North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) holds a press conference on Senate Republicans' budget proposal on Monday, April 14, 2025. (Photo: Galen Bacharier/NC Newsline)

There are many shortcomings in the new proposed state budget approved by the North Carolina Senate last week – the inadequate pay raises for teachers and state employees, the failure to invest in numerous core public services that have been reeling from staffing shortages, the giveaways to unaccountable special interests.

But if there’s an overarching flaw that lies at the heart of the proposal, it is the plan to plow ahead with new and regressive tax cuts at a time when state economists are warning of significant budget shortfalls in the near future.

Republican Senate leader Phil Berger – a smalltown lawyer with no credentials in economics – says the consensus forecast of the state’s economists is wrong. He claims the state’s fiscal picture will remain rosy even with new corporate and personal income tax cuts taking effect and massive new reductions in federal aid from the Trump administration.

It’s a remarkably oblivious stance.

The bottom line: North Carolina public services are already running on a shoestring and the Senate’s decision to pull that string even tighter is a huge mistake.

For NC Newsline, I’m Rob Schofield