Tobacco Road is front and center of March Madness with 3 women’s sites and men’s site in area

Tobacco Road is front and center of March Madness with 3 women’s sites and men’s site in area

By DOUG FEINBERG AP Basketball Writer

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) — Oregon coach Kelly Graves was excited when he saw his team was headed to Duke to play in the NCAA Tournament.

The Ducks had success there a few years back when they played in the 2017 NCAA Tournament, advancing also as a 10-seed. But more importantly, it meant a chance for his family to watch both the Ducks play and the Florida men’s team where his son, Will, is a graduate assistant coach.

The Gators are playing their first-round game in Raleigh, North Carolina, about 30 minutes from Cameron Indoor Stadium where Oregon will face Vanderbilt on Friday. The Graves family got together Thursday night at a hotel. It will be tough for them to cheer everyone on Friday as Oregon’s game tips off 80 minutes before Florida so going to both games is nearly impossible.

“Every family has those trips or memories that are just different,” Graves said. “Our first trip to Durham was one of those and now to be back it brings up those memories again even if it’s under different circumstance. My boys were so pumped to be at Cameron before and now we’re back.”

Tobacco Road is the center of the NCAA Tournament this week with three women’s first-round sites at Duke, North Carolina and N.C. State. There’s also the men’s first-round games being played at N.C. State as well. In all, there’s 21 men’s and women’s teams in the area for the games. No city comes close to that, including Los Angeles which has both UCLA and Southern Cal hosting first-round women’s sites.

It’s the first time that there’s been so much basketball in one area at four different venues. The “Triangle” as its known, hosted three women’s first-round sites in 1998, but there was no men’s games in the area that year.

Even with so many teams in the area, hotels, busing and other logistics were relatively easy. The teams playing at Duke all were staying within 20 minutes of the arena. Teams in Chapel Hill were even closer. The men’s and women’s teams up at N.C. State also were all within a short drive from the arenas.

It’s a fitting location for such a hoops-heavy week.

“I think it’s awesome. This is ACC, Tobacco Road. This is what it’s all about. To have eight men’s teams and then have all three of the local teams on the women’s side hosting is pretty amazing,” N.C. State coach Wes Moore said. “It’s a great accomplishment, makes it hard to get hotel rooms, things like that. Other than that, I think that’s what it’s about. March Madness, you know.”

No state has hosted more NCAA Tournament games on the men’s side than North Carolina, with the state’s 269 games entering this year 41 more than California as the next closest state. Coming into this weekend there have been 154 women’s games in the state — third most behind Texas and California.

“I mean, think about it, how many Metropolitan areas do you know of that could have three teams like that in one area and draw? Most people draw because they have a whole state that is behind them, or just an entire city,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said. “So they can draw from one hour east and one hour north and one hour south and one hour west, and like everyone can converge upon this town that supports the one team. … There’s nothing like it in the country.”

North Carolina coach Courtney Banghart remembers when she took over the program in 2019, the Tar Heels and Blue Devils were struggling. Now to have them both hosting games is huge.

“As much as it’s hard to say, you are kind of secretly rooting for each other to bring basketball back here,” she said.

Cities like the state capital in Raleigh, Charlotte and Greensboro have all hosted men’s games in the past decade, with men’s games back in Raleigh for the first time since 2016.

And that gave the Duke men — who entered the NCAA Tournament as the No. 1 team in the AP Top 25 — a roughly half-hour drive over from campus to start their push for a sixth national title.

Teams in Raleigh held news conferences and open practices Thursday at the Lenovo Center, home to Duke’s Atlantic Coast Conference neighbor N.C. State. The Blue Devils’ open practice gave the first glimpse at freshman star and unanimous Associated Press first-team All-American Cooper Flagg since his ankle injury in the ACC Tournament. Flagg glided through Duke’s practice, then joined his teammates in throwing T-shirts to an arms-waving crowd as they wrapped up their work.

