It's 5.05 and welcome in to a Wednesday edition of the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 1110-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig. Good morning to you. The federal government shut down nears the one-month mark this week, impacting communities across the country and in North Carolina. The federal government shut down back on October 1st after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to resolve a budget impasse.
The primary issue is the demand from Democrats in Washington, D.C. for the Affordable Care Act or ACA subsidies passed in 2021 to be extended. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, or the CBO, estimated in September of this year that permanently extending those tax credits for the ACA would add an additional $350 billion to the deficit from 2026 to 2035. And the number of people with taxpayer subsidized health insurance would increase by nearly 3.8 million by 2035. Important to note that open enrollment for individuals that do take advantage of the Affordable Care Act does begin, or is supposed to begin, on November the 1st.
On Tuesday, the Senate failed to pass a Republican-backed funding bill to end the government shutdown for a 13th time. The vote, as it has been over the last couple of weeks, was 54 to 45. And while the majority is there, that vote fails short of the 60-vote filibuster threshold required in the United States Senate. Democrats are feeling increased pressure to come to an agreement with Republicans as the American Federation of Government Employees, AFGE, which happens to be the largest union representing more than 800,000 federal government employees, is now urging Democrat lawmakers and was doing so this week to end the shutdown. Everett Kelly, the national president of AFGE, said, quote, it's time to pass a clean, continuing resolution and end this shutdown today.
So pressure coming in typically from organizations that are not throwing shade at Democrats, this large union with more than 800,000 federal government employees. U.S. Representative Chuck Edwards, who is North Carolina's 11th congressional district representative, he also happens to sit on the House Appropriations Committee. He said that Democrats in the House and Senate have chosen partisan politics over safety and security for the American people. Edwards telling the Carolina Journal in an emailed statement, quote, Instead of passing a clean CR that would add $22.5 billion to disaster relief funding that could have gone a long way for Western North Carolina recovery, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have chosen political showmanship.
Voting no to fund the government halts payments to the men and women of our armed forces, weakens border security, opens the door to hardships on American seniors, and blocks much needed relief for the victims of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. The government must reopen. The people of North Carolina 11 and across the country cannot wait. This is bigger than politics. This is about people's lives.
The shutdown has left approximately 750 or so thousand federal workers on unpaid leave across the country and another 730,000 deemed essential who are currently working, however, without pay. Workers will and are expected to receive back pay once the shutdown ends, but for the time being, those individuals, even though deemed essential, are working without receiving that federal paycheck every two weeks. North Carolina has between 83,000 and 85,000 federal employees, or almost close to 2% of the state's total non-farm employment. The exact figure is unclear due to cuts to the federal workforce made by the Trump administration throughout this year, but it is somewhere between 1.7 and 2% of the state's total non-farm employment. Workers affected include those in governmental agencies such as the Social Security Administration, the EPA, the Environmental Protection.
Agency, federal corrections, the federal court system, which does include U.S. district courts in Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, as well as other federal courthouses across the state, air traffic controllers working at our busy airports at Charlotte and Raleigh, and of course, regardless of where you're flying across the state, individuals that are part of TSA, the Transportation Security Administration. The military will be paid at the end of this week by the U.S. Treasury Department and Secretary Scott Bessett, who said that they won't get paid again on November the 15th if the shutdown continues. There have been thousands of flights delayed over the past several weeks due to shutdowns at Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
That was in part due to the lack of air traffic controllers, with members of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association planning to hand out pamphlets at the airport on Tuesday, which was the first payday for air traffic controllers in which they Would not receive a paycheck to let them know about the effects of the shutdown. Another major area that you have likely seen a growing in concern over the last couple of days is the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, also known as SNAP. used to be called food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is set to pause those benefits coming up on November the 1st.
The agency issued a strong statement on its website saying, quote, Senate Democrats have voted 13 times not to fund the food stamp program, also known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP. Bottom line, the well has run dry. At this time, there will be no benefits issued November 1. We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats. They can continue to hold out for health care for illegal aliens and gender mutilation producers or reopen the government so mothers, babies, and the most vulnerable among us can receive critical nutrition assistance.
That is an ending quote there directly from the USDA website. North Carolina was among 24 states and the District of Columbia that filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the USDA. Stating that the pause in benefits is illegal. More than 1.4 million North Carolinians rely on SNAP benefits across the Tar Hills state, including more than 580,000 children, working families, older adults, and veterans and people with disabilities. More than 80% who receive benefits are working individuals in North Carolina.
