Taxation & Economy
North Carolina should build its own budget simulator
Balancing a state budget is an exercise in tradeoffs. Every dollar allocated to one priority is a dollar unavailable for another. Yet those tradeoffs are often difficult to see, buried in lengthy documents, complex fiscal…
North Carolina Should Reclaim the NCInnovation Endowment
The Senate should reclaim the taxpayer-funded NCInnovation endowment and transfer the money to the Savings Reserve Taxpayer dollars should fund core public responsibilities, provide tax relief, or remain in…
What Senate Bill 889 would do
Property tax reform has drawn significant attention in North Carolina in the lead-up to the short session and remains a central issue as policymakers respond to concerns about rising tax bills across the state. Those concerns…
North Carolina’s Medicaid expansion financing gap that no one is talking about
Provider taxes are levied on hospitals’ net patient revenues and used to fund the state’s 10 percent share of Medicaid expansion costs, helping draw down federal matching funds that support the program. A provision in last…
Property tax levy limits aren’t budget cuts
At a time when property tax bills are rising across North Carolina, policymakers have proposed a constitutional amendment to limit how quickly those taxes can grow. However, critics warn that such limits could reduce…
Is North Carolina addicted to federal funds?
Last summer, I argued that North Carolina’s growing dependence on federal funding posed a long-term fiscal risk to the state — one that would only become clearer as Washington continued its debt spiral. Unfortunately, that…
New revenue projection shows surplus, revenue triggers prompting tax cuts likely to be met
Yesterday the Fiscal Research Division, along with the state budget office, released its updated revenue projections for the remainder of the current fiscal year and next year. Revenue projections are important because they…
How much is too much? An analysis of property tax revenue growth in the state’s most populous counties
As property tax bills have risen rapidly across the state, property tax reform has moved to the forefront at the General Assembly. Among the policy options under consideration are levy limits, which restrict the annual growth…
Stein announces top spending priorities before the fiscal year ends
Last year, North Carolina was the only state expected to pass a budget that failed to do so. In fact, the General Assembly never even sent a budget proposal to Gov. Josh Stein’s desk. One of the most contentious issues during…
North Carolina Medicaid after the OBBB: Policy prescriptions
In a previous article, I documented how total Medicaid expenditures in North Carolina surged from $18.14 billion in fiscal year (FY) 2021 to $35.77 billion in FY 2025 — a staggering 97.2 percent increase in just four years.…
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