State Budgets

State Legislator of the Month – NC Rep. Jason Saine

Congratulations to the July ALEC-FreedomWorks State Legislator of the Month, North Carolina Representative Jason Saine!

Tax cuts don’t just put money back into the pockets of everyday Americans, they stop taxes from ever being taken out in the first place. Tax cuts are great, but it’s really only half of a state’s fiscal story. The other half is what the government spends. Cutting taxes but leaving bloated programs on the budget isn’t enough. And if the program isn’t accounted for in a budget, then you are racking up debt, which is just a delayed tax with interest. But if you cut taxes and you balance a budget’s spending, you create the environment for true progress.

North Carolina Representative Jason Saine knows this better than most. This year he passed a balanced budget. But he went one step further to pass the budget with a surplus and still fund the necessary elements of government. The budget provided pay raises of up to $8,500 for educators and state employees and it appropriated over $60 million for school safety initiatives. The governor, unfortunately, vetoed this bill. The battle for balanced budgets continues.

Thank you to Representative Jason Saine for fighting tirelessly for real solutions in North Carolina. For his consistent, principled work, ALEC and FreedomWorks names Representative Jason Saine as the July State Legislator of the Month.


In Depth: State Budgets

Smart budgeting is vital to a state’s financial health. The ALEC State Budget Reform Toolkit offers more than 20 policy ideas for addressing today’s shortfalls in a forthright manner, without resorting to budget gimmicks or damaging tax increases. One way to stabilize budgets over time is to embrace…

+ State Budgets In Depth