Today @NCCapitol (June 12): Budget and tax bills on the move

The bill will have to clear the Finance Committee this morning at 8:30 a.m. before coming to the floor this afternoon. 

House Speaker Thom Tillis, R-Mecklenburg, warned House members to expect a lengthy session. He said if the initial vote happens close to midnight, he may keep members there past midnight for the final vote to send the House package to the Senate and start the conference process.

Once the House approves its budget bill, the measure will return to the Senate, where lawmakers will almost certainly refuse to concur on the bill. That will trigger a House-Senate conference committee that will negotiate a final budget package. 

As with many other version of tax reform heard this year, the measure would lower personal income tax rates and puts the state on the path toward eliminating corporate income taxes. 

However, the measure does not broadly expand the sales tax base as many other measures have done. Rather, it applies the sales tax to utilities and shift some revenue that now goes to cities into state coffers. 

The Senate plan "cuts taxes on people across the board, cuts taxes on job creators across the board," Berger said. "Our current tax plan takes too much money out of the pockets of the private sector. It takes too much money out of the pockets of individuals."

Critics say the new Senate plan will take too much money out of state government. 

"The Senate leadership has taken a bad plan from the House and made it worse," Alexandra Forter Sirota of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center. "Failing to heed the advice of economists, Senate leaders created a tax plan that will reduce available revenue by more than $4 billion over five years when fully implemented, putting at risk our state’s foundation of economic growth."

In an email sent late Monday to the several hundred members of the party's State Executive Committee, Szlosberg-Landis said she was stepping down from the party's No. 2 position because she has become "increasingly less comfortable with the tone and practices of the leadership of the party," meaning Chairman Randy Voller.

Later in the day, more turmoil surfaced.

WRAL News has obtained a copy of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission complaint filed against the party by former Finance Director Ellen Stankiewicz, who was terminated by Chairman Randy Voller in May.

Only 8 of the 388 of those arrested are from other states, according to court records. However, that did not prompt Republicans to back off the assertion that the protests are fueled by "outside" interests. 

"The Chairman stands by the comments that these protests are fueled by outside influence," Mike Rusher, a spokesman for the party, wrote in an email late Tuesday. "The fuel of the partisan protests is made up of more than just the folks that go there planning to get arrested. We support peaceful and lawful demonstrations as guaranteed by our Constitution. However, deliberately breaking the law and preventing the business of state government to proceed is wrong. These pre-planned arrests cost the taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars. The indications of outside influence have been clear:"

Rusher pointed to statements by people involved in the protests to back up the claims. For example, Duke Professor Timothy Tyson said during one recent rally that “People are coming from all over the state, even different parts of the country.”