Remember Where’s Waldo? Imagine for a moment that he had the word “privatization” stitched on his colorful little cap, and see if you can spot him in this word picture:

North Carolina spends billions of dollars a year funding a critical service. But rather than deliver the service directly, the state allows North Carolina recipients to choose among public, for-profit, and nonprofit providers to receive services paid for with tax dollars.

Did you see Waldo as a conservative legislator who wants to provide school vouchers to families of low to moderate incomes? Would that be privatization? Well, I can understand why you made the error, but notice the verb tense. I wasn’t referring to a proposed program. I was referring to a program that already exists: Medicaid. It pays for medical services. It doesn’t deliver them.

If school choice programs constitute educational privatization, then Medicaid constitutes health care privatization. Yet denizens of the Left savage the former and defend the latter. By what consistent principle do they do so?

The model of “public dollars + private providers = public service” isn’t even foreign to North Carolina education. We’ve been doing this for decades in higher education, day care, and early childhood programs. For example, the North Carolina Pre-K program (what used to be called More at Four) pays public schools, religious institutions, and for-profit centers to deliver the same set of services to at-risk preschoolers. Liberals love this program and wish to expand it. But once those four-year-olds turn five, a “successful public-private partnership” becomes a “dangerous privatization” in the liberal mind.

The incoherence about privatization extends beyond this case, however. With regard to Medicaid, North Carolina already contracts with a private vendor to coordinate the care of most Medicaid recipients. This contract wasn’t awarded by competitive bidding or consumer choice. And it allows the private vendor to make money from administering Medicaid dollars without facing any financial risk should the cost exceed projections.

If the state had negotiated such a no-bid contract to deliver any other public service — public safety, road maintenance, information technology, you name it — the Left would properly cry foul and demand a better process. But the private contractor I’m talking about, Community Care of North Carolina, receives nothing but praise from left-wing analysts who simultaneously attack Gov. Pat McCrory’s proposal to invite competitive bids for multiple Medicaid contractors. They dismiss his Partnership for a Healthy North Carolina as “privatization” while defending Medicaid’s current privatized arrangement.

The Left’s confusion about privatization is certainly not limited to North Carolina. At the national level, liberal groups detest proposals by Rep. Paul Ryan and other conservatives to involve competing private insurers and case managers in Medicare. They warn that “privatizing” Medicare would be dangerous, and want its current operations left alone.

But the current operations of Medicare are already privatized. Who actually runs the tracking, billing, and payment systems with which Medicare reimburses (mostly private) health care providers? You guessed it: private insurance companies. They are paid to process Medicare claims. What they don’t have to do is hit any particular per-patient cost target or shoulder any financial risk for cost overruns. In the absence of such incentives, costs tend to soar. Sound familiar?

In the real world of public services, privatization is ubiquitous and useful. Most people agree that government need not employ doctors, nurses, preschool teachers, college professors, textbook printers, asphalt pavers, or vehicle drivers in order to ensure the delivery of medical, educational, or transportation services. When it comes to elementary and secondary education, however, the Left wants to make an exception — while labeling anyone who disagrees as extreme.

And when it comes to the management of North Carolina’s Medicaid program, liberals are even more befuddled. They favor maintaining the current case-management contract with a single private entity rather than open up the process to competitive bids by multiple providers who would have to bear some financial risk if they want the opportunity to receive financial reward.

If you can discern a consistent philosophy of government somewhere in this crowded and baffling picture, you are a far better Waldo-spotter than I am.

John Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and an NC Spin Panelist

Sometimes it feels that just one more problem will overwhelm us, but there is one that needs immediate exposure and urgent attention: the growing problem of human trafficking, defined as the illegal trade of humans for purposes of reproductive slavery, sexual exploitation, forced labor or other modern-day forms of slavery. Trafficking has become one of the fastest growing and most lucrative crimes, estimated to generate 32 billion dollars per year in the U.S.

