Category: Politics
by Tom Campbell For weeks we’ve heard the legislature will present details of a significant tax reform package. Lawmakers agree they want to lower personal and corporate income tax rates while expanding the tax base to include a wider range of sales and service taxes, but the devil is in tax reform details. Our current [...]
by Tom Campbell Both Governor McCrory and our General Assembly reached milestones this week and, as we pundits are prone to do, they warrant marking and remarking about. Pat McCrory reached 100 days in his tenure as governor and nobody will refute he was thrown into the deep end on day one. With the notable [...]
From an article in the L.A. Times, March 28th Alan Simpson has never shied away from sharing his convictions but a recent article in the LA Times elevated him in our esteem. The former Wyoming Senator, half the duo of Simpson-Bowles budget reform efforts, was characteristically blunt about the sequester cuts now being implemented. “Stupid, [...]
by Tom Campbell March Madness is the moniker given the NCAA basketball tournament championship, but this year in North Carolina it is taking on new meaning. Seems like everyone is mad about something. Local governments are mad at the legislature, the legislature is mad about the Dorothea Dix deal, the Racial Justice Act and a [...]
By Christopher A. Cooper and H. Gibbs Knotts, News and Observer, March 15, 2013 Following the 2010 election, we analyzed county commission seats in North Carolina and recorded a shift from almost completely Democratic in the early 1970s to a near even split between Republicans and Democrats. The parity in 2010 was striking: 51 percent [...]
by Tom Campbell I really have tried to understand the clamor over the voter ID issue but I don’t get it. I’ve read the statements and press releases, studied comments made at legislative hearings and I just don’t understand why it is such a big deal to those who favor it. But neither can I [...]
by Tom Campbell Remember the TV ad with the little old lady holding up a burger and asking, “Where’s the Beef?” Many now are asking, “Where’s the Sequestration Beef?” It matters not where the idea came from but during the debt-ceiling impasse of 2011 our leaders created what they considered a “poison pill” that would [...]
Democrats took a thumpkin’ in 2010 and 2012 North Carolina elections. For more than a century they ruled the roost in state government (with the exception of Governors Holshouser and Martin and the 1994 House) and pretty much ran roughshod over the GOP. The tables are turned and Democrats are trying to figure out how [...]
By Tom Campbell Governor Pat McCrory was obviously eager to deliver his state of the state, starting before the 7 o’clock hour and pre-empting network nightly newscasts. His speech was about 45 minutes long…longer than most had anticipated. It took him a few minutes to get comfortable. Pat McCropry is at his best when he [...]
You have to admit this session of the NC General Assembly came to town ready to work and they don’t mind ruffling feathers. Senate Bill 4, expected to pass immediately, would negate former Governor Perdue’s decision to choose a federal-state health exchange in implementing the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare” It would declare that North [...]
The arrogant power-grabbing continues on Jones Street
by Chris Fitzsimon The General Assembly is always chaotic during the week of the crossover deadline and this session is no exception with rushed committee meetings, late night sessions, and supplemental calendars issued for the House and Senate floor listing what will be debated and voted on. Even for legislative insiders like lobbyists, reporters, and [...]
by John Hood Decisions made by the North Carolina General Assembly over the next two weeks will likely determine not only the political fate of its Republican majority but also how the core functions of state government will operate for years to come. Some analysts have chosen not to wait to assess these matters. Liberal [...]
By Jim Ahler Already this year, seven different tax reform bills have been introduced in the General Assembly, and countless organizations on both sides of the aisle have staked out a position on the highly complex issue. So it’s understandable that many North Carolinians feel overwhelmed by the partisanship, unsure about where to turn for [...]