Both the Duke men and women play on Friday. It is possible for fans to make both contests with the men playing in the afternoon and the women in the evening.

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AP Basketball Writer Aaron Beard contributed to this story as well as freelancer Bob Sutton.

French Bread

French Bread

French Bread

Photo by Getty Images

French Bread Recipe from I Heart Naptime

Prep time: 1 hour & 10 minutes

Cooking time: 20 minutes

Serving size: 32 servings (2 loaves)

Ingredients

  • 2 cups warm water , about 105°F
  • 1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
  • 2 ½ teaspoons granulated sugar
  • 5 cups (650 g) all-purpose flour , or bread flour (add more as needed)
  • 2 ½ teaspoons table salt or fine sea salt
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil
  • Melted salted butter , optional
Photo by Getty Images

Directions

  1. In a small bowl, combine the warm water, yeast, and sugar. Let sit 5 minutes, or until it begins to foam.
  2. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a large mixing bowl, stir together 2 cups flour and salt. Stir in the yeast mixture on medium-low speed or by hand. Knead in 1/2 cup of the remaining flour in increments until the dough is smooth but not sticky (depending on climate you could use more or less than 5 cups). Add more flour as needed.
  3. Rub the olive oil around the dough ball, cover the bowl with a towel and let rest 15 to 30 minutes. If you have more time, let rise up to 1 hour.
  4. Turn the dough onto a well-floured surface and divide it in half. Set one half aside. Roll the other half into a rectangle (about 15 inches). Starting from the long side, roll the dough into a cylinder.
  5. Turn both ends in and pinch the seams closed. Round the edges and place onto a baking sheet. Repeat with the second dough ball. Make three diagonal cuts across the top of each loaf. Cover loaves lightly with a towel. Let rise 30 to 60 minutes (the longer the better, if you have the time).
  6. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone mat or parchment paper. Bake 17 to 23 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown. When you knock on it, it should sound hollow. If it’s browning too fast, lightly cover with foil and lower the temperature to 375°F.
  7. Brush the top with melted butter, if desired. Slice and serve while warm.
Photo by Getty Images
March 21st 2025

March 21st 2025

Thought of the Day

Photo by Getty Images

The only limits you have are the limits you believe.

Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions

Trump orders a plan to dismantle the Education Department while keeping some core functions

By COLLIN BINKLEY and CHRIS MEGERIAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday calling for the dismantling of the U.S. Education Department, advancing a campaign promise to take apart an agency that’s been a longtime target of conservatives.

Trump has derided the Education Department as wasteful and polluted by liberal ideology. However, completing its dismantling is most likely impossible without an act of Congress, which created the department in 1979. Republicans said they will introduce a bill to achieve that.

The department, however, is not set to close completely. The White House said the department will retain certain critical functions.

Trump said his administration will close the department beyond its “core necessities,” preserving its responsibilities for Title I funding for low-income schools, Pell grants and money for children with disabilities. The White House said earlier it would also continue to manage federal student loans.

The president blamed the department for America’s lagging academic performance and said states will do a better job.

“It’s doing us no good,” he said at a White House ceremony.

Already, Trump’s Republican administration has been gutting the agency. Its workforce is being slashed in half, and there have been deep cuts to the Office for Civil Rights and the Institute of Education Sciences, which gathers data on the nation’s academic progress.

Advocates for public schools said eliminating the department would leave children behind in an American education system that is fundamentally unequal.

“This is a dark day for the millions of American children who depend on federal funding for a quality education, including those in poor and rural communities with parents who voted for Trump,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson said.

Democrats said the order will be fought in the courts and in Congress, and they urged Republicans to join them in opposition.

Trump’s order is “dangerous and illegal” and will disproportionately hurt low-income students, students of color and those with disabilities, said Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

The department “was founded in part to guarantee the enforcement of students’ civil rights,” Scott said. “Champions of public school segregation objected, and campaigned for a return to ‘states’ rights.’”

