Passing of Lindsey Graham | NC Budget and Legislation Latest | Hour 1

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three 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 of the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendershow dot 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. You can call in at seven oh four five seven zero one zero seven nine at weigh in on some of the things that are happening around North Carolina today. But certainly this morning we're looking a little bit to our neighbors to the south. The sudden death of Lindsay Graham, Senator Lindsey Graham, son of a South Carolina pool hall owner, rose to the heights of North Carolina, of US political fame, really became a fixture on the global stage, one of our staunchest advocates of the power of the American military to create peace around the world. Very sad loss an aortic dissection is what they're saying. Now. Certainly you know you can go get that checked. If you are concerned about it. He was a former military lawyer, became a colonel in the Air Force. It was really a hawk on foreign policy. You may remember that he ran for president. He ran for the Republican nomination in twenty sixteen, really then as an opponent to President Donald Trump, but then really became one of the President's biggest allies. Certainly then he was supposed to be on I believe Meet the Press on Sunday. The President stepped in for him meeting that obligation after his passing a real loss I think in American politics, so we'll certainly be talking more about him. A little closer to home, North Carolina is starting to see the effects of our new thirty four point three billion dollar state budget. So it includes teacher law enforcement pay raises, more income tax reductions, something that lawmakers have set are pointing to as the reason North Carolina is seeing such an economic turnaround over the last say twelve years or so. Also has new funding for Hurricane Helen recovery and changes to how data centers are taxed. We've been talking a lot about data centers their impact on North Carolina's economy. Governor Josh Sein signed this measure last week, still criticized several provisions in it, did not stop him from signing it or letting it become law without his signature. Ten days is how long that would take if he did not want to sign it. But it also he was also critical of some of the rearrangement, getting rid of vacant government jobs, that kind of thing. Stein's signature ends months of negotiation between the two legislative chambers over tax cuts, salaries for state employees, ear marks, special earmarks, and projects. You know, Stein did praise a lot of the major provisions in the budget. He also critical sized number of the policy changes, though ultimately, you know, he concluded the benefits outweighed his objections signed it. One of the things that Stein highlighted is what lawmakers described as the largest teacher pay raise in fifteen years in the state budget. It's actually also the largest starting teacher pay raise in fifty years, largest starting teacher pay raise in fifty years. Her pain Helen gets about seven hundred million dollars for recovery and a billion dollars to fully fend the state's medicaid rebates. If you want to head over to Carolina Journal dot com. WBT dot com. Mean read a lot of information about what the budget has in it, all the details. We're going to continue digging through it. This is a six hundred page state budget, so there's a lot there. You're going to be hearing more and more about it. Double digit pay raises for state law enforcement, bonuses for local police, and then scheduled reduction center intacts. It's always good news for North Carolina attack pays. Let's talk a little bit about those data centers. The state budget ends the sales tax exemption on the electricity purchased by data centers. Legislative analysts say that this change will give us give the state coffers about twenty one million dollars just this year, maybe closer to twenty eight million every year by twenty thirty. Even so, North Carolina continues to rank among the lowest for low tax states. So the Tech Tax Foundation came out with an interesting statistic. Five of the nine states with the lowest individual income tax burden also are below average and property. In sales tax, you hear a lot of critics say that, hey, if we lower income tax, are just going to get it another way. They're going to raise property tax. They're going to raise sales tax. Statistically, that's not true. Five of nine states the lowest individual income tax burden also have below average property tax and sales tax. So, you know, I think it demonstrates that competitive tax policy really can coexist with a stable revenue base, something we need to be talking about more. As we talk more about property tax, there's going to be likely a tax provision on your ballot in November that sets a levy limit on how much your county can raise property taxes. I'll be talking more about that in just a bit. Also, Stein objected to lawmakers eliminating hundreds of vacant state positions in the state budget, closing the Office of Health Equity and the Office for Historically Underutilized Businesses. Let's talk a little bit about that. First, the Office of Health Equity, the function, the work of it moved into another area within DHHS, so that work is still going on, it's just the office itself is closed. And then when you look at the Office for Historically Underutilized Businesses, there's a lot of heat over the weekend about closing this office. So the Office of Historically Underutilized Businesses was originally started to boost minority businesses, small businesses, power within government, state government contracting. And here's the thing, this closing of this office. It appears that lawmakers just didn't see the level of benefit to the level of cost that it was to tax payers. It didn't really stop you know, the minority leader Robert Reeves from voting for it didn't stop Governor Stein from voting for the budget. So, you know, those are important sometimes overlook context in the budget. So so while the Office of Health Equity isn't completely disappearing, its work is being transferred within you know, it's something to consider, like