SNAP provides between $230 and $250 million worth of food benefits to over 600,000 households in North Carolina. Democrat Attorney General Jeff Jackson said that USDA wasn't telling the truth when they said that there isn't any money left, pointing to a $6 billion emergency fund that Congress established for the agency to use in the case of an emergency. Jeff Jackson said during a Tuesday press conference, quote, the truth is the department is choosing not to use the emergency money that they've been given. I believe the reason that they're doing this is to play polit is to play shut down politics. They are looking up to ratchet the pain in an already very painful moment.
This is wrong and it is against the law. Jackson said that the USDA reversed course last week from a September the 30th statement when they planned to tap the emergency fund. In addition to the lawsuit, he said that they have also requested a temporary restraining order, with Jackson saying, so in short, we are asking the court to act with emergency speed to meet this emergency. I think there's a very good chance that we'll get a favorable ruling that puts this on hold relatively soon. I hope that that happens before November 1st.
There is some chance of that theoretically, but we are asking the court to act as quickly as possible given the circumstances. SNAP beneficiaries are advised to continue applying for and reviewing their SNAP benefits. County Department of Social Service offices are open and processing applications to prevent any backlogs and any funds that are already on EBT. Electronic benefit cards are already and are already available and still available for use, with individuals being able to reach out to their local county DSS for some additional details. Jackson said that while nonprofits across the state of North Carolina, as well as food pantries and churches, do a great job, there is no way that they will be able to meet the need if benefits are paused, which again, once again, is expected to come up here on November the 1st.
Programs to help with Hurricane Helene recovery, like FEMA's hazard mitigation grant program, are also on hold with the shutdown. State officials have been critical of the program as no applications for home buyouts have been approved even before the shutdown took place. This has been a wild couple of weeks to watch in national politics. We've got additional coverage and more detail on this story this morning. Over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com, that story's headline: North Carolina continues to feel impacts as the federal government nears one month.
You can read those details at CarolinaJournal.com. I think. It's 5:22. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10-993 WBT. I'm Nick Craig.
Good morning to you. Since the Republicans took control of the North Carolina General Assembly back in 2010, one of their big priorities has been reestablishing the state's rainy day fund and making sure that money is available for, well, a rainy day when that happens to come across the state of North Carolina. Of course, we saw the devastation and destruction from Hurricane Helene a little over a year ago.
However, there are some questions this morning about the stability of that fund. To walk us through those details, Teresa Opaca, CarolinaJournal.com, joins us on the news hour. Teresa, not only have Republicans done a really good job with the rainy day fund, but they've also gotten some good national media coverage and some surveys about that as well. What are you tracking this morning as it relates to that? Sure, good morning, Nick.
Thanks for having me.
So, yeah, we're talking about the Rainy Day Fund, which is also the Savings Reserve Fund, more appropriately named.
So, what we found is, yeah, they had some good ratings from national outlets, but also the Rainy Day Fund did take a little bit of a dip. back in twenty twenty two and up until even late last year, it was hovering around four point seven five billion. But as of October twentieth, we have seen it dip to about three point six two billion. And in fact, the Pew Research Center once recognized that fund as being one of the best in the country, going back to 2022. Also, now in their news story that they had is actually seeing that it actually is one of the states that has received It's going downward, so to speak.
The savings reserve has dipped.
So at one point, they were recognized as having really one of the best ones. I mean, now maybe it's starting to trend downward. The reasons they were given it's possibly the end of the COVID era money that helped give some extra boost to states and also some other tax there was taxes basically. Is what it was. The tax collections is two possible reasons for dropping funds higher than forecasted.
So, those were the reasons that were given for that. drop accord in status according to the Pew Research Center. We are seeing this turn into a pretty big political issue in North Carolina as well. We've seen some recent commentary from Senator Phil Berger's office and some of the Senate budget writers releasing some comments about a House budget proposal, calling it a serious race and calling out their colleagues, Republican lawmakers in the House, for deficit spending and kind of calling out this idea of dipping into this rainy day fund or savings reserve to fund ongoing programs in North Carolina. Yeah, you've been seeing the bantering back and forth.
You know, they can't come to an agreement on a budget. They have their own versions, and last week they were in their Passing some bills and but not overriding betas, which was. Really highly anticipated when they came back to Raleigh last week doing some other things.
So it's no surprise that this was a. released by Senator Berger and the Senate saying that about the House.