Women, men and children, most often from foreign countries, respond to promises of an education or jobs through the Internet or social media, only to discover they are forced into servitude, unable to leave. If they try to escape they are told and believe either they or their families will be killed. 80 percent of victims are females and 50 percent are children.

Those responding to these offers find themselves in remote labor camps or crowded apartments, living in squalid conditions, forced to work long hours for so little pay they cannot afford to leave. The average age for entry into prostitution is 12-14 for girls and 11-13 for boys. Victims are frequently moved from town to town, constantly threatened, always afraid. The typical “pimp” or trafficker has three or four brothels operating, each generating as much as a million dollars a year. Even more frightening is the growing number of young children being trafficked, sometimes by a parent strung out on drugs, but frequently from a predatory adult who befriends the child, then kidnaps them. Senator Thom Gooslby has introduced legislation that would require those convicted of trafficking children under age 18 to be registered as sex offenders.

Victims can be found working in nail salons, massage parlors, as dishwashers, janitors, in sweatshops, as farm or construction workers, as domestics, in food processing plants, as panhandlers or in magazine crews, even mail order brides. How can you recognize them? Look for people who are reluctant to talk and when they do are nervous to see who might be looking, people who cannot speak freely without having someone else present, have little or no control over their money, owe a large debt they are unable to repay or live or work in places with unusually high security.

North Carolina is ranked as 8^th among states most likely for trafficking because we have a high number of food processing plants and farms, Interstate highways that allow ease of movement, many military installations loaded with potential customers, and a high number of colleges, where victims with big loans can be recruited.

There are several things you can do if you suspect trafficking. Be vigilant and look for the recognizable symptoms, understanding not every suspicious situation guarantees trafficking. If you see suspicious activity it is critically important that you do not try to personally intervene. Traffickers have a lot to lose and will use violence to protect their human investment. Instead, report your suspicions to law enforcement or social service agencies like the NC Coalition Against Human Trafficking, the Polaris Project, NC Stop Human Trafficking and the Wake County Salvation Army, a great statewide resource experienced in intervention and service to victims.

This crime against humankind will continue growing until we stand up and human trafficking becomes too risky and unprofitable.

Tune into NC SPIN this week as we discuss Transportation reform, Fracking cracks, The chancellor’s priorities and New mental hospital.

Joining moderator Henry Hinton this week are Chris Fitzsimon, Director of NC Policy Watch, John Hood, President, The John Locke Foundation, Joe Mavretic, former House Speaker and Connie Wilson, legislator

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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 staff members, it’s difficult to keep up. For the general public, the people lawmakers are supposed to be working for, it’s impossible.

But you don’t have to be an insider or understand the mechanics of parliamentary procedure to get one clear message from the lawmakers this week.

The folks in the majority in the General Assembly think they know better than anyone else about what should be happening in North Carolina, better than city councils and school boards, better then public health experts and law enforcement officials, better than scientists in the executive branch of state government, even better than the businesses leaders they claim they are trying to help create jobs.

And since the lawmakers apparently think they know better, they are insisting on being in control of as many things as they can.

It is not a new theme for this General Assembly. The unprecedented legislative power grab has been happening all session, but the crossover deadline has brought forward a blizzard of examples of legislative arrogance and overreach.

A proposal in the Senate would nullify any local regulations banning smoking in outdoor areas, including community college campuses, beaches, and parks. The legislation specifically says that no local anti-smoking ordinance could be stricter than state law and there is no state law.

Local community colleges that want to keep smokers away from classroom buildings would be out of luck. City officials would not only be forbidden from banning smoking at parks and local concerts, the legislation would not even allow local governments to set up smoking and non-smoking sections.

Senator Buck Newton, the bill’s primary sponsor, wants more power over the public health policies at your community college campus and local parks than the folks who run them. He knows better.

A proposal that passed the House Monday night would no longer allow local government workers like police officers and firefighters to have their union dues voluntarily deducted from their pay.

