Connecticut is coming for North Carolina, and we’re not talking about basketball.
A group of Connecticut state lawmakers, all Democrats, wrote a letter to their state’s economic development agency saying they want to try to take business away from North Carolina. The reason?
Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson, the Republican nominee for governor with a laundry list of controversial statements, including insults against LGBTQ+ people, teachers and school shooting survivors and antisemitic Facebook posts.
“Mr. Robinson’s history of making inflammatory and divisive comments should be alarming to North Carolinian businesses,” the Connecticut Democratic lawmakers wrote in their letter, which was first reported by WTNH News out of New Haven, Connecticut, and later appeared in a campaign email from Robinson’s Democratic opponent, Josh Stein.
Stein, the state attorney general, said Robinson’s words are a “backward, job-killing vision” for the future of the state.
Robinson and his Republican supporters disagree, as one might expect.
“Who cares what these northeastern liberals have to say?” Robinson campaign spokesperson Mike Lonergan told The News & Observer in an emailed statement.
“Since they took control of Connecticut, Democrats raised taxes and spending, creating a parade of jobs and businesses packing up and leaving their state. They should stop with silly PR stunts like this and take a page from North Carolina conservatives’ book — cut taxes on families and businesses, reduce burdensome regulations, and stop wasteful government spending,” Lonergan said.
Taxes and culture wars are both issues that both parties talk about when it comes to recruiting business to the Old North State.
Or driving it away.
Culture wars hurting business?
The NC Chamber, the state’s major business organization, has made clear what they think about two Republican nominees for statewide office, saying the primary wins of Michele Morrow, a homeschooling parent who calls public schools “socialist indoctrination centers” but is running for state public schools superintendent, and Luke Farley, a Trump-supporting labor commissioner candidate — mean a “looming threat” to the business climate. The Chamber did not mention Robinson.
N.C. Rep. Maria Cervania, a Cary Democrat, said companies like Apple have said they “don’t want to have our people who work for us have less rights and freedoms as what they had before or where they came from. So when you mention Mark Robinson or any of his like-minded ideology, it’s going to have significant impact on the current industries that are here, or ones who are looking towards us when it comes to the future.”
“We are proud that we are No. 1 in industry in business in the country, but we won’t keep that if we have an environment that doesn’t respect the freedoms that the rights of people. We can’t,” she told The N&O in an interview.
Stein hopes to follow outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper into office. Cooper and Republican legislative leaders have been able to work together to bring more business to the state, from Apple to VinFast.
Cooper has criticized Republican bills about LGBTQ+ issues and race, denouncing “business-killing culture war legislation.”
Once Republicans gained a supermajority a year ago, they were able to easily overturn Cooper’s vetoes. In 2023, Republicans passed a ban with exceptions, on abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy, as well as three bills targeting transgender people.
In 2016, House Bill 2, known as the “bathroom bill,” became law to prevent transgender people from using bathrooms in government buildings corresponding to the gender with which they identify. The resulting impact was projected to cost North Carolina’s economy billions of dollars when the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, other high profile events and some companies all pulled out of the state. The law, which passed under previous Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, was later mostly repealed and Cooper defeated McCrory in the gubernatorial race.
Democrats, including Stein, don’t want voters to forget the impact of HB2.
“North Carolina has already been down this road, and we can’t afford to travel it again,” Stein said.
“Other states are ready to eat our lunch if we let Mark Robinson’s backward, job-killing vision for our state take hold, and we cannot let them,” Stein said in a statement. He said that if he becomes governor, he’ll “work to invest in our workforce and bring more good-paying jobs to every corner of North Carolina.”
Tax cuts as a draw to NC
North Carolina Republicans say the way to bring more people and business to the state is to cut taxes, both the individual income tax rate and the one for corporations. Republicans aren’t discussing sales tax cuts, but are lowering the corporate and individual income tax rates as part of a years-long plan.
In 2022, Republicans lowered the 5.25% individual income tax rate to 4.99%, and they plan to keep moving the percentage down until it hits 3.99% in 2026.
Soon after Stein won his Democratic primary, he called for bringing back the state’s earned income tax credit. At the federal level and in some states, the EITC is a tax break of varying amounts for low- and moderate-income taxpayers based on income, children, dependents and disability. North Carolina had one at the state level, but state lawmakers eliminated it about a decade ago. States that still have an EITC include Connecticut.
But Republicans who control the General Assembly aren’t interested. They are critical of the break for going to people who didn’t owe income taxes.
“We’re not going to bring that back,” House Speaker Tim Moore told reporters recently.
Moore said what Republicans want to “continue to do is to lower taxes for everyone. And we already have one of the most significant zero tax brackets already in North Carolina, the standard deduction.”
Republicans have raised the standard deduction. For your 2023 taxes being filed now, the deduction is $12,750 for a single person and $25,500 for married people filing jointly or a qualifying surviving spouse.
“I would like to see us increase (the standard deduction) that means more people pay zero taxes. But that’s the way to do it, not turn around just handing money back,” Moore said.
Lonergan, Robinson’s spokesperson, said called Stein talking about tax cuts in an election year “hilarious.” He touted Republican legislative leaders’ progress on tax cuts and budget surpluses.
“As governor, Mark Robinson would continue to work with Republican lawmakers to cut taxes to ease the burden of inflation on North Carolinians so our economy can continue to grow and thrive,” Lonergan said in a statement to The N&O.
Senate leader Phil Berger, the most powerful Republican in the state along with Moore, said when he endorsed Robinson in December that Robinson’s previous comments about LGBTQ+ people “are not things that I would have said.” Berger went on to say he supported Robinson because the lieutenant governor supports legislative Republicans’ policy.
Berger said that voters will decide if things Robinson has said would qualify or disqualify him to be governor.
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