All in Opinion
Oversight and transparency are issues The Wall Street Journal call DBI (Dull But Important). They aren’t as compelling as power grid seizures in Texas or censures of retiring lawmakers, but they’re essential to effective and accountable governance. Sadly, they’re ignored far too often.
Former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder drew glowing media attention last week as he gave the Weil Lecture on American Citizenship at the UNC School of Law. He vowed a new round of lawsuits challenging whatever form the next round of North Carolina congressional and legislative districts take unless they’re drawn to his satisfaction.
Taxing the income, sales, or property of a business is a means of paying for government services associated with that business activity. It pays for police, courts, and other means of protecting property and adjudicating disputes. It pays to train current workers and educate future ones. It helps pay for local streets and other infrastructure.
Twelve of 15 members of Congress from North Carolina missed more votes in 2020 than the median absences of their peers. In addition, both Tar Heel state U.S. senators outpaced most other senators for missed votes, a government watchdog reports.
I’ve never really been a victim of cancel culture. But that’s not to say my critics haven’t tried to make me one. I began my syndicated column in 1986. It ran initially in a couple of newspapers in eastern North Carolina, then spread to dozens of others over the ensuing decade. On several occasions, left-wing activists have tried to get editors to drop my column. It never worked. In my experience, local newspaper folks didn’t like obviously orchestrated attempts to dictate editorial decisions.
North Carolina’s heavy-fisted response to the coronavirus pandemic has resulted in a delayed economic recovery, reports from state and national economists show.
Due to GOP tax policy over the past decade, in other words, North Carolina’s state sales-tax burden went down, not up, by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Alas, some of this effect was offset by increases in county sales taxes. Who is responsible for those hikes? Democrats, overwhelmingly. Democratic politicians authorized those sales-tax referenda and Democratic voters were most likely to favor them.
Whatever happened to tax credits and tax deductions? How many more payments will people expect in the future before we declare the pandemic over? The utter reliance and potential household budgeting for future stimulus payments disincentivizes Americans from using their skills and creativity to find a way to meet their obligations. The unintended consequence of stimulus payments may very well be a methodical way of killing the American dream by taking away all incentives of hard work and individualism.
The COVID-19 crisis has brought death, economic destruction, and wrenching social change. As a combination of post-illness immunity and rising vaccinations begins to suppress the pandemic, we’re going to feel a powerful impulse to put as much of this horrendous experience as possible behind us.
When will North Carolina’s economy return to normal, or at least to a “new normal”? Unfortunately, that destination is many months away, if not years. Still, we’ll know we’re making progress when we can see the most damaging events of 2020 only in our rearview mirrors.
Among the many reasons the political discourse in Washington has gotten so toxic, and at the same time so unproductive, is that the legislative branch of our federal government has allowed itself to become increasingly irrelevant.
Shortly after taking office, President Joe Biden began revving up the federal government’s regulatory engine. He’s already run over the Keystone Pipeline. We can expect a pileup of other rules that will increase the cost of energy, food, and many other goods and services across our economy.
Now that Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress (however narrowly), they will probably approve a new round of federal borrowing to bail out state and local governments with shaky finances. In other words, Washington will punish North Carolina and other prudently governed states by saddling us with the cost of other states’ mistakes.
As North Carolina prepares to celebrate National School Choice Week Jan. 24-30, the cause of educational freedom could see even more advancement during the North Carolina General Assembly’s 2021-2022 session.
The N.C. Bar Owners Association, in a news release, says the N.C. ABC has canceled some 120 permits for private bars, without notice.
New research finds that federal regulation leads to an increase in deaths, and North Carolina is one of the states most affected.
As of January 18, North Carolina has received about a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Nearly 330,000 of those doses have been injected into the arms of North Carolinians. That may sound like a big number. But it’s not nearly big enough.
A new national study says that it appears safe to reopen schools for in-person instruction in counties with lower rates of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