No one is required to do anything. It is completely voluntary and the public safety workers and other local employees who have chosen to do it have been granted that right by their local city council. But that doesn’t matter to Rep. Bill Brawley, a key sponsor of the bill.

Brawley will decide what police officers and firefighters can have deducted from their paychecks, not the employees or the city that pays them. Brawley knows better.

The folks in the majority especially think they know better about how to protect North Carolina’s natural resources, or more correctly, how not to protect them. A Senate bill would remove regulations that govern the construction of hardened structures or jetties off the coast.

That comes just two years after the General Assembly voted to allow the construction of just four jetties with key restrictions in place. The structures had long been banned in North Carolina because of compelling evidence that while they may delay beach erosion in one targeted area, they increase erosion in nearby areas.

Geologists have long opposed ending the state’s ban on the hardened structures in their efforts to protect the state’s coastline. Sen. Bill Rabon knows better and wants to remove all restrictions and regulations.

Many law enforcement officials believe there are too many guns on the street and often support buyback programs that purchase guns that are then destroyed by local police departments. A House bill would not only prevent that happening, it would also ban judges from ordering weapons seized in a criminal case destroyed.

Bill sponsor Rep. Jacqueline Schaffer apparently believes that it’s better to have those guns on the street even if the local police department or a judge in a criminal case disagrees. She knows better.

There are plenty of other well publicized examples, a Senate plan to take control of local school buildings away from school boards, a push to repeal environmental rules protecting Jordan Lake, and a weakening of energy efficiency standards for new buildings. Those are all happening this week.

Lawmakers have already advanced proposals to take airports and water systems away from local governments, tell doctors when they are allowed to perform legal medical procedures, prohibit cities from banning guns in parks and greenways, and abolish renewable energy standards that business leaders support. The list is a long one, but all the items come from the same place.

The folks running Raleigh now, the ones who claim to be for small, less intrusive government want more control over your lives, your health and your city and county. They simply know better.

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 critics, biased media outlets, and Democrats desperate to reestablish their relevance have already declared the GOP-run legislature and McCrory administration to be failures despite the fact that most of the major issues of the session have yet to be decided.

Sorry, folks, but hysterical claims about Republican theocracy and voter suppression do not constitute a serious assessment. Whatever you think of the merits of parental-consent laws for abortion or IDs for voting, for example, both ideas are broadly popular among North Carolina voters. Enacting them won’t hurt Republicans in 2014.

Nor did “the Republicans” try to establish Christianity as the state religion, as has been foolishly alleged. Instead, a few misguided House members introduced a nonbinding resolution in defense of Rowan county commissioners who want to begin their meetings with explicitly Christian prayer. While perhaps well-intentioned, the resolution was imprudent and incorrect in its assertion of local policy over state and federal protections of religious liberty. Most members of the General Assembly, including most Republicans, disagreed with the resolution and it quickly disappeared from view.

By the way, shouldn’t all those newly discovered Democratic believers in local control have supported the resolution? It seems that localities are only to be trusted when they do things that liberals like, such as raising taxes, issuing debt, or forcing county residents into cities against their will.

As for the two major issues already resolved, unemployment insurance and Obamacare, the legislature’s actions were both wise and, in the end, unexceptional. Before the 2013 reform bill, North Carolina had relatively generous UI benefits. Now our UI costs are similar to that of our neighbors.

As for Medicaid expansion, the legislature’s rejection of the idea did not, as commonly claimed, deprive 500,000 North Carolinians of health care. In reality, about a third of this group will be eligible for the new federally subsidized insurance exchanges and most of the remaining individuals will continue to receive critical services through a combination of subsidized clinics, charity care by hospitals, and out-of-pocket spending. Although the problem of the uninsured still merits a better long-term solution, rejecting Medicaid expansion was the right decision for now. Again, contrary to popular myth, at least half the states have made or are likely to make the same decision about Medicaid expansion that North Carolina did — including the Republican-led states of Florida, Virginia, and Michigan, and possibly Ohio and Arizona.