when these things happen, what's the context behind it. So budget supporters are also noting that the changes involving appointments to state boards and commissions. Stein objected to some of those. Those changes. The budget redes redistribute some appointments to boards and commissions that previously belonged exclusively to the governor, so certain appoint an authority was now given to other Council of State officials within the executive branch or to the General Assembly. Lawmakers argue that the changes will create a better balance among independently elected constitu constitutional officers. So a lot of that power still stays within the executive branch, even if it's not in the Governor's office, and more appointment authority goes to the legislature. The General Assembly comes back Monday, July twenty seventh, we'll probably see a lot of technical corrections, not unusual for this part of the budget process. They're going to tackle some unfinished business. But you know, possibly at the top of that agenda are veto overrides. So we saw a veto of a bill that would light some a framework and allow municipalities to close up homeless encampments. We may see an override of that bill coming in as lawmakers get started. There's also potentially election law proposal and legislation regulating hemp products. So when they come back at the end of the month, we may see even more coming from state lawmakers. We're going to be covering it right here for WBT and on Carolina at Journal dot com, So stick with us. We've got a lot going on today. We're going to be talking lots of different experts here at Carolina Journal, some of the reporters that are in the room when they have these kind of discussions, and of course taking your calls and questions. All right. For over a year now you've heard me talking about Create a Video. Great local company in Minhill that has helped more than two million families preserve their memories by turning old photos, VHS, tapes, film reels and slides into lasting keepsakes. Now Creative Video is helping families and groups create brand new memories while they're traveling, introducing group travel videos perfect for family reunions, church mission trips, group vacations, destination weddings, student trips, senior adult groups, sports teams. I mean, really any gathering of people that you care that's traveling together. 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You can email Katie Kai at group travel videos dot com. Group travel videos from old memories to new adventures, preserving life's moments for lifetime. This is Donna King. I am sitting in for Pete Calendar today on the Pete Calendar Show. We've got a lot to talk about, certainly the first state budget we had in eighteen months or so, whatever it's been, and lots of money flowing our huge budget here and big pay raises for teachers, for law enforcement. Andrew Pomerantz, a legislative reporter for Carolina Journal, He's been following this. You've really been. Walking up and down the halls there at the state Legislature account trying to keep track of us for us. Hey, Donna, Yeah, happy Monday. I think I moved into the state legislature for a couple weeks there, you know, late night votes early morning. We came out that Sunday before that last week of the General Assembly that they had come to a budget agreement late on that Sunday night, and then Monday morning we found out that the language was ready to go. We're just waiting for the final putting the budget together and actually doing that process. Just talk about twenty four hours and that Tuesday morning and that last week we got budget language and by Tuesday afternoon we were ready to vote on it. Wow. I mean, it is a complicated process and a lot of guessing actually, because I feel like we all were saying, well, what. Are you hearing? What are you hearing? What are you hearing? And in the end, I feel like everything changed in that last twenty four hours before it came out. You know, there was a lot of speculation. We have a lot of things like MLB that continued to be talk about up until the final moments, right, and things that we hadn't been talking about up until that last couple weeks of budget negotiations. And it was pretty tight lip down the General Assembly between the corner offices between Berger and Hall and their staffs remade pretty intact in terms of keeping everything behind closed doors. But we received this budget framework back in May, right middle of May, Sure Burger and Speager Hall came out and put together a framework that had laid out a lot of things that we were mostly focused on, whether that be tax cuts or teacher prayer races. I mean, those numbers stood true. They were the numbers that we got when the budget came out just two weeks go now, and so I don't think there was a ton of surprise on some of the top line topics. Some of the in depth a miittigrat policy conclusions in the budget I think are a little bit more interesting. But yeah, not a lot changed over the six weeks of negotiation. Sure, sure, So. Let's talk about some of those policy things. Poly markets. So six percent tax on poly markets. Tell me a little bit about. What that means. Yeah, so predictive markets. Okay, At the federal level, they are still working on how to kind of put all this together and how to come up with a plan on how to regulate this moving forward. But here in North Carolina, where the first state to actually institute some sort of tax on predictive markets. Okay, that does come in at six percent, So a whole lot lower than sports betting. Right now, sports warning is eighteen This budget raises that up to twenty three percent. Okay, so almost seventeen percent more than predictive markets. The argument is they're still getting their feet under them. We're still waiting for federal guidelines on how to actually enact those. It'll be about a million dollars year one. It looks like ok tax revenue for the state based on these predictive markets, But more so, it makes them a legal entity here in the state of North Carolina. Right, so you're confirmed, you're But is it here to stay? Anyway? I believe so. I think I was a figure Hall and center Berger's point when asked why they took this a measure to include it in the budget this