Ten-year boom proves N.C. tax cuts 'really worked'

Former Sen. Bob Rucho talks to Longleaf Politics about the impact of the General Assembly's 2013 tax plan

Let’s take a second and remember what the state of North Carolina’s economy was like in 2013.

The Great Recession had found North Carolina woefully unprepared. Years of anemic growth and poor budgeting resulted in massive shortfalls when the economy turned sour. And by 2013, the state was still in a hole.

The jobless rate remained stubbornly over 8% early in the year, a percentage point higher than the U.S. as a whole, and the state owed more than $2.5 billion to the federal government for unemployment benefits.

North Carolina’s rainy day fund had reached the bottom of the barrel, even with temporary tax increases passed under the Perdue administration and income tax rates at the highest in the Southeast by far.

It wasn’t a pretty picture, but it wasn’t an aberration. The Civitas Institute called it the end of a “lost decade” in our state’s economic history.

Then came massive political change.

After claiming its first majority in decades in the 2010 elections, Republicans expanded their …