A top lawmaker takes issue with Gov. Roy Cooper’s criticism of North Carolina’s recent tax reforms. Writing at Medium.com, Rep. David Lewis, R-Harnett, offers a point-by-point rebuttal to recent comments from the governor.
Recently, Governor Roy Cooper published a piece attacking his state’s tax code, and specifically the once-in-a-generation reform the General Assembly majority passed in 2013. While the Governor and his Cabinet often (rightly) tout North Carolina’s pro-business climate when wooing new business, in this post he paints a scary picture of tax hikes on the middle class and middling economic growth. The information presented by Governor Cooper is misleading and wrong. He makes a lot of statements, provides little to no justification for them, and gives no solutions to the “problems” he sees with North Carolina’s tax reform.
Please allow me to correct the record, point by point, and provide you with concrete and measurable evidence to support my claims. Our tax reform success story deserves to be told without his distortions. Governor Cooper can no longer get away with his two-faced stance on North Carolina’s economic climate.
Lewis’ key points:
- Cooper ignores Democrats’ past regressive tax hikes and distorts benefits of tax reform for working families
- Cooper conflates growing incomes with growing taxes
- Cooper claims — without proof — that Republicans raised taxes in 67 different ways on working North Carolinians
- Cooper “chooses to impute negative motives to his political opponents and distort the facts” by claiming Republicans want to alter the tax code to favor the wealthy while cutting spending for education and health care
