Speaker 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
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smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for
your support. And I want to welcome to the program
Andrew Dunn. Andrew Dunn is the publisher of long Leaf
Politics longleafpol dot 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?
Speaker 2: I'm fantastic, great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: Good. Thanks again for your time. We appreciate it. You
got a couple pieces, one at the Observer and another
at your your website, long Leaf Politics, that I wanted
to ask you about. Let me start with Tricia Cotham
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 uh 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.
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. 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 what that means?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And that was a great summation of the
ongoing saga, and honestly, it's really sad in my mind.
You know, I started covering Charlotte politics back in two
thousand and nine, and you know, at that time, as
I would go around and cover events, you know, Pat
Copham 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 she
did and still does care about the community and wanted
to do a good job for Charlotte, you know. And
really from that time on, the Cophams were really viewed
as you know, the types of people with good hearts.
You know, Democrats voted for him, Republicans voted for them.
You know, there was a reason that Pat Cotam was
always are almost always the top vote getter, and Tricia
Cossam was also, you know, very highly respected. And then obviously,
you know, as you just described of the whole Tricia
Coffin party switch put a damper on that. So yeah,
I mean, and the reaction to my column has been
kind of predictable. It's been, oh, you know, Tricia Cossam's
a trader. We hate Tricia Conon, which again is very sad.
But you know, the reason that I think that the
Cossams have got into politics in the first place is
to actually make a difference in Charlotte and Mecklenburg County.
And now, you know, you were seeing Tricia Cosin come
out with a new bill, a new Charlotte transportation bill,
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 pass,
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 Coffham'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, you know, there's a little bit
more influenced in a positive way from the General Assembly.
And it's also more prescriptive.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: 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 Costume
is more prescriptive. It says that they need to examine
certain things. It takes into account more of what the
towns they're 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. 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's thirty
forty years from now people will still be talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned Matthews. Matt and the East Side, Uh,
sort of generally 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 gotten Independence Boulevard,
so we're going to run bus rapid transit, so it's
like a bus line, but it's it'll have fixed stations.
That was always the big deal for like the East Siders.
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 Sawyer's talked about, you know, not want and this
goes for all transportation funding. 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
they're not going to be cool with a lot of that.
So it does track.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right. And you know, so far, the
City of Charlotte has really held all the cards, done
all the planning. And that's another big benefit of COSP
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 echan boost
to this area versus that area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was important you mentioned micro transit.
We're seeing a lot of this. 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 right, 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 closed
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. Don't know what do we know
to what extent that's part of the mix.
Speaker 2: It's not spelled out specifically, but I think it's really
notable that it's even mentioned. I mean, so you know,
Kenny Smith was talking about this ten to fifteen years
ago that Charlotte keeps talking about transit that doesn't even mention,
you know, the autonomous vehicles, the micro transit. It's been
a huge hole in Charlotte's transportation planning. So I think
it's extremely notable. This is really the first time it's
come up as part of this.
Speaker 1: So the name of Tricia Coffin'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, and so I actually enjoyed your peace over
at Long Leave 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 close Out Operations Provide Emergency Relief Cooper,
which is a shot at former Governor Roy Cooper. You
also mentioned Rick Flair. That's the name of a piece
of legislation as well. We've got there was one an
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 not. That's my rule.
Speaker 2: Fair enough. Yeah, I'm with you. 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. But then on the
back end, the full title actually has to make some sense.
So my my personal favorite, which I think that both
really well with the data back you know, it's the
division of accountability, value and efficiency that checks out for
what it's trying to do. And then Dave refers to
Dave Bullock the New State audience. So I thought that
one was pretty.
Speaker 1: Great, right, And look, this is it's a good hook
to sell the messaging, to sell whatever it is you're
trying to get passed, 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
fifteen years to get that word replaced in our vernacular
with votainer. 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me see what I can do. I think
we can make this big.
Speaker 1: Yes, I already got Chris Cooper from Western Carolina on board,
but he's the only one so far. So but he's
a good one. But you know, baby steps. All right,
Andrew Donne, I appreciate your time, as always, their great stuff.