Supporters of Trump’s vision for education welcomed the order.

“No more bloated bureaucracy dictating what kids learn or stifling innovation with red tape,” Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, said on social media. “States, communities, and parents can take the reins — tailoring education to what actually works for their kids.”

The White House has not spelled out formally which department functions could be handed off to other departments or eliminated altogether.

The department sends billions of dollars a year to schools and oversees $1.6 trillion in federal student loans.

Currently, much of the agency’s work revolves around managing money — both its extensive student loan portfolio and a range of aid programs for colleges and school districts, like school meals and support for homeless students. The agency also is key in overseeing civil rights enforcement.

States and districts already control local schools, including curriculum, but some conservatives have pushed to cut strings attached to federal money and provide it to states as “block grants” to be used at their discretion. Block granting has raised questions about vital funding sources including Title I, the largest source of federal money to America’s K-12 schools. Families of children with disabilities have despaired over what could come of the federal department’s work protecting their rights.

Federal funding makes up a relatively small portion of public school budgets — roughly 14%. The money often supports supplemental programs for vulnerable students, such as the McKinney-Vento program for homeless students or Title I for low-income schools.

Colleges and universities are more reliant on money from Washington, through research grants along with federal financial aid that helps students pay their tuition.

Republicans have talked about closing the Education Department for decades, saying it wastes taxpayer money and inserts the federal government into decisions that should fall to states and schools. The idea has gained popularity recently as conservative parents’ groups demand more authority over their children’s schooling.

In his platform, Trump promised to close the department “and send it back to the states, where it belongs.” Trump has cast the department as a hotbed of “radicals, zealots and Marxists” who overextend their reach through guidance and regulation.

Even as Trump moves to dismantle the department, he has leaned on it to promote elements of his agenda. He has used investigative powers of the Office for Civil Rights and the threat of withdrawing federal education money to target schools and colleges that run afoul of his orders on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports, pro-Palestinian activism and diversity programs.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, dismissed Trump’s claim that he’s returning education to the states. She said he is actually “trying to exert ever more control over local schools and dictate what they can and cannot teach.”

Even some of Trump’s allies have questioned his power to close the agency without action from Congress, and there are doubts about its political popularity. The House considered an amendment to close the agency in 2023, but 60 Republicans joined Democrats in opposing it.

During Trump’s first term, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos sought to dramatically reduce the agency’s budget and asked Congress to bundle all K-12 funding into block grants that give states more flexibility in how they spend federal money. That move was rejected, with pushback from some Republicans.

Leavitt is one of three administration officials named in a lawsuit by The Associated Press on First and Fifth Amendment grounds. The AP says the three are punishing the news agency for editorial decisions they oppose. The White House says the AP is not following an executive order to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

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This story has been corrected to reflect the name of the group supporting Trump’s education initiatives. It is Moms for Liberty, not Moms for Justice.

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The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Tar Heels and Rebels fighting for respect going into NCAA tourney matchup

Tar Heels and Rebels fighting for respect going into NCAA tourney matchup

By RICH ROVITO Associated Press

MILWAUKEE (AP) — On one side of the court, it’s Seth Trimble and North Carolina. On the other, it’s Jaemyn Brakefield and Mississippi.

Two motivated teams facing off in the NCAA Tournament on Friday.

North Carolina was a controversial selection when it received an at-large bid on Sunday. But the 11th-seeded Tar Heels posted a dominant 95-68 victory against San Diego State in the First Four on Tuesday night.

Next up is sixth-seeded Ole Miss in a South Region game in Milwaukee.

“We’re the University of North Carolina. We know that whatever we do, there’s going to be hate,” Trimble said. “This isn’t anything new for us. We know how to block it out. We’ve been doing a really good job of that.”

A good job, indeed. Since trailing Duke 52-28 in the ACC semifinals, UNC has been on a tear, outscoring opponents 138-90 over roughly three halves.

