North Carolina’s top lawmakers announced a budget deal Tuesday evening. Medicaid expansion will be included in the budget and votes are expected to be taken later this week.
North Carolina lawmakers reached a budget deal Tuesday, agreeing to remove from the $30 billion state spending plan a divisive proposal to expand gambling across the state.
Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled state House and Senate had been at an impasse over provisions that would have legalized video lottery terminals and allowed for several casinos off tribal lands. The disagreement made it impossible for Republicans to finalize the budget despite holding veto-proof supermajorities in both chambers.
The stalemate in recent days threatened the implementation of Medicaid expansion, a longtime policy goal of Democrats that had gained Republican support this legislative session. Medicaid expansion, which Republicans considered removing from the budget, will again be included in the plan. Votes are expected to be taken later this week.
Senate leader Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, the chief driver of the casino proposal, on Tuesday agreed to move forward on the budget, which is stuffed with Republican priorities, without language to expand gambling.
Agreement on the budget would allow expected pay raises for state workers and teachers, plus tax cuts and millions in spending projects across the state, to move ahead.
« It’s my belief that the emotion got the better of the discussion, and it was just time for us to get the other things taken care of, » Berger said Tuesday night at a joint press conference with House Speaker Tim Moore. « Like the Speaker said, this budget has thousands of great things for the people of North Carolina. »
The House and Senate plan to vote Thursday and Friday on the budget. Berger and Moore said Tuesday that they expect it to pass with the support of all Republicans and some Democrats.
Moore said last week that while a majority of Republicans in the House supported the casino proposal, he didn’t have enough overall votes to pass the budget with casinos included. That earned an angry rebuke from Berger, who accused Moore of breaking an agreement to include any provision with majority Republican support in the budget.
But with some Republicans and most Democrats lining up against casinos — even when it was briefly tied to Medicaid expansion — there was no way out. Medicaid expansion is expected to deliver health insurance to more than 500,000 of the state’s working poor and bring billions in federal dollars.
Berger bemoaned the lost opportunity to promote rural development in economically distressed counties given that the casino proposal, dubbed rural tourism districts, would have required a $500 million investment at sites in places such as Anson, Nash and Rockingham counties.
