With broad bi-partisan support, House Bill 817 passed the final reading in the House today and is expected to be taken up by the Senate next week. The original bill distributed Highway Trust Funds with a 40-40-20 plan - meaning 40% of funds for statewide projects, 40% for regional projects, and 20% divided evenly among the highway divisions. Before leaving the House the bill was amended to change the distribution formula to 40-30-30. This change gives more money to the Divisions.
The Statewide Tier includes all interstates and loops, US routes on the National Highway System, and the Strahnet System (military roads). Projects will go through a scoring process for selection. There are caps on the amount of money that can be spent on any one corridor over a five year period.
Also, the bill has a provision that removes interstate maintenance, bridge repair, and highway safety from the formula. This allows NCDOT to direct funds to those areas based on need. To read the bill as passed by the House go to http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2013/Bills/House/PDF/H817v5.pdf
The Senate announced their Tax reform plan this week. We will not know exactly how it works until the actual bill is filed - probably in June. The following is a brief overview of changes bsed on the information released by the Senate:
What it does? Top Senate Republicans want to reduce the personal income tax to 4.5 percent from the current 7.75 percent for the top bracket and cut the corporate income tax to 6 percent from 6.9 percent. The combined state and local sales tax would also decrease to 6.5 percent from 6.75 percent and the estate tax would be eliminated.
How to pay for it? To offset the cuts, the proposal would trim state tax revenue by $1 billion over three years and charge a sales tax to more than 100 services that are currently exempted, everything from haircuts and car repairs to tax preparation and insurance. The 6.5 percent sales tax would also apply to prescription drugs and food. About $9 billion in current tax breaks for special interests would be eliminated, but some would remain.
As always, call me with any questions or comments.