The Current Math Just Doesn’t Work for Rural North Carolina 

To the Editor:

The hard-working families of North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District (NC-01) are being forced to bear the heavy financial burdens of colliding federal policies, aggressive trade tariffs, and distant global conflicts. Demographic data indicates that between 120,000 and 150,000 residents across NC-01 face direct negative exposure to these overlapping economic shocks.

While the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) promised financial breathing room through permanent standard tax deduction increases, these modest savings are being completely erased by the compounding costs of international trade disputes and the ongoing war with Iran.

For an NC-01 family farm the math simply does not work. Retaliatory tariffs from international buyers are projected by N.C. agricultural economists to wipe out a third of North Carolina’s net farm income, draining an estimated $10,000 to $25,000+ annually from a single farm’s operational revenue. This directly threatens a meaningful portion of the 8,000 rural jobs at risk statewide. Local crop prices for tobacco and soybeans are dropping due to a domestic oversupply, while import tariffs on steel have sent tractor and harvesting equipment parts surging between 20% and 125%, costing families an extra $3,000 to $7,000 a year in equipment overhead.

Worse still, input prices are spiking at the worst possible time. National fertilizer expenses are projected at a record $40 billion. Driven by shipping shocks and energy disruptions from the war in Iran, nitrogen solutions and localized fertilizer applications have added an extra $14 to $30+ per acre in input costs, inflating a single local farm’s seasonal budget by thousands of dollars. Compounding this, the war has spiked diesel prices right at the peak of the fall harvest, adding another $1,200 to $2,500 in seasonal fuel costs.

Our district’s extensive veteran population and working class are facing an equally daunting financial reality. Local service workers and retired military families are paying an estimated $570 to $1,700 more per year due to pass-through tariff costs on everyday retail goods. Wartime energy inflation adds another $776 annually to household utility bills, and families preparing for the school year face an extra $4,000 per child due to rising supply and school lunch costs. Furthermore, the OBBBA’s decision to let ACA marketplace tax credits expire has spiked health insurance premiums by roughly $3,000 a year for a family of four.

Worse still, the OBBBA’s structural cuts to Medicaid place immense strain on our already fragile rural healthcare networks. These cuts disproportionately impact the 16% to 17.6% of our district’s population living below the poverty line, as well as 26,960 extremely low-income renter households. In northeastern North Carolina, veterans frequently rely on local community health centers and regional hospitals for emergency care outside the VA system. As these local hospitals absorb the financial shock of reduced federal reimbursements, the medical safety net that rural veterans count on is fracturing.

Washington cannot continue to treat our rural communities as collateral damage. Without targeted trade relief for our crops and protected funding for rural infrastructure, the very people who live,  feed and defend this country will be priced out of their own homes and livelihoods.

Joe Angelucci is a longtime resident of Edenton.

Some insight from Ocracoke Resident Stacy Huggins. Commentary on NC Ferry Division and current challenges

Since 1934, North Carolina has in some form subsidized ferry service for its citizens on or near the coast. Beginning with one route over 90 years ago, the state has maintained support for ferries that now include seven routes and about 200 sailings per day. The NC Ferry Division provides transportation to parts of eastern NC that otherwise would have limited access – or none at all.

In the past four years, one state senator from Iredell County – the NC Piedmont – has undertaken as her personal campaign to deny coastal residents of taxpayer-funded access to the ferries, and therefore to their homes and businesses. Sen. Vickie Sawyer’s stated complaint is that if she and her constituents have to pay extra money for the express lane to go from her house on Lake Norman to a Panthers game in Charlotte, then people in eastern North Carolina should have to pay tolls for every ferry over every body of water in their commutes. Keep in mind that Sen. Sawyer has nearly infinite permutations of alternative routes from her house to anywhere in Charlotte that don’t involve the express lanes or even the interstate. Everywhere else in the state, drivers have options. Here in Ocracoke, we have three routes to and from our homes, and all three of those involve a ferry. We don’t have alternate routes.