Here are the major outstanding issues about which we will know much more about within the next couple of weeks. Their disposition will truly determine the effects of the 2013 legislative session on state politics and public policy:

• Since Gov. McCrory introduced his spending plan in March, state officials have discovered a larger-than-projected hole in the state Medicaid budget as well as some additional one-time revenue. Will the Senate and House fashion a budget that funds necessary services and rebuilds state government’s physical and financial capital while devoting some fiscal capacity to tax reform?

• The Senate’s tax reform, while praiseworthy in some respects, would increase the tax burden on some families of low-to-moderate incomes. Will the House and McCrory administration preserve the essence of the Senate approach — reducing North Carolina’s punitive tax rates on savings, investment, and job creation — while avoiding its disadvantages?

• The Senate and House have passed different versions of public-school reforms that would alter school assessment and teacher tenure. Can they produce a compromise bill and supplement it with broader school choice for families of low-to-moderate incomes whose needs aren’t being met by district-run schools?

• Will the legislature build on its pro-growth regulatory reforms of 2011 and 2012 with additional measures to encourage growth and investment in the state?

If lawmakers can work these issues out, their session will be successful in practical and electoral terms — all the political noise to the contrary notwithstanding.

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 the facts.

That’s why the North Carolina Association of CPAs decided to take action by launching the “Tar Heel Tax Reform” initiative – a platform to help the citizens of our state cut through the clutter, understand the need for tax reform, and monitor the debate. As “financial translators,” we believe it’s our responsibility to provide an objective, nonpartisan perspective to families and business owners.

Urgent Need for Reform
Our initiative’s primary goal is to ask citizens to urge their legislators to work together to enact meaningful tax reform, because we simply cannot afford to wait.

Our tax code has not fundamentally changed since the 1930s when Roosevelt was president and our economy was driven by manufacturing and agriculture. Since that time, North Carolina’s economy has evolved, but our tax code has not. As a result, our state’s revenue stream has become increasingly unpredictable, especially during economic downturns. In recent years, North Carolina lawmakers have been forced to choose between making deep cuts to basic services like education, public safety or transportation, or imposing “temporary” tax increases to make up for budgetary shortfalls.

North Carolina has the highest personal income and corporate tax rates in the Southeast and the 17^th highest total tax burden in the nation, creating a difficult climate for economic growth and job creation.  Even more alarming, current forecasts show that if we fail to modernize our tax code, North Carolina’s state government will not be able to meet basic obligations in the next three to five years.

This roller-coaster revenue stream that our state is dealing with impacts North Carolinians in real ways. Whether it’s a temporary sales tax increase one year or a reduction in teachers the next, these impacts are hitting North Carolinians hard. The good news is that it can be fixed – and reforming our tax code is the answer.

Guiding Principles for Tax Reform
The nonpartisan North Carolina Association of CPAs is not promoting specific legislation, but we are urging lawmakers to ensure that three key principles guide their tax reform efforts. First, we must make sure that any reform effort creates a more reliable revenue stream. Second, real reform should create a transparent tax code that taxpayers can understand. And third, tax code reform must be fair.

We are encouraging lawmakers to continue their important work on tax reform this session. While organizations speaking out on tax reform may have different approaches on how to reform, one thing is clear: everyone from across the political spectrum agrees tax reform is needed.

North Carolina cannot afford to wait until the next economic downturn to get our financial house in order. The time is now, the momentum and support of the issue is apparent and tax reform is the solution to protect our citizens and our state’s economic future.

To learn more or to get involved, please visit Tar Heel Tax Reform today, and check back often for updated resources, including downloadable one pagers and links to all tax reform bills.

Jim Ahler is Chief Executive Officer of the North Carolina Association of CPAs (NCACPA)

Tax reform is a big buzz-word in Raleigh these days as the North Carolina General Assembly looks at reforming how the state collects revenue from its citizenry.

