As North Carolina's political leaders begin making key decisions on how to fix the state's large budget shortfall, there are two competing narratives.
The two storylines - one offered by the Republicans and the other by the Democrats - go to the heart of the budget debate, and also to the state's political tradition.
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger of Eden offered one narrative last week, when he said that the Republican-controlled legislature was attempting to return the ship of state to its conservative moorings.
The GOP legislature wants to cut the budget by 10 to 15 percent, eliminating 15,000 jobs to address a budget shortfall that lawmakers estimate to be about $2.5 billion. Beyond that, the Republicans believe that if they can lower taxes, reduce regulations and other costs to business, they will make North Carolina among the most attractive states in the South for job growth.
"We see ourselves - and the voters see us - taking us in the direction that North Carolina has historically gone - small government, pro business," Berger told a small business group last week.
Under Republican leadership, Berger said, North Carolina can become a leader in the South in education, private sector job growth and government innovation.
Berger sees Gov. Bev Perdue and her Democratic allies as standing in the way of a dynamic, entrepreneurial new North Carolina.
"She is, for all practical purposes, the guardian of the status quo," Berger said.
Perdue and the Democrats have a different take.
They have argued that North Carolina has been a leader in the South for the past several generations precisely because it has invested more than its sister states in creating a nationally respected university system, a noted community college system, and has historically been a leader in roads and the arts.
Stories of success
That North Carolina - unlike other parts of the South - has not engaged in a race to have the lowest taxes in the South, the Democrats argue, has allowed the state to develop a more sophisticated industrial policy that has resulted in such success stories as the Research Triangle Park.
"The star in our crown has been generational commitment to quality education investments from preschool to university," Perdue told a business panel in Raleigh this month. "That is synonymous to who we are as a people in North Carolina. I believe that is part of our ethos. To back away from that is wrong. No governor and no General Assembly in history has done that."
Like the Republican lawmakers, Perdue is proposing budget cuts and a cut in the corporate income tax. But she is proposing to cut $1.4 billion less from the budget, because she is proposing an extension of the temporary sales tax - a position that the Republican legislative leadership strongly opposes.
A third voice entered the debate last week, that of Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr.
Burr is as conservative as any of the Republican leaders in the legislature. Burr may be the closest thing in North Carolina to the political voice of the business community.
Burr said that despite the fact that North Carolina has the highest corporate and income taxes in the South, it is still winning most of the corporate and industrial recruiting battles.
"We've got a lot of warts in North Carolina," Burr said. "We are the highest-tax state in the Southeast. And we still win. We win more than our neighboring states."
The main reason, Burr said, is because of North Carolina's education system, particularly its university and community college system.
"When an employer looks at an investment in North Carolina, they are not looking at the return next year," Burr said. "They are looking at the return 30 years from now. They need a future workforce that has the skills and knowledge.
"The collaboration that they can establish with academia can't be matched anywhere in the United States. It used to be matched in California, but they have given up on higher education as an economic extension."
Burr said he recently was visited by a woman from Hungary who is trying to set up a research park modeled after Research Triangle Park. Their goal was to create a park that was a third of the size of RTP. In order to do so, Burr said, she got agreements from universities in six countries.
It took, Burr emphasized, the academic firepower of six European countries to attempt to duplicate a project a third of the size of RTP.
Burr made no mention of the state House budget, which cuts the University of North Carolina system by 15.5 percent and eliminates an estimated 3,200 faculty and staff positions. In fact, Burr was highly complimentary of the legislative leadership.
But he did offer a cautionary note.
"When we talk about the things that work," Burr said, "let's not overlook what most employers in the 21st century are looking for - that's an educated workforce."
