Special Features Archive

Most N.C. manufactures are already subject to “combined reporting,” which closes tax loopholes, in other states

Protests from major North Carolina manufacturers that tax reform would cost jobs fly in the face of those companies’ actions in other states, a new study released this morning by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows.

NC Policy Watch is delighted to make available two new and special reports today from our friends at the North Carolina office of the national policy think tank CFED. Together, the reports raise a number of serious new questions about the wisdom and efficacy of North Carolina’s costly commitment to state and local business incentives.

If the state is going to be in the grisly business of killing its own citizens through capital punishment, then at the very least it should reserve that punishment for the worst of the worst. Yet North Carolina does not have any law protecting the severely mentally ill from execution, despite clear evidence that serious mental illness reduces culpability.

Think the well-publicized budget gap in North Carolina is due to uncontrolled spending? Think again.

A research brief released this morning by the North Carolina Justice Center’s Budget & Tax Center analyzes almost 10 years of fiscal data. The report, “Busting the Myth of Runaway Spending in North Carolina,” finds that relative to the state’s population and inflation, spending has actually decreased since the beginning of the 1999 fiscal year.

A Tale of Two Economic Cycles

Since 2000, North Carolina has not created enough jobs to keep pace with the growth of the workforce. As a result, proportionally fewer prime-age adults (ages 20-64) are employed now than in 1990. The 2008 recession has exacerbated these difficulties.

If current economic realities remain unchanged, North Carolina’s budget gap could balloon to more than $3 billion next year. A new brief from Elaine Mejia, director of the N.C. Justice Center’s Budget & Tax Center, outlines how this might happen. Under this scenario, the budget shortfall confronting the new governor and legislature is more than $3 billion — more than 15% of the current state budget.

This fact sheet provides an overview of Tamar R. Birckhead's research on the history of resistance to juvenile court jurisdiction reform in North Carolina. Birckhead, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argues that lawmakers…

New short publication from NELP (National Employment Law Project) says many anti-immigrant measures are costly to implement, costly to litigate, hurt state economies, and exact a human cost, giving details and examples from around the country…

http://www.nelp.org/page/-/Justice/Costly_in_every_way_022108.pdf

The North Carolina Coalition for Lobbying and Government Reform, the state’s premiere advocacy coalition for ethics reform in state government and one of the rare examples of left-right cooperation in state policy advocacy, released the results of its 2008 Candidate Survey least week. The document provides a helpful and welcome window onto the positions and attitudes of dozens of candidates – both for statewide office and the General Assembly.

Risky mortgage products, not risky borrowers, are the root cause of the mortgage default crisis, according to findings from a new study of default rates among low-income and minority home buyers conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Community Capital.

Just because North Carolina is facing a budget crunch doesn’t mean state lawmakers’ hands are tied. With fresh ideas, state government can create a better future for working families without substantial new spending. The NC Budget & Tax Center (BTC) has compiled Working Concepts , a list of innovative initiatives to improve the lives of North Carolinians at little to no cost.

A new national report finds that 32 percent of working families in North Carolina earn low incomes, ranking the state 37th in the nation for percentage of low-income working families. Additionally, 24.4 percent of the jobs in the state are in occupations that pay below the federal poverty level for a family of four.

Throughout the first eight years of the new millennium, health care costs have skyrocketed, while working families’ wages have stood still, putting a significant strain on family budgets. Families USA released a report examining what these trends mean for working families.

The North Carolina Health Access Coalition has a vision for how health care should work in our state. They have laid out a four stage plan to achieve affordable health coverage for everyone in North Carolina.

The NC Budget & Tax Center has finished its analysis of the 2008-09 state budget, and it looks like lawmakers will face a difficult fiscal situation going into the 2009-11 biennium. North Carolina will need revenues to grow by more than $1 billion in 2009-10 in order to pay for a reasonable continuation budget – and that does not include pay raises for state employees and teachers.