“Nothing is going to be handed to us just because we’re North Carolina,” forward Jae’Lyn Withers said. “We don’t have any leeway to get comfortable because we already have people who don’t believe that we should be here.”

North Carolina coach Hubert Davis said he has gone to great lengths to encourage his players to block out the noise.

“I always talk to the guys about focusing on what is real. What is real is our preparation and our play,” Davis said. “I think we have a lot more left to prove, not to anyone who doubted us but more to ourselves. Everyone in this locker room knows that we’re capable and that we deserve to be in this tournament.”

Ole Miss also has faced criticism. Despite going 22-11, including a 10-8 record in the rugged SEC, a veteran college basketball analyst labeled Mississippi a “fraud” while predicting a first-round loss.

That didn’t sit well with coach Chris Beard in his second season at Ole Miss.

“Was the guy doing us a favor and giving us some locker room material? We don’t need that,” Beard said. “If I had a younger team, I would have called him and thanked him for saying that because it’s great motivation. But with this older team, we have experienced guys. We spent zero seconds talking about it.”

Opinions, whether positive and negative, come with the territory, Beard said.

“It’s what’s great about college basketball. Everybody’s got an opinion,” he said. “It’s the spice before the game but we really spent no time worrying about that.”

Brakefield said the players quickly brush aside anyone questioning the team’s ability to make a run in the tournament.

“We try to be the best versions of ourselves,” he said. “So, we’re just blocking out all the noise this week and just sticking to ourselves.”

Guard Sean Pedulla said the team should be respected for its work in “ the best conference in college basketball history.”

“We felt like it was kind of silly to be called frauds,” he said.

Ole Miss guard Matthew Murrell said the team is mainly focused on soaking in the opportunity of playing in the tournament and facing a marquee program like North Carolina.

“But obviously, as competitors, it’s something that motivates us,” Murrell said.

Forward Malik Dia said the team will have one goal in mind when it takes the court at Fiserv Forum on Friday.

“We’re all about Ole Miss basketball and taking this program to a level it’s never reached,” he said.

Orange-Lemon Macaron

Orange-Lemon Macaron

Orange-Lemon Macaron

Photo by Getty Images

Orange-Lemon Macaron Recipe from Maia Ming Designs

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 15 minutes

Serving size: 4 servings

Ingredients

For the Cookies

  • 1 cup almond flour (100 grams)
  • 1 cup confectioners’ sugar (100 grams)
  • 2 egg whites, room temperature (75 grams)
  • 1/4 cup castor sugar (65 grams) (note: I blended my regular sugar in the coffee grinder to make it finer instead of using castor sugar, this worked fine)
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
  • a pinch of salt
  • 1-2 drops orange or yellow food coloring gel (make the color darker than you want your final macarons, because they will get lighter in baking)
  • orange and lemon zest to sprinkle on top of the macarons (if desired)

For the Lemon Curd Filling

  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 1/3 cup lemon juice
  • 1/3 cup orange juice
  • grated zest from half a lemon
  • grated zest from half an orange
  • 6 well beaten eggs
Photo by Getty Images

