That's what you demanded. We do. So I, I, I don't have any, no, I don't have any confidence in your statement. And I don't, I don't believe you. Um, back to the Republicans press release. They're giving an across the board, one and a quarter pay, uh, one and a quarter percent pay increase in the first year for the two year budget. Plus for most state employees,

[00:31:33] plus a $3,000 bonus over the two years. So like 1500 bucks bonus each year. Teachers will receive an average of 2.3% pay increase and an average increase of 3.3% over the biennium plus a $3,000 bonus. Oh, and by the way, that does not account for the step increases that they get every single year of $1,000. On average,

[00:32:02] teachers will receive additional compensation of 8.9% over the biennium. This is what she calls ducking their responsibility. Right? Short changing the public, abandoning civil service workers, pathetic raises, an 8.9% pay raise, $3,000 bonus. Yeah.

[00:32:32] $3,000 bonus for the biennium for local law enforcement officers across the state. What else? Initiating guaranteed tax relief for all North Carolinians by cutting the personal income tax rate to 3.49% in 2027, and then dropping it another half a percent to 2.99% in 2028. So a full point drop by 2028. That means you get to keep more of your own money.

[00:33:05] Adjusting the tax rate revenue triggers with the goal of reaching a 1.99% personal income tax rate. That's where they want to get to. They want to get to a personal income tax rate of 1.99%. And then, this was my favorite, they're going to increase support to the North Carolina, for NC Children's, a partnership between UNC and Duke Health Systems, to build the state's first and only freestanding children's hospital.

[00:33:34] So they're increasing that support by $638.5 million. And here it is, exempting this project from the certificate of need reviews. Right. I've railed against certificate of need in this state. It's a stupid law. It's been on the books for way too long. It needs to be repealed. And that right there is proof of its idiocy. Right. That they're going to exempt the project from the certificate of need.

[00:34:04] What else? Salaries and benefits. I mentioned most state employees across the board, 1.25%. Correctional officers get an additional 5.25%. Probation and parole officers, an additional 2%. State law enforcement officers, state Capitol Police, law enforcement officers at the Division of Marine Fisheries, Forestry, Parks, Wildlife Resources. They get an additional 5.25%. That's on top of the 1.25%. State highway patrol officers,

[00:34:34] ALE officers, they're getting raises. National Guard gets recruitment and retention bonuses. So under this proposal, the average teacher pay in North Carolina will go to $62,407. $62,407. $62,407. That is the average teacher pay under the budget. And this is just the Senate. We don't know what the House version looks like yet.

[00:35:03] And they are going to increase the teacher supplements that the state now started paying for in select counties, in poorer counties, basically. This is the county supplement. So Mecklenburg County gives, I think we're in the neighborhood of like $5,000 or $6,000 supplement, in addition to the state funding for the teacher positions. What else? Childcare subsidies.

[00:35:32] The budget also directs the Department of Health and Human Services to move ahead with seeking a work requirement for Medicaid recipients. Also, it repeals the state's certificate of need laws that drive up costs for patients by stifling competition. Yes! Thank you! Now, will the House go along? I don't know. I think they will. I think they will because Tim Moore isn't there anymore. $35 million in each of the two-year budget

[00:36:02] for school safety grants. Let's see. Our final page. And I'm just giving you a couple of the highlights. It's like packed. Body cameras for ALE officers and safety equipment for highway patrol. More highway patrol positions. New positions to meet local needs based on the administrative office of the courts. Workload formula. These new positions include full-time magistrates, deputy clerks, assistant DAs,

[00:36:30] and victim witness legal assistant positions. Right? So, that's good. I hear all the time that we need to, you know, help fund the DA's offices. So, that's good. We'll see what happens though. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast. So, if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page

[00:36:58] or go to thepetecalendorshow.com. Again, thank you so much for listening and don't break anything while I'm gone.