Cooper Calls Republican Mini-Budget Bills a ‘Trick’

RALEIGH – The standoff over the budget between Republicans in the state legislature and Democrat Governor Roy Cooper is ongoing, but that doesn’t mean there is not movement. Republican lawmakers have initiated individual spending bills to pass and present to the governor. Things like teacher and state employee raises, disaster relief grants, and so on.

Cooper, however, is calling these independent spending bills ‘a trick.’

From ABC11:

“Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper calls a Republican strategy to pass narrow pieces of legislation that includes employee pay raises and other North Carolina budget items “another trick” and “bad public policy.”

Cooper told reporters on Tuesday that Republican lawmakers are going this route because they aren’t willing to negotiate in good faith on a comprehensive two-year budget plan that was supposed to be in place by July 1. He vetoed that GOP budget in June, citing in part the absence of Medicaid expansion. […]”

Arguably, independent spending bills where lawmakers are required to vote up or down on single issues is the way business should always be done in the General Assembly. What Cooper calls a trick is really just a tough choice presented to him between governing and political brinkmanship. His contention that Republicans won’t negotiate a comprehensive two-year budget in good faith is classic projection, belied by the fact that THEY DID and HE VETOED IT because of his own lack of good faith.

Now he will be forced to choose, between giving teacher and state troopers raises, or perpetuating a crisis of his own manufacture.

Read more about ongoing budget developments here.