There were no easy solutions to the challenges we faced in this year’s legislative session.
Faced with staggering revenue shortfalls, we were forced to make tough decisions about how much we could cut in good faith while protecting education. In the end after cutting $2 billion in spending, we chose to save the core mission of public education in North Carolina and that meant raising some revenue. We refused to be shortsighted and this decision will save thousands of teaching jobs in our public schools.
While the House Democrats did this difficult work, the Republicans refused: refused to cut the budget, refused to raise taxes and refused to participate. They have proven themselves unable to govern during tough times, more interested in press conferences than policy-making.
The budget was not the only challenging issue we tackled. We also passed legislation to protect our children from bullying, to bolster dropout prevention programs, to invest in job creation, and to ban smoking in restaurants.
We still have work to do to strengthen this great state of ours, but I am proud of how we have responded to these tough times and know we will continue to build on this year’s progress.
– North Carolina Speaker of the House Joe Hackney
Speaker Hackney introdues Bill Gates at the National Conference of State Legislatures legislative summit on education.
Click here to read the Special Report “Reformer in Power” from the January 2009 edition of Governing Magazine.
