Republican legislative leaders outlined $633 million in cuts and savings Tuesday that they say would help balance the state budget without raising taxes, as Democrats plan.
The list includes: getting $100 million in federal money by allowing more charter schools, saving $14 million by eliminating in-state tuition for out-of-state athletic and academic scholarship winners, cutting $25 million for the state aquarium pier at Nags Head, cutting $5 million in incentives for Apple to locate a new facility in the state and taking $70 million of Golden Leaf Foundation money, which goes to help rural communities, and use it to leverage three times that much in federal matching funds.
House Republican Leader Paul Stam, of Apex, said the state's priorities in education, health care and law enforcement can be met by spending at the level imposed earlier this year by Gov. Beverly Perdue's cuts.
"We've been doing it for the last seven months," Stam said.
Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger, of Eden, called on Democratic leaders to release the spending side of the state budget while Democrats haggle among themselves over the tax package that goes with it.
"We might find even more savings," Berger said, if lawmakers have a chance to examine spending plans.
UPDATE: Edited to clarify that scholarships are both academic and athletic.
Document(s):
republican_plan.pdf
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Re: GOP: Here's our plan. Yours?
domewatcher, if you think Bev has a lot of support form teachers right now you're on another planet. As a teacher (who didn't vote for her and neither did most of my co-workers)I'm getting mighty tired of hearing people tell me she is my fault. How hard is it for people around here to get it through their heads that the NCAE is not a union and in this right-to-work state all us teachers don't have to be members (and aren't). Just because those idiots endorsed her doesn't mean all of us did.