Heard on the Street Posted: Thursday, February 12th, 2009 Show me the love?
Not a lot of love being shown around the old Tar Heel State today. Too many worried folks. Where is brother cupid when we need him?
An old dog learns new tricks
Stump, a 10 year-old Sussex spaniel came out of retirement to win best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club last week. The champ, almost 70 in people years (how do they know that?), is co-owned by Beth Moore from Southern Pines. Is he going to Disney World?
Emerging Issues Forum a success
This week’s Emerging Issues Forum was perhaps the most successful in the 24 year history of this event. Keynote Speakers Senator Chris Dodd and columnist David Brooks were great. There were some good breakout sessions and the Congressional panel featuring Heath Shuler, David Price, and G.K. Butterfield was worth hearing.
When there were crises most believed former Governor Jim Hunt was at his best. Our state is in crisis and Hunt lived up to his reputation, exhorting the crowd to “gut it out” while also encouraging state leaders to be bold and think big.
Hunt did take a dig at the News and Observer Tuesday morning, noting from the platform to Rob Christensen that his paper hadn’t given any significant coverage to the previous days’ event in Tuesday’s paper. Tis a pity, too, because those in attendance will agree it was well worth being there.
Of significant interest was the Shuler, Price, Butterfield discussion, later joined in the press room by Congressman Bob Etheridge. The bottom line was that none were especially overjoyed by the stimulus package. All but Shuler were trying to put the best face on it. Congressman Bob Etheridge summed it up to your reporter saying, “You’ve got to remember that legislation is the art of the possible,” meaning that you frequently have to vote for less than the ideal in order to get something passed.
Shuler was downright critical, noting that it contained less than 15 percent for infrastructure stimulus. The tax cut, he said, amounted to $9.85 per week per taxpayer, nowhere near enough to jump start spending. He referred to the $600 IRS refund taxpayers received last year under President Bush, nothing that our government borrowed the money from China so that people spend their money in Wal Mart, a company that buys much of its merchandise from China, thereby returning the money to the Chinese.
Most of the people we talked with at the Forum didn’t think the stimulus package would be much of a stimulus to North Carolina.
Shuler announced to the crowd that another stimulus package will be forthcoming, essentially an admission that the first one won’t do the trick. When pressed for details, the Congressman couldn’t provide any, but we hear the new package could be proposed as early as the second or third week in March and will likely to be around $500 billion. We were told this stimulus really is going for infrastructure, meaning roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, schools, and high speed Internet service.
Because there was so little meaningful news coverage of this event and we believe Senator Chris Dodd’s keynote speech contained some worthwhile thoughts, we are providing, in more detail than normal, highlights from his speech at the end of this column. We encourage you to read it, beginning with the heading “Setting the tone.”
And for more discussion on infrastructure and the impact of the stimulus package on North Carolina, be sure to catch this week’s NC SPIN show.
While in the mode of shameless self-promotion, one of the break-out sessions at the Forum was on clean water. We wrote this week’s My Spin column on the subject. Read it and give us your feedback.
Perdue vacation criticized
Governor Beverly Perdue has been criticized for taking a vacation in the Virgin Islands during the worst recession in more than 30 years. What’s the big deal, supporters are asking? There is absolutely nothing going on at the legislature (true) and the federal stimulus package is not resolved, so why not take some time off while you can?
Buzz on the street is that the state’s leader is sending the wrong message. One suggested we might see a TV ad like this in three years when she stands for re-election:
“North Carolina was experiencing the worst economic crisis in modern times. Where was Governor Perdue? Instead of being on the job she was vacationing in the Caribbean only one month after taking office. North Carolina needs a fulltime Governor.”
Maybe, maybe not. It is true that the Governor needs to be preparing her budget proposals to send to the legislature soon. Agency heads are purportedly at work deciding what to cut and what to include in the upcoming document. Perdue promised to be a hands-on executive and this trip, at best, is ill timed.
Perdue rejoins Womble
We hear that Governor Perdue’s son Garrett has rejoined the Womble Carlyle law firm in Raleigh. The UNC law school grad had specialized in real estate but we hear he might be involved in lobbying in his new capacity.
Realtors 24 – Transfer Tax 0
The state’s realtors defeated the latest transfer tax proposal in Avery County, even though initial reports indicated they may have lost. The vote took place during a snowstorm. Most officials went home and the vote total appeared to give the proponents of the transfer tax a 25 vote victory. We’re told a precinct worker mistakenly transposed the numbers called into the county Board of Elections. The mistake was caught and rectified, giving the opponents of the transfer tax a 35 vote victory.
Memo to ALL local officials: The Real Estate Transfer tax is dead. Save your breath. Save your money. Get a clue.
Pricey on the cutting edge
Greensboro’s Representative Pricey Harrison gets the award for introducing the most controversial legislation so far in this session.
Harrison co-sponsored a bill that would eliminate the in-state tuition fees for athletes in the UNC System. If passed the savings could amount to $11 million per year at a time when every dollar counts and symbolic steps to cut unnecessary spending would do much to restore public confidence.
Democracy North Carolina reported that a UNC Chapel Hill boosters group gave more than $900,000, mostly to legislators, over the past two years. A similar group from NC State only gave $100,000.
First rule of government: Follow the dollars!
(PS – Next Week’s NC SPIN will talk about this measure)
The Greensboro Democrat has also introduced a bill that would require that state’s auto emission standards be raised, a bill that has the auto dealers’ boxers in a wad.
Are they joking?
Is our legislature going to seriously debate the wisdom of text messaging while driving? How about performing surgery, welding, or writing novels?
