NC Newsline

It’s hard to fathom in a proposal that includes billions upon billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, but one of the most significant changes included in the massive budget bill approved by the U.S. House late last month was this: big cuts to the nation’s main anti-hunger program. Under the legislation, millions of people would lose SNAP food assistance benefits. Meanwhile, states would be saddled with 14 billion dollars in new costs. And the impacts will be felt in the stomachs of families across the nation. As Raleigh-area Congresswoman Deborah Ross explained last week, in her district – one of the state’s more affluent ones  – 20,000 of her adult constituents will lose all of their SNAP benefits. Statewide, a total of almost half a million people will lose benefits and the cuts will ripple through grocery stores and the economy as a whole. The bottom line: Rep. Ross is right. The Republican budget will cause irreparable harm to the people of our state. All caring and thinking North Carolinians should support her effort to push back. For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

If you get a chance, check out a recent essay [https://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/article307353911.html] authored by retired Legislative Fiscal Analyst Richard Bostic. It was posted by Raleigh’s News & Observer. In it, Bostic, who spent 31 years advising state legislative leaders, issues a loud and clear warning about the fiscal cliff toward which our state is speeding. His simple and straightforward message: it’s imperative that GOP lawmakers rethink their massive, planned cuts to corporate and personal income taxes. And his reasoning is equally straightforward. Several core public structures and services – schools, state employee pay and retiree benefits, infrastructure – are already inadequate even as our population is growing and aging. Now add the looming threats of climate change, federal funding cuts and an economic downturn and the picture grows even more ominous. The bottom line: As Bostic observes, delaying or repealing planned tax cuts isn’t just about balancing a spreadsheet — it’s about protecting our schools, our infrastructure and our people. State lawmakers should heed this insightful warning. For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

Among the most important public policy developments in North Carolina over the last several decades was the rise of one of the nation’s strongest networks of consumer advocacy nonprofits. Together with elected leaders from both major parties, these advocates helped make North Carolina a state to avoid for predatory lenders who target consumers with high interest loans and fees and abusive collection tactics. Indeed, the successes in this area were so numerous that following the Great Recession, they helped inspire the establishment of a federal government agency known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Unfortunately, as you might expect, laws and lawyers that target scammers and predators are anathema to President Trump, and he and Republicans in the U.S. House are working hard to gut or abolish the agency. The bottom line: Last week, a coalition of activists and small business owners pleaded with Senator Thom Tillis to help protect the agency. Their simple message: stand with the people of North Carolina, not the billionaires. Let’s fervently hope he was listening. For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

North Carolina’s economy has undergone many important transitions over the last several decades. But in recent years there’s been no more promising arrival on the scene than the electric vehicle industry. As experts at the national Electrification Coalition pointed out last week, federal EV tax credits have helped spur the creation of more than sixteen thousand jobs and over twenty billion dollars in investments in the state in recent years. And, of course, these are jobs and investments that are not only good for the state’s economy, but for the world as it struggles to end its heroin-like addiction to fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the massive budget and tax bill approved by the U.S. House last week places all of this in jeopardy by eliminating several tax credits supporting the industry. The bottom line: Our nation currently spends hundreds of billions of dollars each year subsidizing the fossil fuel industry. The least North Carolina’s congressional delegation can do is help to retain some modest subsidies for an industry of the future that helps our people and our planet. For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield.

Each year, the most important piece of legislation approved by the North Carolina General Assembly is the state budget bill – a massive document running to hundreds of pages that details billions of dollars in appropriations and scores of substantive law changes. It’s the kind of legislation that ought to feature days – if not weeks – of discussion and debate. Unfortunately, that’s not how things have worked on Jones Street in recent years. Indeed, when members of various House Appropriations subcommittees voted on the budget the week before Memorial Day, they had only seen the 400-plus page document for the first time an hour or so before. Despite this daunting situation, some members did their best to speed-read the budget and craft amendments on the fly and one lawmaker who proved most adept at this task was one of the House’s newest members – Wake County state Rep. Phil Rubin. And soon after the House finished with the budget, Newsline’s Rob Schofield caught up with Rubin for a special extended conversation to learn more. In Part One of the conversation with Wake County State Rep. Phil Rubin, we discussed the state budget bill approved by the North Carolina House right before Memorial Day – including both the rushed process employed by GOP leaders and the fact that many Democratic members ended up supporting the bill because they saw it as a big improvement over the version passed earlier in the spring by the state Senate. In Part Two, we dug deeper into some of the details of the budget proposal, including provisions that would politicize the state Board of Elections, as well as how the state plans to continue rebuilding parts of western North Carolina ravaged by Hurricane Helene, the big and worrisome new burdens that Congress and the Trump administration are soon likely impose on state government, and a pair of bills that could transform North Carolina government for the better – if only legislative leaders would allow them to be considered. Click here to listen to the full interview with Rep. Phil Rubin. [https://ncnewsline.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/News-and-Views-for-6-01-2025-RepRubin-FULL.mp3]