Directions

  1. Sift the almond flour and confectioners sugar together through a fine-mesh sieve.
  2. Whisk egg whites and salt at a low speed and add the castor sugar after a minute while the egg whites are still clear.
  3. Beat the egg whites into stiff, glossy peaks. Start for two minutes at a low speed, then two minutes at high speed. (My blender only has two speeds.) The goal is to create the meringue peaks without over-whipping the batter. If the batter is over-whipped, the macarons tend to hollow out underneath the shells and there are more air bubbles.
  4. Add half of the dry ingredients. Fold with a spatula from bottom of bowl upward, then press the flat side of the spatula firmly through middle of mixture and rotate the bowl slightly. This process is called “macaronage” and reduces air bubbles in the batter. Add the second half of the dry ingredients and continue the macaronage until batter is glossy and flows like lava. Honestly, this is something that is part luck and part practice, there are countless videos online for how to achieve a proper macaronage!
  5. Add the food coloring, vanilla and lemon juice towards the end of the macaronage process.
  6. Rest a pastry bag inside a vertical cylinder to transfer the batter into the bag, then close the top. Cut a small hole in the bottom tip of the pastry bag. The batter should be fairly stiff, but you don’t want it to come out too quickly, I cut my hole to less than 1 cm in diameter.
  7. Either onto a parchment sheet or a macaron mat, pipe batter into 1 inch round cookies. (A macaron mat helps to make the cookies uniformly round and the same size, I also find the raised rims helpful to contain the batter from spreading out on the sheets. My macarons on parchment paper are never very round, but some people use a template with circles underneath the parchment paper.)
  8. Drop the baking sheets firmly onto the counter 2 or 3 times to release air bubbles. With a toothpick, pop any remaining air bubbles and smooth out the holes before you let the macarons rest. Sprinkle a little zest onto the surface of each macaron. Let the macaron sheets sit for 30-40 minutes to dry so that they create a slight crust on the surface.
  9. Preheat oven to 180ºC.
  10. Place the macarons in the oven on a lower rack and lower the heat to 170ºC. Bake macarons for 16 minutes, after 8 minutes it’s a good idea to take the tray out and face the front to the back, this way both ends of the tray get evenly baked. Only bake 1 sheet of macarons at a time. If your macarons are very large, bake a few minutes extra.
  11. Fruit curd filling: Mix and stir the butter, sugar, juices and zest over a low heat. Add the eggs gradually and stir continuously for 15-20 minutes until the mixture thickens. Let cool before spreading onto your macarons.
  12. Once the macarons are completely cooled, remove them from the sheets and use a butter knife or spatula to spread the filling on half of the cookie shell bottoms. Then sandwich the macarons together with the remaining shells. Just to be really decadent, I made some with pure lemon-orange curd and others with a 50/50 blend of whipped cream and curd, both were delicious. (The photos show the filling with whipped cream). Store the macarons in a closed storage tin in the refrigerator or in the freezer. I often keep the shells frozen and wait to fill the macarons right before serving.
Photo by Getty Images
March 20th 2025

March 20th 2025

Thought of the Day

Photo by Getty Images

Nothing messes up your Friday like realizing it is only Thursday.

McNeese State’s Will Wade confirms he’s been in contact with NC State about its coaching job

McNeese State’s Will Wade confirms he’s been in contact with NC State about its coaching job

By KYLE HIGHTOWER AP Sports Writer

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — McNeese State coach Will Wade knows his name is in the mix during the college basketball coaching carousel.

And unlike some coaches during this time of year, he’s not being coy talking about it.

Asked Wednesday if he or his agent had been in contact with N.C. State about its opening, the second-year McNeese State coach addressed the rumor mill directly.

“Yes,” Wade said during 12th-seeded McNeese State’s news conference in advance of its NCAA Tournament Midwest Region first-round matchup with fifth-seeded Clemson.

N.C. State fired coach Kevin Keatts on March 9, an abrupt end to an eight-year tenure that saw the program’s fall this year prove too much to overcome even when framed against last season’s remarkable finish. The announcement came a day after the Wolfpack closed a 12-19 season and failed to even qualify for the ACC Tournament as the reigning champion.

Though he didn’t elaborate on the extent of his contact with N.C. State, Wade has since been linked to the Wolfpack job and other schools after finishing up his second straight 20-win season at McNeese that ended with an NCAA tourney berth. The Cowboys enter this year’s tournament with 27-6 record and fresh off their second straight Southland Conference championship. He previously spent five seasons at LSU, two seasons at VCU and two at Chattanooga.

Wade, 42, said he’s always tried to be transparent with both his assistants and players during this time of year.

