PoliticsNC: “When the legislature opened a couple of weeks ago, Senate President Pro-tem Phil Berger delivered a speech touting the success of Republicans over the past 12 of power. He took credit for the economic growth in North Carolina and bragged that the GOP had changed the state. “Over the last 12 years and following the simple formula of lower taxes, less regulation, and a commitment to quality education, our state has flourished. North Carolina regularly ranks as a top state for business and jobs. We continue to recruit and attract a wide variety of employers and entrepreneurs to the state.”
In reality, North Carolina already ranked regularly as a top state for business and jobs before Republicans took over state government. We were already recruiting and attracting a wide range of employers and entrepreneurs. Republican policies on taxes and regulation had little to do with it. In fact, North Carolina grew more slowly during the decade that Republicans took control than it did the previous decade when Democrats were in power. …
We have stark and important decisions to make about North Carolina’s future this coming decade. We can either build on our natural advantages and our historic investments in education with welcoming policies that embrace inclusion and individual freedom, or we can move backward by ceding control to people who see diversity as a weakness, not a strength. The decision to build North Carolina into a modern economic powerhouse beginning in the 1950s depended on forward thinking leadership. Had the mentality embodied by Republicans controlled North Carolina for those 50 years, we would be more like Mississippi or Alabama today. That’s certainly not where we need to go.”