So it comes as no surprise if we've come to a stalemate on the budget as well. State Treasurer Brad Briner also has some recent commentary out on this as well. What did the Treasurer have to say? Yeah, so he said he's not really all that concerned. Even though the savings reserve rainy day fund has dipped, he said that's just one piece of the puzzle when it comes to the strength of the state's reserves.
There's so many more reserves that we do have. He named the stabilization and inflation reserve is one of those. He said we've got the 3.7 billion more. Than that in other reserves.
So, when you really stop to look at it, it's a little over $7.3 billion of reserve cash for the state. And he said he's not overly concerned. And even though that savings reserve is down, it's been at that level before. Just taking a look at that number of days of cash on hand, having too much also could indicate a problem. Maybe it means you're overtaxing the people in the state.
You have too many. Bonds outstanding. As we said about national recognition, Moody's and SP gave the state really high marks, triple-A bond ratings for having a solid financial footing.
So he pointed to all of that. He also pointed to The money, the millions of dollars his office found earlier this year.
So, in all in all, he said the state is pretty stable. And could weather another event like Hurricane Helene, although really couldn't do those back to back. therefore, he would have to maybe dip into some of those bonds. But overall, he is not really concerned. He says North Carolina has done a great job managing its money and will continue to do so at least for this foreseeable future, according to Trisha Breiner.
And, Teresa, you know, boiling this down, many of our listeners have a savings account. You don't like touching that savings account, but you know, an appliance breaks or you have to have a repair done with your car. You do, in fact, dip into that savings reserve. That's what that money is there for to buy that new appliance or make those car repairs and then over time replenish it.
So, is it, yeah, I guess some of the arguments here from Treasurer Briner is it's not inherently a bad thing to spend some of that money down when you do have a disaster or an event like something like Hurricane Helene. Correct, correct. And like, you know, like is mentioning about that $170 million his office found earlier this year. He said what they did with that is actually to pay off state debt. He says, so in one sense, we're reducing the cash on hand, but it's a really effective use of money, you know, retiring state debt.
So you found that money, why keep it in reserve? You could pay it. Pay down the debt, or as you said, you have a repair you need to make in your own household or. You know, maybe you've got a little bit of a higher credit card bill, you could bet you could pay that off, and then you know. Get your savings back up again at some point.
So, all in all, things are looking pretty good.
Well, and I guess, you know, this has been a badge of honor for the Republicans in the General Assembly. They are consistently bragging about and talking about how they have really completely changed the state's financial status from where they took it over in 2010. And even regardless of what some of these new reports are out, Teresa, it's hard to look back where the state was 20 years ago and even try and compare it to where we are now. It's a complete night and day difference. It absolutely is.
And I know in 2022, when they got the recognition from Pew back then, you know, I think. I think they even made mention of it, maybe even back as far as 2010, that they didn't want to go. That, you know, didn't want to go down the road that the Democrats had them at that point. Not even having a reserve, I believe, is what I was reading as well.
So it's like it is truly, like you say, a badge of honor. Kudos to them. It has dipped some, but then again, the state had to face Helene last year and a couple of other things going on.
So to still have that money in your reserves and other reserves as well is a pretty good feat to have for a state at this point. No question about that. Teresa, you've got some additional quotes from State Treasurer Brad Bryan, and where can folks go and read those details? Sure, they can head on over to CarolinaJournal.com. Teresa Opeka joins us this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
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We are, of course, looking at some of the devastation and destruction out of Jamaica and areas in the Caribbean this morning as a massive hurricane in Melissa, leaving some incredible devastation in its wake. And there's an interesting question. Does that have an impact across the state of North Carolina or other states as it relates to homeowners' insurance? Nobody better to get some insight on that than North Carolina's Insurance Commissioner Mike Cossey. He joins us this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour.
Commissioner Cossey, great to chat with you this morning. I'm sure you've seen some of the pictures and videos. videos out of Jamaica. It's devastating. We've been fortunate in North Carolina this year not to have a major landfalling hurricane.
Does all of this stuff kind of intertwine and connect together? It sure is, and you're right. It has. The first Scenes we've seen have looked awful. We've been devastating to certain areas of Jamaica.
But we're lucky. In North Carolina, we dodged a lot of bullets this season by not being a direct hit with major hurricanes. We've had some issues along the outer banks, of course, from the remnants of hurricanes. But wherever a storm occurs, if it's in other states or other countries, it ultimately has an impact for all of us. Owner uh Homeowners' insurance rates, because most insurance companies use what's called reinsurance.
And the things that happen, whether it's in Jamaica, or any other country. They have an impact on worldwide insurance rates for reinsurance, which we all pay for.
Well, and of course, even just earlier this year, you look out in California, the devastating wildfires that took place just north of the Los Angeles area. There was some interesting discussion around that as it related to major national insurance carriers as to how they were going to go through that reinsurance process. I would imagine that will likely have an impact on North Carolina down the road as well. It certainly will. And if you look at the The cost of reinsurance is tripled over the past eight or ten years, and that's been to many of these disasters that.
There? We didn't get impacted directly, but we all end up having to pay. Uh stop them. because most insurance companies Won't ensure the full value of a property.
So let's say you've got a property that's worth close to a million dollars in that Your insurance company may cover up to a certain point, maybe $300,000 or $400,000. dollars and above that is covered Using reinsurance.
So, as the cost of reinsurance goes up, then that drives up our cost also. Let's look at how this process rolls out. When insurance companies look at raising some of these rates, so your department does get involved in that process. Can you walk our audience through what your role in that is and what we've seen over the last couple of years here in North Carolina? I sure can.
Yeah, North Carolina is unique among the other states. We're what's called a rate bureau state. The Rate Bureau was created by the General Assembly back in 1977. And since 1977, that's been the law of the land. Uh let me be clear that The Rate Bureau is not part of the Department of Insurance.
It's not a state agency. It is simply a governing board of 14 people. 12 of those people represent major insurance companies that write business in North Carolina. Two members are appointed by the governor.
So that 14 member board controls insurance rates.
So, when the insurance companies feel that they're paying out too much in claims, they need to raise rates, whether it's homeowners' insurance, automobile insurance. or dwelling policies or what have you. They're required by state law to do a rate filing with the Department of Insurance, and a rate filing is very. complex and complicated as It's not a few pages, it's two or three thousand pages.
So it's It's just a Tons of statistics and information that attorneys, actuaries, and subject matter experts have to go through. It takes months to go through all that. And so when they do the rate filing, we put it out to the press. and to the public. that this is what the companies are asking for.
And we if in the case of homeowners, we'll have a public hearing where we called a public comment period and we let the public make their comments and In the last homeowners rate filing, I got over 25,000 comments. And they all said about the same thing. Please don't let the insurance companies raise our rates. We can't stand another big rate increase. And so that's how the process works.
And if I say no, and I've always said no, not because I just want to say no, but because that. Their requests, I believe, have either been excessive or unfairly discriminatory to certain parts of the state. And when the commissioner says no, you're required by statute to set up a court date, which is that ten months in the future.
So one of the last homeowners, when I said no, We went to court. And we were in court. six or seven weeks And it was a grueling process and the companies Finally, we came back and said, We're willing to negotiate a settlement.
So we negotiated a settlement. fifteen percent statewide average spread over two years And that was uh Cap of 35% for the coastal counties that were looking at a possible. Almost 100% or 99.6% increase.
So that's sort of the. Quick version of how Our system works in North Carolina, but we do have a system. that no matter the who the insurance commissioner is, has to follow that system. We're very blessed here in North Carolina. We've been the number one state for business over the last couple of years.
Our economy continues to grow. But with that, Commissioner Cossey, we've seen in many areas across the state property values really exploding over the last four or five years. That's got to have a huge impact when some of these insurance companies are coming to the Rate Bureau and then, of course, going to your office and trying to hammer out what these rates are going to look like. It absolutely does. And it's happening all over the country, but we're blessed here in North Carolina, even though we're the third fastest growing state in population.
People want to move here. We have a business friendly climate. But we have The most healthy, stable insurance market, I believe, in the nation. And if you look at our neighboring states, What we're paying for homeowners and automobile insurance and all types of insurance is a much lower. than the surrounding states.
We're one of the lowest In the nation, as far as average automobile insurance rates that people pay. And even though our homeowners' rates are still way too high. We still have some of the lowest average homeowners' rates in the southeastern states. One of the things that your department is also responsible for is dealing with insurance scams. Of course, it's now been a little more than a year since Hurricane Helene devastated Western North Carolina.
Have you been in touch with some folks out west? What's that process looking like as it relates to some of the recovery and relief efforts out west? Oh, yes, absolutely. We've been heavily involved from the beginning. The night the floodwaters were rising, we had folks on the ground going door to door.
They went to 144 homes, evacuating people to get them out of harm's way. For 40 weeks, we were In the mountains every week with victims assistance centers helping the victims. And we had insurance camps where I worked. We worked side by side with FEMA. Major insurance companies to help the folks that needed help.
And we're still involved with it. I've been up there speaking with business owners. been up there many times. And the the big problem, of course, was the flood damage. And homeowners' policies do not cover floods, so, unless they had a flood insurance policy through the federal flood insurance program.
or private flood insurance. Uh They got zero.
So that was the huge problem we saw with Helene. How about from individuals kind of coming in these flyby night operations that take advantage of individuals in the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, especially one like Helene, which covered such a wide swath of area? I mean, was that a big problem as well? We didn't see it quite as much with Helene as we did with Florence and some of the other storms, but almost any storm that you have. You have what I call gypsy roofers, these roofing contractors that go door to door that come from out of state.
And they offer to Repair your roof at a discounted price, or they have some materials left over from a previous job. A big part of the time These are nothing more than scams to see what amount of money they can. Get out of you or Get you to sign a paper, an assignment of benefits where they'll get the insurance company to pay something and maybe leave you holding the bag. This has caused a Big problem within the insurance industry because now what you see is. Media insurance companies telling anybody to selling a house.
that if your roof is over seven or eight years old, We're not going to ensure it. And you have companies, the rate bureaus now talking about Going to actual cash value policies.
So They just paid out a lot of money, and when I say a lot of money, The Insurance industry, I'll use one, for example, Farm Bureau, they're a major writer of homeowners in North Carolina. They told me a few weeks ago that for every one dollar They they take in in insurance premiums, they're paying out almost a dollar thirty cents in claims.
So you tell me how many businesses are going to continue doing that. And they're not for the long term. They're either going to have to raise premiums or reduce benefits. to get that Closer in line because they won't continue losing money like that on homeowners. Commissioner Causey, a lot of great information this morning.
Your department is also responsible for a lot of other things as it relates to insurance across North Carolina. Where could folks go this morning and find out some more of those details? Go to our website, ncdoi.gov. And you can give us a call. Our toll-free numbers 855-408-1212, 855-408-1212 or ncdoi.gov.
Commissioner Mike Cossey joins us this morning on the Carolina Journal News Hour. Good morning again. It's 5:54. Welcome back to the Carolina Journal News Hour, News Talk 11:10-993 WBT, the federal government shutdown coming very close to the one-month mark this week as we continue to track its coverage here across North Carolina. The federal government officially shut down on October the 1st after lawmakers on Capitol Hill failed to resolve a budget impasse.
Republicans in both the House and Senate working through with a continued resolution or a CR, a continuing resolution passing the House back in mid-September, however, has continued to fail in the United States Senate. The primary issue is consistent demands from Democrats over Affordable Care Act ACA subsidies that were passed back in 2021 that are set to expire. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated. Earlier this year, that permanently extending those tax credits would add an additional $350 billion to the deficit between 2026 and 2035, and that the number of individuals taking advantage of some of that taxpayer-subsidized insurance would increase by nearly 3.8 million people by 2035. Following what's going on right now, yesterday on Capitol Hill, the Senate once again failed to pass a Republican-backed funding bill to end the government shutdown for a 13th time.
The vote, as it has been over the last couple of weeks, was fifty four to forty five, falling just six votes short of the sixty vote filibuster required threshold. Democrats are feeling increased pressure to come to an agreement with Republicans as the American Federation of Government Employees, the largest union representing a federal government employees, more than 800,000 of them, urged Democrat lawmakers on Monday to end the shutdown. U.S. Representative Chuck Edwards, who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, told the Carolina Journal, quote, instead of passing a clean CR that would add $22.5 billion to the disaster relief funding that could have gone a long way in western North Carolina, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have chosen political showmanship. Voting no to fund the government halts payments to the men and women of our armed forces, weakens border security, opens the door to hardship on American seniors, and blocks much-needed relief for victims of Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina.
The government must reopen. There are now some ongoing lawsuits in North Carolina. Democrat Attorney General Jeff Jackson was among 24 states and the District of Columbia that filed a lawsuit Tuesday against the United States USDA over SNAP benefits. That's the Department of Agriculture. As the USDA has warned that those benefits will stop on November the 1st, pointing the finger at Senate Democrats and noting that they are the ones that refuse to allow the federal government to reopen.
Attorney General Jeff Jackson claims that they've got plenty of money left in an emergency fund and the SNAP benefits stopping on November the 1st would be illegal. We've got continued coverage of the federal government shutdown this morning over on our website, CarolinaJournal.com. That's going to do it for a Wednesday edition, WBT News is Next. Followed by Good Morning, BT. We're back with you tomorrow morning, 5-6, right here on News Talk 11-10 and 99-3, WBT.
