Cullie Tarleton (D)
1 Is the state cutting back education funding in lieu of lottery proceeds? If so, why, and what impact will this have on education needs?
No, the state isn't cutting back education funding in lieu of lottery money. Obviously, when you cut $3b from the budget those cuts are felt all across state government including some in education. All the lottery proceeds are going to education as originally called for. In this budget, we did convert some school construction lottery proceeds to the classroom in order to protect about 1600 teacher jobs across the state. Anyone who says that we're letting lottery money replace appropriated money simply isn't clear on the facts or familiar with preparing a budget that reflects almost $3b in cuts.
2 How is North Carolina working to attract jobs and what more can be done?
In this past session, we passed several incentive bills that will be used are are being used to attract new businesses to North Carolina. In a perfect world, there would be no incentives but we're not in a perfect world and all the surrounding states we compete with all offer incentives. If we want to play on a level playing fiend, then we have to offer similar incentive. Commerce Secretary Crisco and Governor Perdue are spending a great deal of time talking to prospective companies and "selling" North Carolina as THE place to do business. Our state ranks very high in many national publications as being very pro business. My entire background is business. That's what I did, run businesses. I know it's business and not government that creates jobs. that's why I spend so much time working with the administration in Raleigh on jobs and the economy. I've had Secretary Crisco in both my counties so he could see first hand what we have to offer. I'm pushing hard to get new companies to locate here. Getting our economy back on track is our number one priority. We should also all shop here at home. Support our local small businesses so that they can afford to hire more workers. We passed a bill that I co-sponsored that gives tax credits to small businesses that hire new workers.
3 What will the state legislature have to do with the budget if the economy continues to decline? What can citizens do to help?
As of right now, we'll probably face a deficit for the next fiscal year of at least $3.5b. Since our State Constitution requires a balanced budget, we'll have no choice but to make additional cuts. We'll go through the budget line by line and make cuts, again, that will reach all across state government. Already, we have a budget this year equal to what the budget was in 06-07, but just as we've all had to make adjustments and cuts in our household budgets we'll do the same thing with the state's budget. We'll look for places where similar functions might be merged or consolidated. It'll be difficult, but we'll get the job done and hopefully still protect education and our teachers as best we can. Our children's education is too important not to fund to the best of our ability. Citizens can help by being as efficient as possible, especially those who are state employees. If citizens know a way we can operate more efficiently, please let us know. All citizens can also help by being of help to each other and looking after each other, especially the elderly. I guess the bottom line is, we're all in this financial crisis together and we'll work our way out together. The citizens of the high country are very resilient.
4 Biography
My wife Sylvia and I are residents of Watauga County. I'm a retire broadcaster, having worked in the private sector for 40 years mostly running TV stations, radio stations and cable companies. We have 3 adult children and 6 wonderful grand children.
Steve Goss (D)
1 Is the state cutting back education funding in lieu of lottery proceeds? If so, why, and what impact will this have on education needs?
This past budget faced unprecedented challenges in lieu of the macro-economic conditions we are facing nationally and worldwide, and a small portion of them lottery proceeds went to fill the Medicaid gap faced by the sate. I was opposed to doing this, and I will vehemently fight any future attempts to divert any of the proceeds of the lottery away from the intended use in education. The bigger issue we had to deal with from our area was the formula being used to distribute lottery funds across the state. We were not receiving our share in this part of the state. I led a senate effort to change the formula to make the distribution more equitable. We made progress on the distribution, and I am committed to working on the formula more in the upcoming session. Just for the record, the lottery was signed into law before I became a senator less than four years ago, and I do not favor it as a method of raising funds fo r education. Yet, it is the law of the state, and it is my responsibility to make sure we receive our fair share in northwestern North Carolina.