“Just tell it like it is,” Wade said. “You may not always like what I’m going to say, but I’m going to tell you what I think. I’ve always kind of been like that, and there’s no need to hide it. The guys are reading it on social media. It’s no secret. I’m not going to ask them to do something I’m not willing to do. It’s no good if you don’t address it and if you sit there and BS them. They can read right through the BS, so you might as well. Hey, this is what it is. Here we are, and we’ll figure it out.”

North Carolina lawmakers approve additional $528M for Hurricane Helene recovery

North Carolina lawmakers approve additional $528M for Hurricane Helene recovery

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina lawmakers agreed Wednesday to spend another $528 million on still-pressing needs from Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding nearly six months ago, with an emphasis on home and private road repairs, agriculture and infrastructure to aid businesses.

House and Senate Republicans worked out their differences from competing versions of a bill and voted overwhelmingly this week for the compromise, which includes an additional $327 million to address the recovery from previous storms — some several years ago — and disasters not named Helene.

The measure went to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein, who signed the bill — his first as governor — in a Wednesday evening ceremony. He told lawmakers last week during his State of the State address he was ready to sign a relief measure into law.

Stein had asked the GOP-controlled legislature for an additional $1.07 billion for Helene relief in the mountains last month. The final measure omits some programs sought by Stein or underfunds his requests, as Republicans took a more cautious approach. Lawmakers and Stein have said they anticipate more Helene aid to be appropriated in the months ahead.

“As we’ve said many times, this is our next step, not our final step,” GOP Sen. Ralph Hise of Mitchell County said Wednesday during debate on the final bill, which passed the Senate unanimously.

Before the latest measure, the General Assembly had already appropriated or made available more than $1.1 billion for Helene recovery activities, according to Stein’s office.

The bill “will enable us to get started on many important aspects of disaster recovery, but we have to be honest that the amount is inadequate and this is just the start,” Stein told reporters earlier Wednesday.

The funds pale in comparison to the record $59.6 billion in Helene damages and recovery needs estimated by state officials, who also reported over 100 deaths from the late September storm. Stein’s administration projects that disaster relief approved by Congress in December and other federal funding sources may ultimately provide more than $15 billion in Helene recovery funds to North Carolina. Stein is now seeking another $13 billion from Washington.

About 4,600 households in western counties were still receiving temporary housing assistance as of last week, and more than 200 public roads in the region remain closed or just partially open, according to state data.

The measure allocates $100 million to help repair or replace roads and bridges on private property that sometimes can be the only link between small communities and the outside world.

There’s $120 million to kick-start a home reconstruction and repair program while the state completes steps to receive nearly $1.4 billion from the federal government for similar construction and mitigation activities.

The measure provides $200 million to address Helene crop losses, debris removal and other agricultural recovery needs. There’s over $110 million more for agriculture losses farmers suffered during 2024 from damage caused by other storms and drought.

The final bill also locates an additional $217 million that would be used to complete close to 1,000 unfinished home construction projects for victims of Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018 in eastern North Carolina. That program has faced lengthy delays and higher than planned expenses.

“Families who have waited far too long will finally get the relief they deserve,” House Majority Leader Brenden Jones said in a news release after Tuesday’s House vote. “With strict oversight to ensure every dollar is used properly — we are finishing the job once and for all.”

The final plan also locates $9 million for a voluntary student summer school program in districts that were closed for many weeks because of Helene. Stein requested the help, although the money provided is lower than what he sought.

The measure omitted Stein’s request for two business grant programs designed to help companies that suffered significant sales and economic losses or physical damages.

Republican lawmakers uncomfortable with direct payments instead agreed to spend $55 million on grants for local governments, which in turn could use the money for infrastructure repairs that could benefit small businesses, like sewer, utility and sidewalk repairs.

New North Carolina governor seeks to freeze tax cuts, phase out school vouchers in budget

New North Carolina governor seeks to freeze tax cuts, phase out school vouchers in budget

By GARY D. ROBERTSON Associated Press

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina Democratic Gov. Josh Stein on Wednesday urged Republicans in charge of the legislature to roll back upcoming income tax rate cuts and scale back private school vouchers that now can be received by families of all income levels.

