Rep. Raymond Smith stands strong for a better budget
The North Carolina state budget affects our everyday lives. So it’s important that our lawmakers get it right. The current budget proposal continues to underfund our public schools. The budget proposal does NOT expand Medicaid for 634,000 NC residents. And the state budget has not been finalized. Last week the Republican House Speaker Tim Moore scheduled and then delayed a vote to override the governor’s veto of the budget 4 times. At the same time, Republican leaders outright refused to meet with Governor Cooper to work out any kind of a compromise.
The truth is this budget falls far short of providing NC students with the sound education promised them in our state constitution and it does nothing to help the millions of NC residents who lack health care coverage. Thanks to legislators like Rep. Smith there is hope for a more reasonable budget that prioritizes the health and education people instead of corporate profits.
If Wayne County does not receive a nearly $37 million state budget allocation, it will be because Republicans have refused to compromise, state Rep. Raymond Smith said.
“(House Majority Leader) Rep. John Bell (a Republican) was not truthful when he stated that I do not support the local projects in this proposed budget,” said Smith, a Democrat. “What Rep. Bell did not mention is that in the governor’s compromise budget, that he (governor) puts in writing that he plans to leave ‘all’ local projects in his compromise budget.”
Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the $24 billion budget, saying that it “prioritizes the wrong things. It values corporate tax breaks over classrooms, gimmicks over guaranteed school construction, and political ideology over people.”
Smith said he plans to support the veto so that legislators can negotiate a better budget.
