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HOUSE TO UNVEIL TAX PLAN OUTLINE:House Republicans plan to offer their own North Carolina tax overhaul plan Thursday that would reduce personal and corporate income tax rates and expand the sales tax to cover more services. The proposal's scope is much narrower than what Senate counterparts offered as GOP legislators try to fulfill a commitment to carry out tax reform this year.

The plan attempts to simplify income taxes and reduces the number of income tax brackets from three to one, according to the proposed legislation obtained by The Associated Press. House Republican leaders want to reduce slightly the combined state and local sales tax consumers in most counties pay from 6.75 percent to 6.65 percent. They also would subject the sales tax to a handful of new services such as automobile repairs and installations for personal property and warranty and service contracts, the bill says. In contrast, the Senate proposal unveiled last week would make the sales tax base one of the broadest in the country. More here.

NORQUIST TO BLESS SENATE TAX EFFORT: Americans for Tax Reform leader Grover Norquist will stand with Senate leader Phil Berger at a 9:30 a.m. press conference Thursday to talk about the Senate's tax rewrite. The visit is being coordinated by Americans for Prosperity, an advocacy group that pushing hard for a major tax overhaul measure this session. Opposition groups already are framing the visit, saying Norquist will support a bill that could raise taxes on a majority of people in the long-term. A luncheon with tax activists outside the legislature will follow later in the day.

Good Morning! This Dome Morning Memo is (unofficially) brought to you by Krispy Kreme donuts and coffee -- which is much needed after the House worked near midnight to beat the crossover deadline on a bevy of controversial bills in a 10-hour session. If you went to bed early, click below for all the North Carolina political news and analysis.***

Gov. Pat McCrory told Fox Business what lured MetLife to North Carolina: "the great quality of life, a very good business climate and a great workforce."

The message is interesting for two reasons. 1) "Good business climate" was not the mantra of McCrory's campaign, in which he repeatedly said the state's brand is tarnished and massive tax breaks are needed to revive it. 2) McCrory didn't mention the $94 million in incentives that his commerce secretary said were key to the deal.

Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker Tuesday sought to allay concerns about the timing of Mecklenburg County incentives for insurance giant MetLife, calling the incentives “crucial.”

Some Mecklenburg commissioners have suggested that the company knew it was coming to Charlotte before the board voted to approve $2 million in local incentives. “The process was ongoing until the end,” Decker told a Senate committee.

As questions persist about the governor's office negotiations with MetLife, Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday he remained at arms length in the effort to lure the insurance company's 2,600 jobs to North Carolina.

"My commerce secretary led that recruitment effort," the Republican said after an event Monday, according to a WRAL-TV video. "My first direct involvement with the company was a day or two before the announcement, where I called the CEO when they told me a basic agreement was agreed upon."

McCrory's remarks, five days after the big jobs announcement, are his first describing his role in the deal -- which is coming under scrutiny because the $94 million incentives package MetLife received was negotiated by the governor's former employer, Moore & Van Allen.

In the video, McCrory said he had no interaction with MetLife when he worked for the Charlotte law firm as a senior director of strategic initiatives. "Not all all," he said, shaking his head.

BIG JOBS DEAL PUTS McCRORY IN THE SPOTLIGHT: The Charlotte law firm Moore & Van Allen, where Gov. Pat McCrory was employed until just days before taking office, helped the New York-based insurance company negotiate with state and local governments to receive more than $94 million in taxpayer-funded incentives in return for the promise to add more than 2,600 jobs in the next three years. The connection raises questions in the minds of Democrats about McCrory’s role in the deal and again shines light on his employment at the law firm, which also runs a lobbying practice in Raleigh. Republicans used similar concerns to reject a major economic development project under Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue, citing how the company hired a Raleigh law firm that employed her son.

TODAY IN POLITICS: McCrory will tout the MetLife deal at another event in Charlotte Friday. The U.S. Labor Department reports the national unemployment rate fell to 7.7 percent, a four year low. The full N.C. Mining and Energy Commission meets Friday as the debate about what to do with fracking waste remains unresolved and lawmakers are getting involved.

Thanks for reading the Dome Morning Memo. Much more on the MetLife deal and the political implications below. Send news and tips to dome@newsobserver.com. Have a good weekend and Go Heels!

TODAY AT THE STATEHOUSE: House Speaker Thom Tillis will offer a preview of the legislative session this morning in a closely watched press conference. His Republican counterpart in the Senate, President Pro Tem Phil Berger, did the same earlier this month and how the two visions dovetail -- or don't -- may set the tone for this year's term.