year. That was their whole point, that it was here to stay, that these markets were not going anywhere, they were only going to grow, and it was time for North Carolina to take action. Sure. Sure, And do you think they left money on the table? I mean, do you think it'll be more than six percent at some point? If you're doing sports betting at twenty three. I have to imagine there was democratic concern as this budget is being negotiated and talked about on the budget floor about this. You know, why don't these predictive markets just get into sports betting? Why do sports betting platform just become predictive markets for the sustrate? So I do think as as we progress and look forward to the next budget, we'll continue to hear this number come up, and I assume we'll see it creep up as it becomes more stable here in North Carolina. Sure, So this newly signed state budget also effectively eliminates vehicle emissions inspections requirements in North Carolina, and if the EPA goes along with it, if that's correct. You know, currently North Carolina vehicle emission inspections are required in nineteen counties, including Mecklenburg County. So what's different in this for MEC. Yeah, So the twenty twenty three budget removed eighteen of the nineteen counties, Okay, excluding Mecklenburg. Okay, Now those are still EPA waiting on the EPA to get back to the state about what we can go through or not. But Mecklenburg was the one remaining that had not been addressed yet. Mecklenburg in this budget is addressed and so they receive that lower tax threshold automissions and vehicles, so they'll remove that restriction as long as the EPA continues to allow that to happen. Sure Sure, So they're coming back, So why didn't they just adjourn? You know, there's a lot of work still to do. So we received one additional governor's a vendment to a vtail or government vetail, So we have to come. Back in the end of July to handle that. We've got two veto overrides left on the House calendar, one being SB fifty, the constitual carry that we've been talking about now for months and months as it remained on the calendar. And then the second one, this homeless encampment bill that he just vetoed in this last cycle of bill signings. And so a couple of bills that still will need to be veto overridden, a lot of conference reports that are still up for discussion, whether it be about HEMP regulations here in the state or election laws, and so I think a number of key provisions still outstanding, and we're still waiting for kind of maybe those finalized details to come out. Sure Sure in technical corrections, I mean, we can't when you get a budget moving through this fast change is happening in the last minute. There's going to be some technical corrections. Imagine just side seven hundred pages. We already saw the first forty page technical correction document come out and the governor sign it. I imagine we'll see another large technical correction document come out as we continue to see numbers be thrown around. I think total spending for the next two fiscal years it's going to be over eighty billions. We've got thirty four billion allocated, but another if you in cloud include receipts and all that fun stuffure and so as we see those numbers kind of be finalized as well, I think we'll see continuoency corrections. Yeah. I mean, can you speak a little bit to the reserve funds. This is something that's been confusing, and we've talked about it on Carolina Journal dot com that in addition to the whatever thirty four billion dollars in our state budget, there are reserve funds that kind of add to our total spend number that lawmakers seem to use as a way to I don't know if they're putting things on a credit card or their shuffle. It's a little bit of a shell game. Yeah, absolutely, So, Yeah, the reserve funds are kind of a separate making account from the state. They don't count as top line spending. They become sort of a rainy day funds a lot of ways, and so they're money that they set aside that isn't spending because we're not spending it. Risty is still holding those accounts. Sure, but lawmakers are then very quickly dipping into those rainy day funds to fund things like Medicaid expansion and gaps in Western Carolina. So they're savings accounts, not credit cards. They are savings accounts, but they are running through those savings account just as the money hits them. Sure, those reserve funds don't hit that top line number, but then are spent. In addition, so lots lots of backroom money flowing from BA gosh, and when you do that, you don't have, you know, these negotiated terms of how to spend that money, and so that money becomes largely unaccountable. Sure, sure as they come back. Actually, let's talk about data centers if you don't mind, because you know, we've heard a lot of talk of data centers. They're being treated as kind of a villain to some degree because they really suck up a lot of electricity. But they are good for the economy in that they pay an income tax that they are you know, building up in some of these communities. But this budget changes one of their exemptions. Correct, Yeah, it gets rid of the electricity data center credit. Right now, they are not paying tax on their electricity use. Okay. They have that in addition to a infrastructure tax credit that they receive as well, and so they get a lot of just top line budget spend back in town deductions. That's a provision that's been on the books now for about twenty years, and so it goes back to a time where data centers were just a you know, a star market. I don't think anyone could have imagined the growth they are today. And as data centers have expanded, it's really cost the state close to sixty million dollars annually in these two tax credits. Now, this electricity tax credit is the smaller of the two, and so it's the one that's a little bit more approachable I think for data centers. Back to March a, Governor Stein put together a committee to look into energy affordability and out of that committee came this recommendation to get rid of both of these. Tax center credits. Very interesting, an issue we've seen up and down the East Coast hold up budget negotiations, and a bill that was introduced here in the North Carolina Electricy drawn a by