The recently completed short session of the North Carolina legislature saw the passage of another ALEC supported bill that harms middle and low income families. Prior to this year, local municipalities in the state collected approximately $62 million in privilege license taxes paid by businesses operating in their cities. The Republican leaders, however, passed a tax bill that prevents cities from collecting privilege license taxes, beginning in 2015.  This lost revenue will be made up by increasing local sales taxes, increasing property taxes, or cutting services.  Each of these options will harm middle and low income families.

Another ALEC type move by the NC legislature hurt many struggling North Carolinians but benefitted corporations. The state owed the federal government $2.5 billion for the unemployment compensation program.  To repay this debt, the state considered two choices:  reducing the weekly unemployment benefits of unemployed individuals or keeping the tax on corporate income at 6.9% rather than reducing it to 6%.  In an especially callous move, the Republican leaders chose to give a tax break to large corporations and reduce weekly unemployment benefits, thus dropping out of the federal program.

The ALEC inspired private school voucher plan to sustain for-profit private schools was not entirely successful in North Carolina; the great majority of schools receiving applications from students were religious private schools, not for-profit schools. According to the North Carolina State Education Assistance Authority, the school that received more applications than any other school was the Greensboro Islamic Academy; third on the list in number of applicants was the Al-Amin School in Raleigh, another Muslim school. Taking taxpayer money away from the public school system and providing funding for private schools undermines free, universal public education. (As noted above, this voucher program has been ruled unconstitutional.)

 

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