As President of the North Carolina Association of REALTORS®, which represents 31,000 REALTORS® in every community and county in our state, I want to voice our support for tax reform measures.  Our only word of caution is don’t pass tax reforms that are going to hurt our fragile housing market.

Clearly, we are seeing signs of recovery.  Just last week the U.S. Department of Labor announced the lowest unemployment rate in our country for the past four years.  In North Carolina, we are seeing positive signs of sales in our housing market, We need to keep the momentum moving – because we all know the troubles we have seen over the past five years of The Great Recession.

That’s why we are closely monitoring legislative efforts in Raleigh that could threaten our housing and real estate economy.  Legislative proposals to eliminate the mortgage interest and property tax deductions will have a negative impact on our state’s real estate economy.

Taking away mortgage interest and property tax deductions for homeowners will devalue their property, hurt people who are currently in the market to purchase a home and will end up costing us precious jobs and hurting our overall economy. The mortgage interest and property tax deductions are vital to the stability of the American housing market and our economy. Eliminating these two important tax provisions will be a de facto tax increase on North Carolina’s homeowners.

These legislative proposals will change market dynamics that will destroy wealth accumulation for our middle-class families who have worked hard, played by the rules and deserve to be able to reap the benefits of buying a home. Additionally, elimination of the deductions in NC is not just a state issue, but one that other states and the federal government will watch closely.  If there is a perceived momentum swing away from the MID and property tax deductions in NC, that could lead other states to do the same and eventually lead to the elimination of the deductions at the federal level.  The housing market cannot afford a hit such as this, especially not now.

Eliminating tax deductions for home ownership isn’t tax reform.  It will just end up making our families pay more and will do severe damage to our state’s recovering economy.  That’s the bottom line and that’s why REALTORS® across the state are raising these concerns.

Patrice Willetts, 2013 President of the NC Association of REALTORS®

The General Assembly is three months into the long session. More than 1,700 bills have been filed with fewer than 50 (as of this writing) now law.

The first bill signed into law encourages students to develop job skills through expansion of career and technical education. The next ones include a measure shoring up a $2.4 billion unemployment insurance debt; a bill to shift funding from textbooks to digital learning; a decision not to operate a state based health exchange and reject an expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare; and setting a sunset on a wasteful and ineffective earned income tax credit.

With an early summer adjournment expected, lawmakers have only a few months to tackle the remaining big issues and make good on campaign promises to get our economy moving, stimulate long term growth, and create jobs. Tax, regulatory, and education reform are key components to fiscal recovery and a healthy economy.

For two decades, attempts to reform our outdated tax system have failed. Current proposals include some old ideas: Expand the state sales tax to include more than 100 new services; reduce the personal income tax; scale back the corporate tax; and rewrite the franchise tax.

It will take comprehensive reform and a new type of revenue generation to spur real economic growth. One proposal would replace current personal, corporate, and estate tax revenue with a consumption-based flat tax of 6 percent. The plan also would lower the state sales tax to 4.5 percent. Under this plan, Experts predict a $4 billion growth in income (and an extra 10,000 jobs) this year, rising to $5.8 billion and an extra 14,000 jobs by 2017.

A budget for the next two years will be enacted before July 1, the beginning of the new fiscal year. Gov. Pat McCrory’s $20.6 billion proposal offers fiscally responsible priorities. McCrory imposes no new taxes and no additional debt while setting aside $600 million in reserves. He proposes no major new programs, ends raids on the Highway Trust fund, and diverts $75 million from Golden LEAF and the Rural Economic Development Center — programs that reward political cronies and have no taxpayer oversight. He leaves a surplus for the next fiscal year.

Legislators would do well to adopt McCrory’s budgetary priorities, halting a long history of reckless spending and regulatory overreach. As they move toward a final budget, lawmakers should consider decreasing spending and scaling back corporate welfare programs. A comprehensive evaluation of incentives and a rewrite of film industry tax credits are long overdue.