Stein, who took office in January after eight years as attorney general, made the comments while releasing his first two-year state government budget proposal. He wants to spend $33.65 billion in the year starting July 1 — about $2 billion more than planned for this fiscal year — then increase it by $700 million the following year.

His plan for the nation’s ninth-largest state also seeks big raises for public schoolteachers, more money toward child care and affordable housing, and tax breaks for lower- and middle-income households.

“My budget ensures that we will be able to continue investing in our people, meeting their needs and keeping North Carolina strong,” Stein told reporters.

Stein warns of ‘fiscal pain’

Stein said his budget is balanced, even as a forecast from his budget office and the General Assembly shows year-over-year operating revenues would drop by $825 million in the 2026-27 fiscal year.

How does he do it? In part by asking lawmakers to halt already enacted laws by Republicans that next January would reduce the current individual income tax rate of 4.25% and the corporate income tax rate of 2.25% even further.

Unless the current-year’s rates are maintained, Stein said, “the truth is that we are in for some self-inflicted fiscal pain.” Otherwise, the individual income rate is also likely to fall even further in 2027 thanks to programmed “triggers” in the law if the state surpasses certain annual tax collection totals.

Stein’s administration has warned that these triggers could mean the state falls billions of dollars short of revenue necessary to provide services in light of population growth and inflation.

Democrats have complained that these rate cuts benefit the highest wage earners and corporations the most. In contrast, Stein does propose some targeted tax breaks for “working families,” including a state version of the federal earned income tax credit.

Republican response

Republicans who will approve their own two-year budget in the coming months, have downplayed past revenue predictions, saying previous tax reductions have boosted the state’s economy and fiscal picture.

With tax reform a major hallmark of the Republican agenda since taking over the General Assembly in 2011, GOP lawmakers are unlikely to back away from a downward arc for rates.

But they may have to pay more attention to Stein given the GOP is currently one seat short of a veto-proof majority in both chambers. That could give Stein more leverage compared to his predecessor Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s last two years in office.

New GOP House Speaker Destin Hall opened the door to considering changes later Wednesday, telling reporters that inflation, which can boost numerical revenues, may have thrown “off our numbers just a little bit.”

But “we’re not going to raise taxes obviously,” Hall said. Republican Senate leader Phil Berger’s office contends that Stein’s proposal raises taxes by preventing a lower tax rate.

Teacher pay vs. vouchers

Stein proposed average teacher pay raises of 10.7% over two years, with an emphasis on helping early-career instructors.

Stein said it’s part of a plan to raise North Carolina starting teacher pay from near the bottom in the Southeast to first in 2027.

Essentially Stein’s budget covers these increases by scaling back and ultimately phasing out taxpayer-funded scholarships for K-12 students to attend private schools. The General Assembly made the Opportunity Scholarship program universal in 2023 — meaning families of all incomes can now qualify.

“We have to meet the needs of our public school students,” Stein said.

Hall said he certainly wants to raise teacher pay robustly, but called Stein’s proposal to end the private school scholarships “a nonstarter with us.” Nearly 80,000 students are benefiting this school year from the aid.

Stein’s budget “rips educational freedom and parental choice from hardworking families,” Berger spokesperson Lauren Horsch said.

More Helene requests will come later

Stein’s budget didn’t include a package to address the historic flooding and damage caused by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina nearly six months ago. He said Wednesday he would issue another separate request in the coming weeks

The General Assembly has already appropriated or made available over $1.1 billion for Helene recovery activities, according to Stein’s office. And a bill signed by Stein into law Wednesday night appropriates over $500 million more.

Stein said that he’ll also “keep pushing Congress for meaningful help.”

State officials have estimated the storm caused a record $59.6 billion in damages and recovery needs.

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