No Mas
Lo and behold the city of Fayetteville felt they weren’t doing enough for Goodyear Tire and Rubber and gave them $1 million tax dollars to upgrade their plant and keep jobs. Wasn’t this the same Goodyear Tire and Rubber that our state just gave $40 million for essentially the same purposes?
Many business owners are asking themselves which line you have to get in to get these generous handouts. Any entity, public or private, that has too much money on hand can send it to NC SPIN forthwith. We promise we will be appropriately appreciative and promise we will retain our jobs.
State Employees want more
In a time when the state budget is $2 billion in the red, the state health plan needs $1 billion, and people are losing jobs and causing our Unemployment insurance funds to run out, it was reassuring to see that the State Employee Association of North Carolina came forward with their annual wish list. They stated clearly that they are not willing to pay premiums for their own health insurance and will not accept increased premiums for dependents, reduced coverage, or increased co-pays as part of a solution to fix the generous health insurance plan they receive. Oh, and they want a pay increase this year, too.
Governor Perdue, taking time out from her vacation, issued a statement saying she would not support forcing the state employees to pay premiums for their own insurance coverage and would veto any bill that contained such a provision. Can anyone remember who the state employees supported for governor last year?
Shot on the bus
A bizarre story from Wake County involves the shooting of a 14 year-old middle school student on a state school bus. The 22 pistol was in the book bag of his friend and accidentally went off. The father of the student is charged.
Meanwhile, students at NC State are demonstrating to get permission to carry concealed weapons on campus.
Are Wyatt and the Earps forming a posse or something down by the O.K. corral? We get it. Everyone has the right to bear arms, even 14 year-old middle schoolers and sleep-deprived college students.
10 Days and Counting
Our legislature has now met ten days. No significant legislation has passed. Last time we heard, it cost about $60,000 per day for them to be in session.
Take heart. Our lawmakers will be healthy. Health care providers and health departments came to the legislature to offer screenings yesterday at Legislative Heart Health Day. Evidently, taking little action puts a lot of stress on a heart.
Let’s be fair. Both the Senate and the House have gotten around to appointing committee chairs. Everybody knows that the first thing you have to do when a bunch of people get together is pass rules, select chairs, than spend a lot of time talking about what you are going to do.
Setting the tone
Governor Hunt and Anita Brown-Graham, Director for the Institute for Emerging Issues, quickly put the crowd on notice this wasn’t another touchy-feely good old boy event, noting that North Carolina was growing by 21 people per hour and we would have another 4 million residents by 2030, making us the 7th most populous state in the nation. Not only are we not taking care of our present infrastructure, but we are not planning ahead to meet the challenges of 2030. We need $65 billion for transportation, $17 billion for water and sewer and at least $10 billion to build new schools.
We were struck by Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd’s keynote address. This Connecticut Yankee minced few words in laying the case for the national infrastructure imperative.
Dodd reminded those in attendance of several transformational moments in our nation’s history. He reported that in 1825 the Erie Canal was completed, offering boat transportation from New York to the Great Lakes and that the project took 100 years to complete. In 1844, Samuel F.B. Morse sent a message from the offices Dodd now occupies in Washington, opening the country to instant communications with the code words “What hath God wrought.” In 1861 at Promontory Point, Utah the final spike was driven for an intercontinental railroad and interstate commerce. In 1935, President Franklin Roosevelt helped light up homes across the nation with the Rural Electrification Administration. And in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower, who had been mightily impressed by the German Autobahn, signed into law the beginning of what became this nation’s Interstate Highway system that would take decades to complete, cost over $400 billion and construct 46,000 miles of highways.
Dodd said that these projects were bold, showed great vision, were often criticized for being too expensive but that our nation has always had the wisdom and courage to embrace investments that benefited our people.
He reminded the group that our nation is losing 20,000 jobs per day, enduring 9,000 foreclosures per day and watching the lowest confidence levels of our people since the Great Depression.
Dodd said our transportation system was inferior and crumbling. It also creates the largest single carbon footprint in the nation. Our leadership is not being accountable or transparent. Our politics are small, he said and our ambitions are even smaller.
He noted that we spend 2.4 percent of our Gross Domestic Product on infrastructure but the Europeans are spending twice as much. The Chinese, he reported, are spending 9 percent, including the largest railway expansion in the history of the world.
He was speaking in his home state a few days before the forum encouraging the crowd to be bold in visioning new infrastructure. One of his constituents stood and suggested a way to greatly decrease the length of time it took to transport goods from Europe to Asia by an International Freight Corridor that would run from Long Beach California to Wilmington, North Carolina.
Dodd asked, “Where are today’s Erie Canals?”
The Senator proposed that the federal government create a capital budget in addition to the operating budget of this nation. He also proposed a National Infrastructure Bank to provide funding for important infrastructure projects. It would have a national board and leverage private capital for public projects of regional/national scope.
Dodd reported a recent survey that 4 out of 5 people were willing to pay more taxes if they could be assured that money would be spent wisely. That’s the problem, he said. They don’t believe it will be.
He continued his remarks by saying that America spent $430 billion buying foreign oil last year. He proposed a major rail initiative with a goal of taking 80 percent of the long-haul trucks off our highways. He questioned whether we can summon the national will to do this.
Senator Dodd concluded his remarks by saying that when FDR initiated the New Deal he put people back to work, built many public buildings, and helped many who needed assistance. But Dodd reminded the audience that the biggest thing FDR did was to restore the confidence of the American people.
Dodd said this was the very best moment for us to get this right and restore confidence but that the window was closing.
If time permits we will report more on the Emerging Issues Forum next week, including the humorous and insightful remarks by the Mayor of London. ");
ob_end_flush();
?>
|