Parson Basis, would have gotten rid. Of both of those tax exumptions. So the budget goes one step short of that, but still begins to remove some of the protections that data centers have here at North Carolina. Of course, thanks so much, Andrew Pomerantz for Carolina Journal. I appreciate you being with you. Thank you so much for having me. One of the things that I've been thinking about lately is it feels like nobody really remembers the closures and widespread shutdowns from COVID. It seems like it was a lifetime ago. It also seems like it was just yesterday. There are some North Carolina bar owners who don't want us to forget about this, and they want to know who's libel when their businesses were shut down. Joining us now. Mitchkochi from the John Locke Foundation has been following this case. Hi, Mitch, thanks for joining well. Thanks for having me, Donna. Yes, this is a case that started way back in the early days of COVID. You'll remember that almost everyone had to shut down their businesses as soon as the pandemic started. But then that too. Not that long after the initial shutdowns, the governor in North Carolina, then Governor Roy Cooper, allowed a lot of businesses to reopen. Sometimes there were special plans that they had to have or things that they would put in place. But one group that was not allow to reopen were private bars. And private bars were told that they for health and safety reasons, had remained closed, even though they saw bars and restaurants and breweries and wineries and country clubs reopen, and so they eventually sued, and last year the state Supreme Court in two cases said the bar owners could move forward with their lawsuit on this idea that the shutdowns violated their economic rights what's called in the North Carolina Constitution the right to the fruits of your own labor. Now, one of these suits has now been mediated and so it's over, but another suit continues with fifty or so bar owners who are proceeding with their case. And there have been some interesting developments in recent weeks. So tell me what's going on with this because I know that liability. So Governor Cooper shut down this issued these ongoing state of emergency that we saw during COVID. But they feel like he should be lible personally, or at least the governor should be liable. The governor's office would be liable. The current actual defendant in the case is now Governor Josh Stein, even though all of this happened under the leadership of Governor Roy Cooper, because the suit was filed against the governor, so it would not be Roy Cooper having to pay out any money or even Josh Stein. It would be the government because of the actions of the governor. But the most recent developments that have been interesting is that there was a court hearing earlier this month in which the plaintiffs in the case, the bar owners, are saying that they want to see Roy Cooper and his former Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen sit for depositions to explain why they came up with these decisions that they made, because the excuses that were made at the time was that Cooper and Cohen were being driven by data and science and by healthcare briefings, and the bar owners asked for evidence of this, well, what's the data, what's science tell us about these briefings, and never got any information. They just had to remain closed. So they want to conduct depositions with Cooper and Cohen to find out what was actually going on. Meanwhile, lawyers from the North Carolina Department of Justice, so this is the Attorney General's Office under Jeff Jackson. They're representing both Governor Stein and apparently because of the court filings also former Governor Cooper and Mandy Cohen. They're saying, no, no depositions they're needed in this case. Instead, we should right now be going through these bar owners' records to find out who, if any of them, actually would be potentially owed money. So there's going to be a hearing coming up in August in which the judge that's overseeing this case is going to decide whether Cooper and Cohen will have to sit for depositions. And this is interesting in some respects just because of the ongoing debate about whether these bar owners are going to be able to collect any money from having to be shut down in some cases for a year or more depending on what type of bar they were. But it's also interesting because Roy Cooper, of course, is running for Senate, and if this issue is still lingering out there and hanging around as people are thinking about who they're going to be voting for this ball, that could be potentially some bad news for Roy Cooper. He's been leading in all the polls, but if people are thinking more and more about, oh, yeah, this was the guy who shut us down and that had an impact on our lives, that could at least make some sort of dent in his Senate campaign. Do you anticipate this having any national repercussions beyond the Senate race, because I know that there are a lot of committees on Capitol Hill that are looking at the same thing. How did this happen? Well, I don't know that this particular case will have an impact. I'm sure that the committees that you're referencing are looking into issues like this one, but I think probably beyond the specifics of this case, the real long term impact in North Carolina would be if these bar owners end up being successful and if they can collect some money, that would really prompt future state government leaders to think twice before they shut down businesses and then just say, well, we're doing it because we're the government and we can. They'll have to have real legitimate reasons that they can justify and point to, or else the state taxpayers are going to be on the hook for shutting down businesses when they're and violating people's economic rights, because that's really what this case boils down to. If the governor has liability, it's because he violated the rights of these bar owners to the fruits of their own labor, and taxpayers would end up having to pay the cost. What has been happening before the Supreme Court State Supreme Court allowed this case to go forward was that the lower courts basically said, no, you know that this was done for health and safety reasons. The governor and the government