He is the publisher of Long Lead Politics and contributing
columnists over at the Charlotte Observer. Thanks Andrew. We'll talk
with you next month or next Tuesday round. Thank you,
all right, buddy, seem all right if you're listening to
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also supports ground News as they make the media landscape
more transparent. Alrighty, so the Senate up in Raleigh has
unveiled their budget plan. First thing, you're gonna hear is biennium.
That means basically two years, right, So their fiscal biennium
budget is for twenty twenty five through twenty twenty seven, right,
So it's fiscal year starts in July, right, and so
would run through through twenty six and then into twenty seven.
And that's the way they always do it. This is
the long session. They run in two year by an 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 and that's a two year budget, and then
they come back in the short session next year for
the second year of the buyennium 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.
The Senate they roll out there is. The House is
going to roll out its version two, and then they
go into a conference committee and they hammer out and agreement,
and no, I don't think they include Democrats in any
of those new negotiations. And then the Democrats complained 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. 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 reign in unnecessary government spending. The first year of
the budget. Gosh, I remember when the budget used to
be twenty billion dollars and now it's up to thirty
two point six pursue Republicans creating economic devastation since taking over.
Now it's a fifty percent 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 pla that they
would keep cutting taxes, that Democrats had, you know, had
continuously built up year after year they would put quote
temporary taxes in place and then not not pull them back,
making them permanent. And so Republicans got in and they're like,
we're going to keep 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. 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. And so if
they get to a point where they run into a
budget death, 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. And
that has occurred despite all of the 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 twenty billion to thirty two point
six that'll be this coming year, and then the following
year it'll go up to thirty three point three billion dollars.
So what is in the budget? Well, it's about four pages.
I shall read every line. 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,
Number one, funding to replenish the Rainy Day Fund, taking
it back up to four point seventy five billion dollars,
and that puts it back to what it was prior
to Hurricane Helene. Democrats are outraged over this. Here's a
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and make memories that'll last a lifetime. Got a message
from Russ who says, you remember the twenty billion dollars
North Carolina budgets. I have an elementary school memory of
my dad venting about the fools and 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 and Mecklenburg and the school district uh huh um.
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 sixty seven million dollars in
budget cuts. Some DEI related items are also cut, like
the Hub and Minority Mail's Success Initiative. The Human Relations
Commission also eliminated. So that's good. That's good to hear.
So they are replenishing the Rainy Day fond. Let me
jump ahead, Like I said, it's a massive document that
the state Senate Republicans put out. Yeah, hurricane where is it? Yeah,
Hurricane Kane Helene relief. So first off, you've got the
Rainy Day Fund pushed back up to four point seventy
five billion dollars, which, by the way, just as an aside,
if 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, 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 seven
hundred million dollars for Hurricane Helene recovery needs, plus six
hundred and thirty three million more in temporary and permanent
repurposing of funds within the Department of Transportation to support recovery.
So they're moving six hundred and thirty three million around.
This was temporary and permanent repurposing a fund, so some
of it will be supplanted in the following budget cycles.
But what it means is that you're putting about one
point three billion towards Hurricane Helene recovery. And that is
in addition to the one point four billion that has
already been put towards recovery efforts. So we are in
we would be at two hundred or sorry, two point
seven billion dollars total from the state alone. Now I
mentioned Democrats are not happy. Here's a statement from the
state Senate Democrat leader Sidney Batch. Quote. The Senate Republican
budget is a blueprint for neglect and cowardice instead of
investing in the people who by the way, whenever our
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.
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 fifteen years ago, well seventeen years ago
now probably we had our tax refunds withheld. So like
you file taxes, which, by the way, happy tax day everybody,
I didn't get you anything, And so 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 budget running, to keep
the books operating right, keep the lights on, pay the bills,
and so they delayed the refunds by months. They did
the same thing to I forget what the term is
for it. It maybe it's not reimbursements, but it might be.
