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After lots
of behind the scenes activity, the NC House removed the lottery from
the budget bill. The House then put the lottery in a separate bill,
Senate Bill 2, and called it the Education Lottery. After some amendments
and a few hours of debate they voted the lottery down 69 to 50. This
is a much wider margin than lottery opponents had expected and should
spell the end of debate on this issue, at least for the remainder of
this session. This is a victory for those fighting for a fairer tax
system, since the lottery costs low-income people considerably more
than the wealthy. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE MANY WHO HAVE WORKED TO PREVENT
THE LOTTERY!
The House and Senate were close to agreement on a negotiated final budget,
but that was temporarily put on hold when the lottery was removed from
the budget. Rumors are that negotiators already have a plan for how
to fill in the missing lottery money, however, and that the budget will
be ready to come to the floor of both houses later this week. The plan
involves bugdeting a "negative reserve" and then directing
the Governor to make 0.8% more in cuts to all agencies if the funds
for the "negative reserve" do not materialize. That would
mean an additional cut of $28.6 million to HHS and $46.7 million to
public education. While this rumor comes from reliable sources, how
it would work is not completely clear, nor is it clear if this is what
we will see on paper when the budget is finally revealed.
House meets Wednesday at 10am! We shall see.....
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