could do this sort of thing. The bar owners don't really have any recourse. What the States Spreme Court says, well, no, if there's a fundamental violation of a basic state constitutional right, there could be a liability here, and I think the ultimate outcome of this case could have long ranging impacts on that front. Absolutely. Mitch Kokai from the John Locke Foundation, thanks so much for joining us. Good to talk to you. Thanks for having me Donna. We've got a. Lot of news going on today, a lot of it revolving around North Carolina's state budget. It sounds kind of dry, but there's some big money in there, a lot of your tax dollars, lots of rasist teachers and police officers. There's also a lot of policy in the state budget. But what we are hearing is at CNBC is saying North Carolina remains one of the nation's strongest states for business. We've heard this over and over again, but their new ranking is out and it's highlighting one of the biggest challenges facing the state's continued growth. How do we develop the workforce and infrastructure we need to sustain this level of growth. So CNBC is once again ranked North Carolina among the top states for business. We're now at number two for twenty twenty six. It really marks the sixth consecutive year that North Carolina has finished either first or second in the Best for Business rankings. So North Carolina did drop one spot from last year. Last year we were thus stopped the top state for business. Now we're number two, But it really is all about North Carolina's economic performance. A state also scored pretty high on workforce, technology and. Innovation, access to capital. Supporters of North Carolina's economic approach to over the last decade, years of tax reform, regulatory changes, probe growth policies. They say that these are the reasons the state continues to attract new business and new residents. It feels like someone is moving into North Carolina all the time now. But CNBC's rankings are also highlighting areas where North Carolina faces some challenges. Right The state saw declines and categories like education, infrastructure, business friendliness, which in many cases is regulatory environment, quality of life, cost of living. You know, a lot of this is about housing affordability. It's something we've been talking about a lot. Those rankings come as state leaders are making big decisions on issues that will help determine whether North Carolina can keep pace with our growth, Preparing teachers, managing our health care costs, preserving farm land, how do we feed our folks right, maintaining the infrastructure that we need for a growing population. One of those challenges is really balancing economic growth with preserving North Carolina as agricultural heritage. So this newly enacted state budget that we've been talking about over the last week or so includes forty nine million dollars for for farmland preservation over the next two years. The funding supports efforts to protect working farms preserve agricultural land as residential and commercial development continues to expand you know that said, there is still the basic economic principle if you build more houses, does the house come down? Uh, it's it's a free marketplace. So that's one of the questions. Supporters are saying that the farmland preservation helps maintain one of North Carolina's largest industries, a lot of folks in North Carolina working in agriculture, but they're saying it also protects open spaces, rural communities, our our agriculture and economy. The investment comes as North Carolina continues to have that major population growth we've been talking about. But you also have public schools. You know, people are bringing here, coming here to raise their families. A growing economy requires a strong workforce and that's you know, classrooms with great teachers. At the front of them. The state budget includes several changes teacher licensure requirements changes, and they're aimed at trying to make it easier to recruit and retain good teachers. The cays come. At school districts there, you know, everybody's getting ready, they're making they're putting together their class are making sure that they're hiring is on track for the upcoming academic school year, and they're having some challenges filling those classrooms. According to the Department of Public Instruction, approximately one out of every ten North Carolina teachers leaves the profession each year. So Jeff Coltrane, the Senior director of Government Affairs and Strategy for DPI the Department of Public Instructions, told the State Board of Education that the changes that they want to see in the changes in teacher licensure are to increase the number of certified teachers in the state. One big change that they have coming is that it eliminates the requirements that college students pass the Praxics Core test and meet minimum SAT or ACT score requirements before ending educator preparation programs. So that's a big question, right, should they have to meet minimum SAT and ACT to go into teacher training programs. That's one of the things that this does. State education officials have say that they think removing PRAXIS requirements that it's not a really strong connection between passing that test and being an effective classroom teacher. The state budget also makes it easier for experienced teachers from other states to come in here and continue receive a continuing professional license in North Carolina. So before this, out of state teachers with at least three years of experience and good standing had to demonstrate that their state licensure requirements were similar to North Carolina's. So officials are worried that that requirement sometimes forced experienced educators to complete additional testing before they came in. So the new law says, if you've got a valid license in another state, you can come over and fill a role in the classroom. So this is something that we're going to be talking about a lot. How do we fill these classrooms and how do we make sure that North Carolina has the best education possible. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. 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 or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone.