BERGER: Let's Not Miss Our Chance to Continue North Carolina's Conservative Successes

The 2026 short session brings an opportunity to continue North Carolina’s economic progress.

From the day voters gave Republicans control of the General Assembly after over a century of Democratic rule, we’ve made progress on numerous fronts — tax cuts, regulatory reform, restrained spending, K-12 education reforms, parental school choice expansion, transformational university stewardship, and more. Our state is the national leader in smart, conservative governance. All Republican legislators elected in 2010 and since share credit for that success. 

Let’s not lose sight of the progress on major issues made during the 2025 long session. Working together, the House and Senate enacted reforms to make our communities safer, take important strides toward energy availability and affordability, protect women’s sports, define the two sexes in state law, and impose accountability for those who commit serious crimes. 

Yes, there were matters — primarily those dealing with spending and taxation — on which progress was elusive. In some respects, that should not be surprising. The Republican caucuses approach issues independently, and policy differences do exist. That reflects the diversity of thought and the sincerity of firmly held beliefs within our own party. And even though those disagreements can sometimes be heated, I remain convinced that most of us see opportunity for mutually respectful debate and principled solutions.

Today, North Carolina is at a critical inflection point, and we need to come together for the good of our state and to continue the progress made over the last decade and a half.

President Trump and Republicans at the federal level are implementing a national vision that is largely aligned with what we have instituted in North Carolina. With that, new opportunities are now present for positive improvements in power generation and affordability, healthcare affordability through free market reforms, and to limit fraud in safety net programs so that those programs help citizens truly in need.

And yes, circumstances do exist for us to reach an agreement on a comprehensive state budget. In crafting the state spending plan, we must recognize that the seeds for today’s success — being the No. 1 State for Business, Republican voters now outnumbering Democrats, and continued legislative majorities — were planted 15 years ago.

What we do today will impact North Carolina’s next 15 years.

Our policy success is largely grounded on the continuing exercise of discipline on two fronts — tax reduction and spending restraint. Failure to adhere to fundamentals on either front will thwart sustaining progress in our never-ending competition with other states for economic growth, job creation, and a better future for our people.

While the worst of Bidenflation is behind us, North Carolinians still feel the strain of higher prices caused by inflationary policies advanced by Democrats. Now is the time for relief for working families and small businesses, a time to mitigate higher costs. We can do that, in part, with innovative and thoughtful reforms to ever-increasing property tax bills at the local level. We can also continue to provide tax relief at the state level.

We know from experience that we can have both a well-qualified workforce and a competitive tax and business climate. Our CNBC ranking shows that to be the case. We just have to continue to carefully avoid needless ballooning of our budgets. 

When working toward solutions, it’s good to reflect on what we’ve accomplished together. Our progress has been achieved despite the naysayers — the interest groups, the editorial writers, and of course, the Democrats — who have all falsely claimed a fiscally responsible approach to taxes and budgeting will cause catastrophe. Proven wrong time and time again, they continue to repeat their same tired and erroneous refrain.

History should help guide our steps on those issues, and we should focus on solutions to common challenges — crime, poverty, socialism, wasteful bureaucracy, and radical ideologies that prevent everyday North Carolinians from achieving the American dream.

None of these policy questions will be resolved by a long message from me. Only time and good-faith engagement through the legislative process can do that. But my goal in sharing these thoughts, directly and in writing, is that we can approach the next few weeks with a clear understanding of the challenges, opportunities, and choices before us, even if we haven’t yet found a pathway to successfully resolve the decisions to be made. 

My hope is to continue our solution-oriented approach to policy that has made North Carolina’s General Assembly the most successful and effective conservative legislative body in the country.