Republicans Chop Additional $1.4 Billion from Perdue Budget

Ethen’s Law and ‘smart meters’ bill enacted; high-speed rail and tort reform debated

RALEIGH (By Sara Burrows, Carolina Journal Online) — House Republicans spent much of the week hammering out a counter-proposal to Gov. Bev Perdue’s budget. So far they’ve found $1.4 billion in additional cuts they think could be made in areas including education, health care, transportation, and prisons.

Education — the largest chunk of state spending — would be cut by 10.5 percent if current budget levels were not altered. An analysis by the conservative Civitas Institute concluded instead that K-12 schools would receive 2.2 percent more than was actually spent in the current year appropriation.

The House Republican plan would provide less funding for teachers’ assistants, assistant principals, and custodians. It also would reduce funding for the UNC system. Other programs to be cut include Smart Start, Medicaid, and mental health. Grants to Planned Parenthood would be banned.

Democrats claim the cuts would eliminate 15,000 government jobs and proposed extending temporary taxes approved in the 2009 budget instead.

Republicans briefly faced pressure early in the week to extend those taxes to cover the state’s share of disaster relief for the areas affected by last weekend’s tornadoes. Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, quickly put a stop to that talk, saying that the money could be found from existing revenues.