2 How is North Carolina working to attract jobs and what more can be done?
Small business is the key to creating new jobs in our area and across North Carolina. I co-sponsored the Small Business Assistance Fund bill and was the chief co-sponsor of a bill to lower and gradually eliminate the corporate income taxes that small businesses must pay in North Carolina. I also sponsored a bill that will enable the North Carolina Industrial Commission through our university system promote new jobs for the 21st century across the state focusing on areas such as Ashe County that have specific challenges in the global economy. I often contact larger companies through our dept. of Commerce, dept. of Agriculture and other divisions to promote Ashe County’s appeal as one of the best working forces in the world. Additionally I fought for full funding for our community colleges since they play a key role in retraining our workforce as we prepare for the economy to pick up its speed of recovery.
The bottom line is that we desperately need the federal government to revisit NAFTA, CAFTA, and other trade agreements to make the field for our workers a more level opportunity for them to succeed. I will place our workers alongside any other workforce in the world to compete, but they must not be at whims of currency manipulation such as we see with Chinese currency. It places our workers at an unfair advantage, and our federal officials must move on this issue sooner rather than later.
3 What will the state legislature have to do with the budget if the economy continues to decline? What can citizens do to help?
Spending will have to be cut as we move forward. We have already begun the spending cuts, but more significant cuts will be necessary to assure a balanced budget as we move forward. The cuts cannot be across the board however, or we could do damage that would be irreparable. Instead we must go line by line in the budget to make sure every item we budget in the upcoming biennium is absolutely necessary. I will fight any attempts to fill budget shortfalls through transfer of funds from our retirees’ funds or from the Highway Trust Fund. Education must be protected at all costs as we address the budget shortfall as well. Citizens can take the present adversity and seek to find creative ways to make opportunities flow from the present situation we face economically. Our people simply want the truth, and the truth is our nation has lived beyond our means for at least two generations, and now we must pay the piper so to speak. We are America and we will succeed as we work together for our community, state, and nation. I encourage our citizens to let us know about their present situations as well as opportunities they are finding in this historic economic downturn.
4 Biography
I am a Baptist minister and former foreign missionary and high school teacher and coach. My wife is the former Phyllis Johnson from Sshe County, and we both grew up in Ashe County. Our daughter Kelly, her husband david, and their three children own small businesses in Boone and Wilmington. Our son Andy and his two daughters live in Niceville, Fla. Andy works for the federal government after serving 10 years in the USAF. He also had a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
Jonathan Jordan (R)
1 Is the state cutting back education funding in lieu of lottery proceeds? If so, why, and what impact will this have on education needs?
Tracing the route of a specific lottery education dollar is difficult, because all of the money goes into a pool for “education.” Once in the pool, it’s difficult to isolate General Fund dollars from lottery funds. However, if we look at the general fund education allotment since the lottery was established, then we see that spending slowly increased, but the actual percentage of the general fund allotted to education has dropped.
Opponents of the lottery on the right and the left argue that money is moved around and we don’t really know how much our state would spend on education if we didn’t have the lottery. For example, in the 2009-10 fiscal year, $419 million for education came to the General Fund from the lottery. $411 million was sent the year before: a 2% increase. However lottery sales jumped 10% over that time from $1.29 billion to $1.43 billion. Since lottery sales are not subject to sales taxes, no additional revenue other than the 2% mentioned above goes to the state, much less to education. Unfortunately, the mere existence of the lottery with its multi-million-dollar prizes convinces North Carolina citizens that education is well-funded.
Every other state with an “education lottery” has put in place limits and protections to prevent raids by the state legislature or the governor to use those funds for the General Funds, in other words, for anything the politicians want. Some states even make these diversions a violation of the state constitution. North Carolina lacks those protections.
2 How is North Carolina working to attract jobs and what more can be done?
Most of what the state government does to attract jobs to the area unfortunately involves targeted business incentives, or corporate welfare, in which large tax credits are given to major corporations to entice them to relocate to North Carolina. Government is a poor investor compared to private sector investors, and has a poor record of choosing economic winners and losers.
