North Carolina has shown Congress how to end shutdown politics | Opinion

It is fitting that North Carolinians like Rep. Patrick McHenry and Sen. Thom Tillis have filled key roles for Republicans nationally, seeing as how the Tar Heel state has been providing policy leadership and inspiration to the GOP for a decade.

In recent years, governors and legislators across the country have emulated the governing approach of Republicans in Raleigh since gaining control of the N.C. legislature in 2010 — particularly on rate-reducing tax reform, regulatory reform and expansion of school choice. It would behoove Congress to also take page from North Carolina’s policy playbook in order to end the threat of government shutdown and produce better spending plans.

North Carolina’s automatic continuing budget resolution is a tool that, if adopted federally, would assist those in Congress who wish to enact more conservative budgets. Under North Carolina’s automatic continuing resolution, known as auto-CR, whenever a state budget is not approved by the end of the fiscal year, the state continues operating under the spending levels outlined in the previous budget.

Though it hasn’t been on the books long, the auto-CR has already saved North Carolina taxpayers billions. In fact the state operated under an auto-CR for nearly three months this year while state House and Senate leaders worked out disagreements and reached a budget agreement.

State Senate leader Phil Berger said the purpose of installing the auto-CR five years ago “was to eliminate the kind of brinkmanship that you see at the federal level.” Erica MacKellar, a policy specialist at the National Conference of State Legislatures, says having an automatic CR in place allows more time for negotiations and keeps government services running.

While North Carolina’s auto-CR has already produced results, the concept is not unique to this state. In fact, more than a dozen states utilize an auto-CR to ensure government remains funded in the event that a new budget is not enacted before the new fiscal year begins.

Senator Ron Johnson and Congressman Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin recently coauthored a Wall Street Journal op-ed which noted that the idea of adopting a federal auto-CR has bipartisan support and said it has proven useful in their state and others.

Aside from ending the threat of government shutdown, many people would also like to see federal lawmakers emulate North Carolina lawmakers when it comes to the trajectory of government spending.

If Congress had limited the growth in federal spending over the past decade to the rate of population growth plus inflation, the 2022 federal budget would’ve been $1.6 trillion less than it was. In North Carolina during that decade, state spending grew less than the rate of population growth plus inflation, which helps explain why the state realized perennial budget surpluses even after lawmakers cut taxes by billions of dollars on net.

There is good news for Congressman McHenry, who might have the toughest job in Washington right now. Whether he stays on as acting Speaker for an extended period of time or assumes the role on an ongoing basis, he can look to his own state for solutions that can help rectify unsustainable growth in government spending and ensure he does not have to deal with the prospect of a federal government shutdown.