All tagged john hood
RALEIGH — Put me down as entirely unsurprised that media companies are adding commercials back into their streaming services as a means of making them profitable. Advertising has never been as unpopular as its critics imagine — a truth that North Carolina policymakers should embrace as they try to finance new infrastructure without irritating taxpayers.
RALEIGH — Brace yourself. The arrival of Labor Day traditionally begins the homestretch of electoral campaigns. You may well join millions of fellow voters in utter exhaustion with the politics of 2024. But I promise you the candidates and their surrogates are raring to run this final leg of the race.
Now that fall term has begun for most colleges and universities, we’re about to witness one of the most predictable phenomena in modern American politics: for every raucous or violent campus protest that gets significant media attention, Democratic candidates will lose voters.
Four years ago, communities in North Carolina and beyond were reeling from the COVID-induced Great Suppression. After spiking into double digits in April 2020, the state’s headline jobless rate was still a painful 7.3% by August, with some 376,000 fewer North Carolinians employed than on the eve of the pandemic.
RALEIGH — Before the United States had a Congress, North Carolina had a Congress — and this week marks its 250th birthday.
RALEIGH — If you look at North Carolina’s state flag, you’ll see two dates: May 20, 1775 and April 12, 1776. Each signifies a moment when North Carolinians played a key role in the emerging American Revolution. Each strengthens the claim that our state was, in this context, “First in Freedom.”
RALEIGH — I have no idea who will be elected president this November. Respectfully, neither do you.
During each election cycle, we are treated to an endless parade of politicians extolling freedom. Given how many of them subsequently vote to restrict our freedom in myriad ways, we have ample reason to be skeptical about politicians.
RALEIGH — Having spent most of my career commissioning, editing, or writing about public policy research, I understand its inherent limitations. Still, I cling to a belief, however naïve it may be, that careful study of complex problems can produce at least some clear answers that most policymakers will accept.
RALEIGH — As we once again celebrate our country’s birthday, might I suggest we spare a moment to consider our state’s role in the dramatic story of American independence?
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s private sector lost an eye-popping 414,000 jobs in the most-recent quarter tracked by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Are we on the brink of economic cataclysm? Should you buy gold and head for the hills?
What does it mean to be free? Many seemingly intractable disputes about specific issues — ranging from welfare spending and school choice to abortion and alcohol policy — originate from the fact that people don’t answer this question in the same way. It’s hard to have a useful political conversation without a common political language.
RALEIGH — A little over a year ago, I penned a column using polling data to explore why North Carolinians appeared to favor Republicans over Democrats in generic-ballot tests.
“No, it isn’t just because of unfair redistricting,” I wrote. “Nor is it a lack of resources. North Carolina Democrats have raised and spent lots of money on races they still ended up losing. What I mean is that, on many of the public’s top concerns, Democrats lack credibility with the swing voters they need to prevail.”
I acknowledge that one politician’s “wasteful spending” may be another politician’s “strategic investment.” Still, I suspect state Sen. Phil Berger got it right when he blamed the slow start of this year’s budget negotiations on lawmakers’ lack of focus on truly state responsibilities.
