In today’s must-read column, JLF Vice President for Outreach, Becki Gray, eviscerates two common myths we’ve heard over and over again from the North Carolina Left.

First, the Left loves to say the General Assembly carved out a special tax break for millionaires in the General Fund state budget. Actually – no. Here are the facts.

Who really will benefit? According to recent estimates from the NCGA Fiscal Research Division, less than 1 percent of those filing for the break will be in the $1 million tax bracket.

The $50,000 tax credit, however, will help small businesses — 69 percent of all the tax returns in the under-$50,000 tax bracket will benefit from this particular break. Eighty-eight percent of those benefiting from the break will be businesses earning less than $100,000 a year. And that’s how much money the business earned, not how much the owner was paid. 

Who are these small businesses? Contractors, barbers, landscapers, moms who sell Tupperware and Mary Kay to pay for their kids’ school clothes — real North Carolina small businesses trying to survive. Regardless of the rhetoric from the left, tax breaks to help small businesses will do just that — help small businesses.

The second myth Gray debunks is that the General Assembly denied women basic health care. You know the mantra — those big, bad Republicans can’t stand women. Here are the facts.

But the money was not withheld from women’s health services. The $343,000 will go to local health departments across North Carolina to provide those services. The women the left is worried about still can get family planning, maternal, and child care services. They just can’t get a government-funded abortion. The services will be available at the local health department where services for their children, dental care, and chronic disease control also are available. 

Is this the demise of Planned Parenthood? Hardly. When state funding was diverted to local health departments, Planned Parenthood went to the federal government and received about $426,000 — more than the General Assembly shifted from the organization.

If you still don’t believe that what you’ve heard from the Left isn’t correct, then I recommend you visit the legislation’s language yourself. The exact sections are referenced in Gray’s column. So does this mean the Left — most notably the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood zealots — will stop moaning about crying? Of course not. They make their money moaning and crying.