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End of Session Wrap-up: Promises Kept
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Governor Bev Perdue and legislative Democrats drove this state to the edge of a $2.5 billion cliff. When we got here in January, it was worse than we could have imagined – record deficits, maxed out debt limit, the highest taxes in the Southeastern United States, government agencies buried in debt to the federal government, overregulation, high school graduation rates ranked near the bottom nationally, and unemployment that remains higher than the national average.
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As promised, we made enormous progress getting government to live within its means, reforming public education, and enabling the state’s job creators to put people back to work and lead our economy out of the recession.
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We did it all in one of the most efficient and productive legislative sessions in modern history. It was the quickest adjournment (87 legislative days) in a long session in nearly four decades (1973). It happened in the face of apocalyptic, shameful rhetoric from those clinging to the big-government, tax-and-spend policies that put us in this mess.
A few of the major accomplishments:
Jobs/Economy
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We balanced a $19.7 billion bipartisan budget that fills a $2.5 billion deficit, cuts taxes, reduces government spending by $1 billion, and reforms public education – despite a desperate, politically-motivated veto from the governor. The budget ends nearly $1 billion in “temporary,” job-killing sales and income tax hikes that the governor and her Democratic colleagues in the legislature passed in the peak of the Great Recession to grow government. They promised to end those taxes this year, but fought to keep them anyway to avoid reducing government spending and making tough decisions. In addition to ending those tax hikes, the budget also enacts a $50,000 income exemption for job-creating businesses that were strangled by overregulation and the highest tax rates in the Southeastern United States.
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Our tax reforms will return more than $1 billion to the private economy, where the hard work and creativity of our state’s citizens and businesses will turn that money into lasting new jobs. Economists say our actions could create 15,000 private sector jobs in the short term, and thousands more in the future.
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The medical malpractice and other tort reforms we approved will help North Carolina attract scores of new medical jobs and make health care cheaper and more accessible for everyone, especially those in rural, low-income areas. The old lottery-like system helps trial lawyers win big while doctors flee to other states where they can practice medicine without fear of frivolous lawsuits. North Carolina doctors must practice defensive medicine – ordering dozens of unnecessary tests and procedures – to avoid being sued. That enormous added cost is passed on to taxpayers in the form of higher insurance rates and taxpayer-funded medical programs for the poor. It’s one of the highest, most hidden costs of our broken health care system. Like many other bills challenging the status quo, this one bet the governor’s veto stamp. But a bipartisan group of lawmakers overrode it.
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With huge bipartisan support, including unanimous votes in the Senate, we passed sweeping changes to the state’s regulatory environment that will simplify outdated rules and regulations and provide certainty and clarity for North Carolina’s job creators. It’s a bill the business community resoundingly says will help companies put people back to work. More than 15,000 new or amended regulations, imposed by unelected bureaucrats, have hit the books over the past decade. Many are complex, confusing, and unnecessary. The Regulatory Reform Act we passed prohibits new state regulations that are more restrictive than federal rules, and requires the state to review and eliminate burdensome regulations annually.
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Also with bipartisan support, we overrode the governor’s veto of a bill reforming the Employment Security Commission, one of the most dysfunctional agencies in state government. Buried in debt to the federal government, this agency now will be housed in the Department of Commerce, where it will be better managed.
Education
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Currently, more than 1 in 4 high school students in North Carolina do not graduate, placing us near the bottom in national graduation rankings. Many that do graduate are ill-prepared for post-secondary education, straining our community colleges and universities by requiring extensive remedial coursework.
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The facts are clear: our budget does more for K-12 classrooms than any budget proposed this year, including the governor’s. But instead of merely throwing more money at a failing system, we sweeping reforms and improvements to public classrooms. Our reforms will help more students graduate and create a more educated workforce – the cornerstone of a vibrant economy.
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As promised, we eliminated the cap on the number of innovative public charter schools. The arbitrary, 100-school cap imposed and defended by Democrats, kept more than 20,000 families on a waiting list to enroll in a charter school. North Carolina students and families have long deserved more education options, and now they’ll get them.
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As in any other critically-important profession, we want the best teachers to rise to the top, and those struggling to improve or find new jobs. That’s why we’re funding development and implementation of a program that will pay teachers and state employees based on merit, not just seniority and academic credentials.
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Students who read at grade level by fourth grade are far more likely to graduate high school, studies show. Our budget funds a new, reading-intensive program that adds reading-intensive classes and keeps students from advancing to fourth grade until they’re proficient.
Others
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We passed a hugely popular, common-sense measure requiring voters to show photo identification at the polls. Studies show photo ID requirements boost voter confidence and participation. Even Rhode Island’s legislature, controlled by Democrats, approved a strikingly similar bill. Most voters agree it’s a no-brainer, but our out-of-touch governor vetoed the bill anyway. We’re hopeful it will be overridden.
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To keep municipalities from trouncing on the private property rights of residents, we crafted long-overdue, comprehensive annexation reform. It prevents municipalities from forcibly annexing property and saddling residents with the high costs of hooking up to municipal services. Residents often pay thousands of dollars to connect to water and sewer lines – against their will. It’s the first time North Carolina’s annexation laws have been reformed in more than 50 years.
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To protect North Carolinians from President Obama’s overreaching federal health care law, we passed a bill early in the session that gave North Carolinians the right to opt out of the mandate to purchase health insurance. We thought North Carolinians deserved the same right the Obama administration extended to some favored corporations and Washington insiders. The governor said she would let the bill become law, and then vetoed it.
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Democrats say they want abortion to be safe, legal and rare. While we don’t support abortion, we understand it is legal, and have overridden the governor’s veto of legislation that makes it safer and rarer by requiring a waiting period and doctor-provided education for women considering abortions. This is hardly extreme – more than 30 other states have similar informed consent laws. And nonpartisan fiscal research staff estimate it will reduce abortions in North Carolina by about 10 percent, or 3,000 lives, every year.
Redistricting
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