NC’s Groundhog Day has gone on for years: Cut taxes, starve services, repeat | Opinion

North Carolina is trapped in a time loop much like Bill Murray in the 1990s classic Groundhog Day — but with a tax cut twist. Each year, the alarm goes off. Again.

And again, income tax rates are cut — primarily benefiting the very wealthy and out-of-state corporations — no matter what life looks like for people across our state.

Doomed to relive each year with the fallout from giving away public money that could strengthen our communities but instead grows the bank balances of the wealthy few, North Carolinians are left walking through neighborhoods without sidewalks, waiting months or years for child care, and hoping their kids’ school can scrape together funds for bus drivers and teacher assistants.

This cycle didn’t happen by accident in North Carolina. It is part of a concerted national agenda that favors tax breaks for the wealthiest and corporations over investments that help communities thrive.

That agenda is rooted in a deeply cynical premise: that we cannot do big things well together — and that profits and growth should come at the expense of well-being, stability, and shared progress.

North Carolina’s extreme version of these ideas is now rolling out across the country with the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill, a historic effort to dismantle systems that care for people — health care and food assistance — to consolidate the wealth of the already wealthy through massive tax breaks.

The numbers make the tradeoffs unmistakable.

The combination of state and federal tax breaks will give the richest 1 percent of North Carolinians — households with average incomes near $2 million — a combined $4.9 billion in tax breaks annually. That’s roughly equal to the entire annual state investment in the UNC system — one of many important public investments that signify a commitment to growing the opportunity and financial security of North Carolinians.

These choices reveal what some elected leaders have been willing to sacrifice, year after year: affordability for families, pathways to economic mobility, and broadly shared prosperity — all to further enrich a small, already powerful few. To break through this doomed time loop that will only grow inequality and despair, elected leaders must use 2026 to choose a different ending and get our state back on track.

A state budget that meets the priorities of North Carolinians should start with what people want for their families, neighbors and future generations — funding to make child care affordable, provide public K-12 education for every child, and create a workforce system that matches career pathways that will deliver a living income.

Policymakers can put these priorities first, even as they face new costs from Congress and the Trump administration for health care and food assistance, by asking the wealthiest to settle up and pay a fraction of the tax breaks they will get from scheduled state and extended federal tax cuts to ensure the state can meet its commitment to every North Carolinian.

Instead of repeating the same mistakes on an endless loop, legislative leaders can choose a new path — one that invests in people, strengthens communities, and finally moves North Carolina forward.

Alexandra Sirota is the Executive Director of the NC Budget & Tax Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to improving people’s well-being through policy and partnership.