The included map demonstrates that on her commute to Charlotte from her Lake Norman home, Sen. Sawyer crosses at least four state-maintained bridges on state-maintained highways. NC’s annual budget for bridge maintenance is roughly $410 million – over four times the already inadequate $70 million or so the struggling Ferry Division gets. And just this summer, Sen. Sawyer is pushing for $300 million for improvements to the express lanes on I-77 north of Charlotte – to make her commute even easier while she works hard to make ours at the coast even more difficult. But the discussion about the ferries is of course not about one state legislator, but rather about NC’s commitment to transportation infrastructure.

For people living and working in eastern NC, particularly Ocracoke, the ferries are extensions of state highways – same as any bridge on any road anywhere else in the state. Recent legislation requires the Ferry Division to toll every route in the system by January 1, 2027. By the reasoning behind that legislation – that people using the ferries should pay their way – every bridge and every highway in the state should be tolled. That’s of course absurd, as is the notion that ferries, an integral part of NC’s transportation infrastructure, should be tolled.

But we’re already far now past that; state law requires the ferries to be tolled by next year. Meanwhile, we’re now discussing priority boarding.

For Ocracoke residents, priority loading at the Hatteras terminals means the difference between making our appointments on time or even within a day’s trip or missing them and losing time in our commute. Customarily, the Ferry Division for 40 years has, through administrative rules, offered Ocracokers priority when waiting for the ferry. This convenience means that the people who live and work here can spend their time on the island and support the island’s daily routines – working where you buy supplies, gifts, and groceries, pouring your beer, frying your fresh fish, taking care of your rental, patrolling the village as law enforcement, maintaining the roads – even running the ferries – not to mention their own personal errands and basic needs. Priority at the ferry terminal supports the island.

As importantly, priority for commercial vehicles means that the island stays in supply. Everything consumed or used on the island gets here by ferry – groceries, fuel, building supplies, mail, daily shipping, every meal at every restaurant, medical supplies for the clinic. We live by the ferry. Priority boarding is critical to our life here and to the lives of visitors who rely on the residents for needs during their trips here.

NC’s Ferry Division is already underfunded at $70 million per year. Every route suffers nearly daily delays or interruptions. For Ocracoke, those delays and interruptions are more than inconveniences; unpredictability and unreliability often leave us stranded when we need to travel for work, doctor’s appointments, and emergencies.

Ocracoke and all of eastern NC need and deserve the same reliable transportation infrastructure the rest of the state enjoys. We hope the legislature and the Ferry Division will keep fairness and commitment in mind going forward.

Stacy Huggins is a resident of Ocracoke

Hatteras ferry is an essential lifeline

While I am thrilled that our state finally has an actual budget, it is hard to understand why we would be doing away with taxes on wealthy corporations while at the same time charging people in the eastern part of the state to ride the ferry.

Why would we charge people to go to work, to go home, to go to school or go to medical appointments?

If the state needs money to run its programs, it would make sense for those who can most afford to pay their share.

 Route 12 on the Outer Banks extends from Whalebone Junction in Dare County down through Ocracoke and then on to Downeast Carteret County. Our ferries are the marine section of that highway.

On Ocracoke we have no alternative untolled route once tolling is instituted.

The Hatteras ferry is an essential lifeline. Residents of Ocracoke use the ferry to schedule medical care, legal and court appointments, job interviews, pick up business supplies and make travel connections. Since ferry tolling was tacked into the budget bill without any detailed legislation,the priority travel that has been available to residents and businesses of Ocracoke for 40 years is ending on January 1.

I am sure that Legislators did not mean to cut our residents off from the outside world when they passed this bill. I am hoping that this was an oversight on their part and that legislative action will be forthcoming to remedy this situation.

Ellen Gaskill is blessed to be a resident of Ocracoke – you are so lucky!