The NC budget doesn’t put taxpayer money where it’s needed most

The NC budget

Regarding the state budget... There is little credibility when revenue forecasts are off by more than 20% ($6 billion surplus) and key line-item spending priorities such as education, health and employment are inconsistent with public desires and needs.

Blessed with a diverse growing economy, the state should budget strategically to improve our ranking in key metrics such as education and healthcare, especially in rural areas.

I urge voters to challenge candidates to improve from 32nd best state for K-12 education and 39th in spending. Let’s improve our social safety net through Medicaid expansion, unemployment insurance improvement, and increased minimum wages.

And, let’s pay attention to the pork barrel. I’m sure that rural infrastructure spending in Sen. Brent Jackson’s district is a critical need, but does a nonprofit really need a $21 million taxpayer-supported headquarters when it has been awarded over $25 million in state and federal grants since 2018 for service improvements for less than 200,000 customers?

Scott Johnson, Chapel Hill

Pork barrel money

How angry the July 20 article about pork barrel money in the state budget must have made so many. Teachers, mental-health workers and others like them who work for the common good have to scrape by with few resources, an insufficient salary, and rely on donations to provide niceties for students or patients. Then to learn that Republican state legislators, who really work for themselves and their party, now stand to claim the very money they were denied. So many words apply: partisan, travesty, shameful.

Mary Greene, Efland

Green Party

I am appalled that Gov. Roy Cooper would tolerate the brazen voter suppression of keeping the Green Party off the ballot. It was Cooper’s Democrat appointees to NC Board of Elections who did the dirty deed. This is an indefensible way to engage in politics. Democrat candidates and supporters who are not speaking out against this fraudulent Democratic Party behavior are complicit.

Janet Nagel, Greensboro

Young Democrats

My faith in young people fell dramatically reading “Young Democrats at Triangle colleges are furious at Democrats” (July 19). Why the anger at representatives who have, for decades, warned that election results directly affect judicial appointments and who have tirelessly challenged gerrymandering?

Asleep-at-the-wheel voters have allowed soulless state and national politicians to imperil women’s health, to rule a fetus more deserving of protection than a child in a classroom.

Why not focus outrage to punish members of Congress who support a deposed ex-president rather than the will of voters or their civil rights? Why not rage to end politicization of the judiciary?

Margaret O’Shaughnessey, Durham

Attack on LGBTQ

Tami Fitzgerald of N.C. Values Coalition recently said that if Republicans win a supermajority a top priority will be to make sure there is no talk of LGBTQ matters in K-3 classrooms.

Fitzgerald referred to a recent WRAL poll. She failed to mention these critical facts: 51% of respondents considered this an insignificant or non-issue. And, 56% of Republicans were concerned about the issue, but 60% of Democrats and Independents were not.

This new attack on the LGBTQ community is the next CRT for the Republicans. Imagine if Republicans put their energy and passion into actually helping our public schools rather than trying to destroy them.

Laura Stillman, Raleigh

Abortion ruling

A benefit of the recent Supreme Court ruling on abortion is that children who would have been aborted will be born and maybe have the opportunity to become a great citizen and save lives. Many people may have their souls saved and therefore may attain Heaven. God is giving those who are pro-abortion a second chance. I pray that they take it.

Joseph J. Rothengast, Raleigh

Sen. Joe Manchin

Each year more of the earth is on fire or drowned in floods while the sea keeps rising — and the coal king, Sen. Joe Manchin, chooses to pull the plug on his party’s effort to address global warming. But isn’t it interesting that among the 50 Republican senators, not one will step forward to take Manchin’s place in forging a compromise remedy. Do they think they live on a different planet? If so, their grandchildren will beg to differ.

Victor Strandberg, Rougemont

Trump and LIV golf

Donald Trump’s crassness never ceases to amaze me.

His N.J. golf course will host the Saudi-financed LIV golf tour this month — six weeks before the anniversary of 9/11. It will be played 42 miles from the World Trade Center where 2,763 people died — 750 of whom were from New Jersey. He’ll then host the LIV finals at his Miami course in October.

It may be 21 years after 9/11, but to those who lost loved ones it seems like yesterday. After Trump’s participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection, this is how he shows how much he loves America. This is his way of “making America great again?”

Nedra Mills, Holly Springs