Other programs offered by the state legislature involve minor band-aid incentives to small businesses that have nothing to do with job creation, but rather provide a small (most recently $333/year) bonus if an employer creates and keeps a new job for at least three years. These types of programs will never succeed in large-scale job creation for our state.
Instead, what North Carolina needs to do to encourage economy-wide job creation is to lower our overall corporate and personal income tax rates, which are currently the highest in the Southeast, in order to be competitive with neighbors like Virginia, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia. Lower tax rates will make our state more attractive to the businesses and entrepreneurs who create real, sustainable jobs in our economy.
3 What will the state legislature have to do with the budget if the economy continues to decline? What can citizens do to help?
Our state government spending is desperately out of control. We need to consider some sort of zero-based budgeting, where we consider the entire budget line-by-line, building it from the bottom up and making sure our priorities, including classroom education, roads and infrastructure, safety and law enforcement, health, and others, are funded first, before the many special interests have a chance to get funding. Our current budget is simply a tweaking of prior year’s plans, with the addition of multiple “wish list” items, much as ornaments on a Christmas tree. This leads to the shameful situation of claiming to have to raise taxes in order to pay for teachers, as our current legislators did in 2009 to the tune of more than $1 billion. If our priorities are in place, the existing budget is crafted to cover those priorities.
Citizens, including teachers and other state employees, can provide invaluable input and perspective to elected officials by virtue of being on the frontlines of state programs and expenditures and suggesting new ways to provide services more efficiently and cost-effectively. The budget situation in Raleigh is so bad that it will take a change of leadership in the state legislature and the help and assistance of all citizens to cut waste from our multi-billion dollar state budget, slash bureaucracy and red tape, and bring common sense back to state government.
4 Biography
The Republican candidate for NC House 93 (Ashe and Watauga Counties) is Jonathan Jordan, a local attorney with an office in Jefferson, the county seat of Ashe County. He holds a BA in economics and politics from Wake Forest University, an MBA from Vanderbilt University, and a law degree and Master’s of Public Administration from UNC-Chapel Hill. His wife, Tracie McMillan Jordan, is the acting District Director of the Guardian ad Litem program, a program of the court system that represents children removed from the home due to allegations of abuse or neglect. Jonathan and Tracie have two pre-school children, Landon and Lily Grace. The family lives in the Obids area of Ashe County.
Dan Soucek (R)
1. Is the state cutting back education funding in lieu of lottery proceeds? If so, why, and what impact will this have on education needs?
One of the biggest problems with the lottery proceeds is how hard it is to actually track where the dollars are going. We need to have greater transparency and accountability regarding this money. Many other states have clear safeguards for their lottery proceeds. If money is collected for a stated purpose, whether it be the education lottery or for the highway trust fund, that money needs to be spent on what it was collected for. This too often is not the case here in North Carolina.
2. How is North Carolina working to attract jobs and what more can be done?
North Carolina’s job climate is not currently conducive for attracting new businesses or expanding existing ones. We have the highest taxes in the southeast and many burdensome, unnecessary regulations that are strangling the economy. According to the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index, Fiscal Year 2010, North Carolina ranks 39th in pro-business climate. Lower than any adjacent state. Until we are competitive with our neighboring states, jobs will continue to flee across the borders. This is especially important in Ashe County because it borders two different states.
3. What will the state legislature have to do with the budget if the economy continues to decline? What can citizens do to help?
With the correct measures of cutting wasteful spending, and creating a business friendly climate in North Carolina, I am confident our economy will rebound just as it has in the other states that have reduced wasteful spending, have competitive tax rates and minimal government intrusion into the workings of small businesses and families.
4. Biography
After graduating from West Point in 1991, I spent over 8 years on active duty with the Army. I served as the Young Life area director for Watauga and Ashe counties for 5 years and have been with Samaritan’s Purse for the past 6 years. Kim and I have been married for 17 years and have 3 children: Isaac (9), Janie (6), and Lucy (6). We reside in Watauga County.
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