Three questions for Tillis: 1. Where does the Republican speaker stand on taxes? Like Gov. Pat McCrory, Tillis has been careful not to stake a specific position in recent days but with the session upon us, his direction is important to the anticipated legislation and its progress. 2. Does he support the Carolina Panther's request for state money for upgrades to the private Bank of America Stadium and the city of Charlotte's efforts to raise the food tax to fund renovations? 3. His GOP lieutenants in the House appear willing to push ahead with unemployment benefit cuts despite a federal prohibition -- meaning 85,000 jobless people in North Carolina will lose their federal benefits. How does the GOP avoid looking callous in a time of great need?

***This is the Dome Morning Memo, good morning. One day until the legislative session starts in earnest. Read below for more N.C. political intelligence and big headlines. ***

Democratic Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton offered a strong defense Tuesday of North Carolina’s business incentives and community colleges, which he described as a sharp contrast with Republican gubernatorial rival Pat McCrory.

Describing himself as “business-friendly,” Dalton made the comments during a speech to about 40 people at the Charlotte Chamber.

“I don’t know anybody who likes them,” Dalton said of incentives. “But the courts have said they’re legal. If you don’t have those incentives as a tool, you’re not going to be able to recruit businesses.”

He said incentives have a “reverberating” effect that benefits other businesses. He later told reporters McCrory has a “mixed message” on incentives.

UPDATED: North Carolina’s vote on constitutional gay marriage ban is putting candidates – particularly Democrats – in the hot seat this election season.

Earlier this year, Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton retreated from his previous support for a constitutional referendum. The gubernatorial candidate sponsored a similar referendum as a former state senator, but now says “perhaps” he was wrong.

His opponent, former Congressman Bob Etheridge, declined to take a position at first. He later said he opposed gay marriage but did not support the effort to put a gay marriage ban in the state constitution.

Linda Coleman, a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor, stumbled down a similar path this week. She said she opposed the amendment, but struggled to explain her position on the current law.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Robert Orr, who last month left his position as founding executive director of the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law, says he wishes he had fought the battle against corporate incentives differently. And he says politicians have become afraid to oppose the practice of luring companies with tax breaks.

Orr made the remarks in a lengthy Q&A with North Carolina Lawyers Weekly published today. Orr says it was probably a mistake to bring broad litigation to attack the 1996 N.C. Supreme Court decision allowing taxpayer-funded incentives. That approach ended up pitting a couple of lawyers with the institute against a phalanx of attorneys from public entities across the state.

"In retrospect I think a better strategy would have been to start out with smaller, more limited challenges to incentives, rather than this sort of huge, broad-based approach," Orr said. "But who knew at that point in time what the best strategy would have been? If I had to do it all over again, though, I would have approached it in a strategically different way."

Orr says it forced the controversy into the public discourse. "And consistently everybody says, 'I really hate incentives, I wish we didn't have to do them. They're bad public policy,' " Orr said. "It's just that there's no vehicle to limit them legally. And from a policy standpoint, everybody's terrified of the four-letter word 'jobs.' They're not willing to do anything that would be perceived politically as reducing North Carolina's opportunity, even though they consistently say it's bad policy."

Read more about how states are approaching the incentives game -- in light of the Chiquita deal -- in this piece from The Charlotte Observer.

Two weeks, two incentives deals in North Carolina. One worked, one didn't. At the center of both: the role of state lawmakers. 

Senate Republicans, led by Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, rejected the Continental Tire acquisition because it was a "special deal" that required a $45 million incentive in the first year. 

(For the record, when you ask Berger and other top Republicans, they now talk more about the special incentives rather than the tainted land deal that they first suggested ruined the deal.)

Then Monday, the state cheered the expansion of Honda Aircraft in Greensboro, sealed with $1 million in incentives from the One North Carolina fund.

Lawmakers were happy to chip in $500,000 to help. Berger committed $250,000 from a Department of Transportation slush fund he controls and House Speaker Thom Tillis matched it from his contingency account.  The money will pay for infrastructure improvements at the airport.

Democrats criticized Berger for supporting a project in his district (Rockingham and Guilford counties) but not elsewhere in the state -- calling it the same "pay-for-play politics" that the GOP smeared on Gov. Bev Perdue when the Continental deal fell through.

In an interview, Berger dismissed the assertion. "What you saw with Honda jet was incentives that were part of an approved legislative process available available because of the budget adopted," he said.

"Now there were some folks opposed to that budget and they may have been at the announcement," Berger added, swiping at Perdue, who vetoed the budget and trumpted the Honda announcement.