NC SPIN Posts by John Hood

Agency mergers can bring benefits

The past six years have brought significant change in North Carolina government and policy. Conservatives tend to like the budget restraint, tax cuts, school choice initiatives, and other reforms that...    Read More

by John Hood   |   May 8, 2017

Swing voters are not all alike

Sports analogies are overused in political analysis, I admit. But for some purposes, there’s no better description than the example of two teams squaring off in a ball game. In North Carolina...    Read More

by John Hood   |   May 5, 2017

Caution needed on state budget

While North Carolina legislators and Gov. Roy Cooper haven’t yet received the report on state income taxes paid or refunded by the April deadline, they shouldn’t count on a positive “April...    Read More

by John Hood   |   April 28, 2017


Don't fear robot invasion

A common theme unifying recent debates about tax reform in North Carolina and in Washington is the idea that the punitive tax treatment of business investment is a bad idea — because it discourages...    Read More

by John Hood   |   April 21, 2017

Impact fee policy needs clarity

If anything useful can be said to have come out of the House Bill 2 controversy, it would be a broader understanding of how limited the powers of local governments are in our state. Before the dispute...    Read More

by John Hood   |   April 14, 2017

Learning and winning go together

The first time I visited the campus of Duke University, I did so because Rand Paul asked me to. It was during the 1988 presidential election. Like many conservative and libertarian students of the day...    Read More

by John Hood   |   April 7, 2017


Left doubles down on double standard

Dr. James Otteson, a business school professor at Wake Forest University, came up with an intriguing idea. What if he brought together a group of faculty, students, and outside scholars to explore how...    Read More

by John Hood   |   March 31, 2017

School reform requires strong leaders

My father was Darth Vader. No, that doesn’t make me a Jedi Knight. My father was also Boss Hogg and a range of other bad guys. During his nearly two decades as principal of North Carolina’s...    Read More

by John Hood   |   March 24, 2017

Cooper is in weaker position

Newly elected Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper gave his first State of the State address on March 13. The longtime leader of the North Carolina Senate, Phil Berger, gave the Republican response. Both men...    Read More

by John Hood   |   March 17, 2017


Political ads remain key tool

Despite being vastly outspent by the campaign and supporters of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump won the 2016 election. Some are suggesting that the outcome has transformed the practice of American...    Read More

by John Hood   |   March 13, 2017