It's something like that though, where 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. So like if
it's a sales tax, for example, right the state, it
is supposed to send that money back down to the city,
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 eight nine, we ran
up massive unemployment deficits. We took out loans from the
federal government. I think our loan was about two billion
dollars because 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's just never in there in the
first place. Right, 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, So we ran
deficits with the federal government because we had loans. Well,
we had deficits in the program, and so we had
to take loans the federal government. When Republicans took over
and Pat McCrory got elected governor, this was twenty well,
Republicans won in twenty ten, took office in twenty eleven,
McCrory wins in twenty twelve, and they go about reforming
that unemployment program 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 costs for employers, which means you can now have
more money to hire more people, right, invest in your company,
give raises, whatever. So the proponents of this Democrat spending philosophy,
and then then you get into the Medicaid problems that
they were running. They were running a multi billion dollar
debt deficits on Medicaid. It was a mess. It was
just an absolute mess. Republicans come in, they're like, we're
gonna reform this tax system, and Democrats you can't do that.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, we're gonna go bankrupt, Like you mean
what you guys did. But you are in 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, 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 rain day fund, which again is more than
likely generating revenue for the state.
Speaker 1: You build up the reserve. And by the way, there
are state law. There are state laws that require cities
and counties to have healthy rainy day funds. I think
it's sixteen percent. You gotta have a sixteen percent rainy
day fund of your total budget. So they constantly want
to raid 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. All right. So spring is
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all the details that createavideo dot com All right. Sidney 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 communities safe.
It offers pathetic raises to public servants. A b 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? It short
changes the public infrastructure in 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
they're just sitting on this money, right, 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. 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 course services,
while funneling state dollars to pet projects like private school vouchers.
But with federal cuts looming, their strategy is collapsing. 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 forty five other states or whatever it's been.
And that is exactly what you are now criticizing Republicans
for leaning on temporary federal funding. That's what the Medicaid
expansion is. That's what you demanded we do. So I
don't have any no, I don't have any confidence in
your statement, and I don't believe you. Back to the
Republican's press release, they're giving it across the board one
in a quarter pay one and a quarter percent pay
increase in the first year for the two year budget
plus for most state employees plus a three thousand dollars
bonus over the two years, So like fifteen hundred bucks
bonus each year. Teachers will receive an average of two
point three percent pay increase and an average increase of
three point three percent over the buy aennium plus a
three thousand dollars bonus. Oh and by the way, that
does not account for the step increases that they get
every single year of one thousand dollars. On average, teachers
will receive additional compensation of eight point nine percent over
the biennium. This is what she calls ducking their responsibility right,
shortchanging the public, abandoning civil service workers, pathetic raises an
eight point nine percent pay raise, three thousand dollars bonus, Yeah,
three thousand dollars 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 three point four nine percent in twenty
twenty seven and then dropping it another half a percent
to two point nine nine percent in twenty twenty eight,
so a full point drop by twenty twenty eight. That
means you get to keep more of your own money.
Adjusting the tax rate revenue triggers with the goal of
reaching a one point nine to nine personal income tax rate.
That's where they want to get to. They want to
get to a personal income tax rate of one point
ninety nine percent. 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. So they're
increasing that support by six hundred and thirty eight and
a half million dollars. 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 that they're going to exempt the project
from the certificate of need. What else, salaries and benefits
I mentioned most state employees across the board one point
twenty five percent, correctional officers getting additional five and a
quarter percent probation and parole officers and additional two percent
state law enforcement officers, State Capitol Police, law enforcement officers
at the Division of Marine Fisheries, Forestry, Parks, Wildlife Resources
they get an additional five and a quarter percent. That's
on top of the one point twenty five State Highway
patrol officers, ALEE officers. They're getting raises to do National
Guard gets recruitment and retention bonuses. So under this proposal,
the average teacher pay in North Carolina will go to
sixty two thousand, four hundred and seven dollars sixty two
four to oher seven. That is the average teacher pay
under the budget. And this it's just the Senate. We
don't know what the House version looks like yet. 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 Mecklinberg County gives I
think we're in the neighborhood of like five or six
thousand dollars supplement. In addition to the state funding for
the teacher positions, what else to childcare subsidies. 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 States 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 More, isn't
there anymore thirty five million dollars in each of the
two year budget for school safety grants. Let's see your
final page, and I'm just giving you a couple of
the highlights. It's like packed body cameras for ALA 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, and victim witness
legal assistant positions. Right, so that's good. I hear all
the time that we need to 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
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