On the last Thursday in March, the air horns returned to the governor’s mansion in Raleigh, N.C. There were about 75 of them, and they belonged to the Air Horn Orchestra, an ad hoc ensemble of... Read More
The final budget that lawmakers have proposed fails to strengthen the foundation of North Carolina’s public schools. While the public schools area of the budget seems to have a lot going on – one... Read More
Representatives from the North Carolina House and Senate released their “compromise” budget bill Monday evening. Total spending in the plan comes to $23.03 billion, slightly more than the... Read More
I have just spent a couple of hours trying to negotiate the State Health Plan eligibility exercise and am still steaming about the difficulty I had following its directions. Others may have a better... Read More
by Paul O'Connor, The Insider, published in The Salisbury Post, June 22, 2017. Decades from now, the most enduring and defining mark of this Republican legislature may well be charter schools. In... Read More
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a Wisconsin redistricting case and consider whether partisan gerrymandering is constitutional. In the past, the courts have deferred on answering whether... Read More
Several generations of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill students studied our state’s history under Dr. Hugh Talmage Lefler using his book, " The History of a Southern State North Carolina... Read More
Editorial from Asheville Citizen-Times, June 19, 2017. North Carolina lags behind most states in child welfare. We can and must do better. The annual Kids Count Data book uses 16 indicators to rank... Read More
North Carolina’s fiscal policy is relatively strong when compared to much of the country. A 2017 survey by the National Association of State Budget Officers found state governments have... Read More
Since the beginning of this year, there have been no net new jobs created in North Carolina. In fact, using the latest data from the monthly survey of employers, there were about 2,200 fewer filled... Read More