Jobs require a well-educated work force. Measures are needed to ensure accountability so taxpayers, parents, teachers, and employers know that a high school diploma has value. Reform bills affecting traditional public schools include measures to modify teacher tenure, strengthen teacher education and licensing standards, increase transparency on school performance, and study performance-based teacher pay.

While most families choose traditional public schools, the expansion of charter schools, a new voucher to enable low-income families to attend private schools, and a scholarship grant for children with disabilities allow parents to determine the best options for their children. Competition and choice is the best way to improve education and provide a well-educated work force.

Overly burdensome regulations stifle economic growth. A periodic review and scheduled expiration date for rules is a being considered. The Rules Review Commission should be authorized to review not only new rules but also existing ones.

With just a few months left, the General Assembly still has important issues to tackle. Economic recovery depends on lawmakers adopting comprehensive tax, education, and regulatory reforms.

Becki Gray (@beckigray) is vice president for outreach at the John Locke Foundation.

Government is nothing more than a social contract. An essential function of government is to provide infrastructure for the common good that is too costly, too big or impractical for individuals to undertake themselves. A look at our history reveals that public infrastructure has been funded through bonds, taxes, tolls and the lottery.

We boast the opening of the first public university in 1795, financed in part by a lottery. With stagnation following the Revolution, tolls funded the building of more than 500 miles of plank roads. In 1856, the North Carolina railroad opened with 233 miles of track between Charlotte and Goldsboro, with two-thirds funding from the state and one-third from private investment.

Skip to 1921. Governor Cameron Morrison, “the Good Roads Governor,” convinced the legislature, and later the public, to vote passage of a 50 million dollar road bond issue to build 5,500 miles of roads. Governor Kerr Scott trumped him in 1949, leading passage of 200 million dollars in road bonds for farm-to-market roads. Both were huge and daring investments for those days. But the granddaddy of all North Carolina infrastructure programs was the 3.1 billion dollar higher education bond package passed in 2000.

Swings in the economy and changes in leadership have resulted in North Carolina doing little to maintain our public infrastructure, meanwhile needs grow with more than 100,000 new residents each year. The American Society of Civil Engineers will shortly release a report card of the condition of infrastructure in our state and it promises to be damning. If you started a spreadsheet of the deferred maintenance and growing infrastructure needs in transportation, water and sewer, public buildings like schools, communications, energy and main street revitalization you could easily total upwards of 100 billion dollars.

If my mentor, former State Treasurer Harlan Boyles, were still in office he would boldly state that now is the time for North Carolina to undertake a major public infrastructure improvement campaign. For starters, our unemployment rate is still 8.9 percent and, while dropping a little, there are far too many out of work. We’re told that every billion dollars spent in construction creates 28,000 jobs.

We have not seen in our history interest rates as low as today and bond financing, especially for states like ours with a Triple-A credit rating, has never been cheaper. We are still considered a low-debt state by rating agencies. Construction costs are also extremely attractive. Investing in public infrastructure will get NC moving forward, significantly lowering our unemployment rate while catching up to and investing in the public infrastructure our state needs in the near term.

The biggest opposition to such a campaign centers on how we will pay for these investments. By law debt service is the first expenditure our legislature must appropriate and our lawmakers would need to find some, but not all the money from economy in government. The new jobs created would ripple throughout our economy with resulting revenues through income, sales and other taxes.

Are we less bold and confident in our state’s future than those in our past who started the first public university or who saw the importance of roads, schools, water systems and other public infrastructure? It is time to get NC Moving Forward. Join the campaign.

Tune into NC SPIN this week as we discuss Tax Reform, Taking the political temperature, Sweepstakes donations and the Board of Elections and Consumer lending

Joining moderator Henry Hinton this week are Jeanne Bonds, Political Analyst, Chris Fitzsimon, Director of NC Policy Watch, Becki Gray, Columnist, Carolina Journal and John Hood, President, The John Locke Foundation

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