For the week of
July 20, 2012
- carolinajournal.com
Reaction of the Week
RALEIGH — North Carolina’s next set of
elected leaders can boost taxpayers’ job prospects, help educate their
children better, and protect them from overly high taxes and burdensome
regulations. The John Locke Foundation’s new Agenda 2012 Policy Report
offers more than 100 recommendations addressing these and other critical
public policy goals. (For a link to the document, click here.)
“During the 2012 campaign season, candidates for public office in North
Carolina are faced with a daunting task: developing informed positions
on dozens of public policy issues,” said Roy Cordato, JLF vice president
for research and resident scholar. “Agenda 2012 is designed to help
those candidates, with a series of recommendations that advance
individual liberty, personal responsibility, and a free-market economy.”
The latest in a series of Agenda reports published every two
years since 1996, this year’s edition offers more detailed analysis of a
wider range of topics, Cordato said. “We have 35 separate issue entries
covering about 66 pages of a more than 70-page document,” he said. “We
decided that it would be more useful to cover some issues with greater
specificity than in 2010.”
For example, JLF researchers have replaced a general discussion of tax
reform with separate items on North Carolina’s sales tax and personal
and corporate income taxes.
“North Carolina should adopt a sweeping reform of its personal income
tax,” Cordato said. “The current rate structure should be collapsed into
a single low, flat rate in order to diminish the bias against work
effort and self-improvement geared toward income advancement. Meanwhile,
the state should repeal the corporate income tax.”
News Features
CJ: Low turnout leads to call for runoff alternatives
RALEIGH — As North Carolina voters avoided the
voting booth by the millions on Tuesday, election officials and
academics called on the General Assembly to scrap the state’s expensive,
no-show runoff elections.
CJ: Education reforms made halting advances in short session
RALEIGH — The 2012 short session of the General
Assembly saw some proposed reforms to the public schools move forward,
while others lacked the political support to advance.
CJ: Randy Parton Theatre could become sweepstakes parlor and tavern
ROANOKE RAPIDS — The failed Randy Parton Theatre
may soon become an Internet gambling facility and bar. Plans for a
lease-to-buy deal for the financially ailing facility, now known as the
Roanoke Rapids Theater, could be announced within days. CJ: Durham considers cracking down on food trucks
DURHAM — The friendliest city to food trucks in
North Carolina may kick food trucks off its streets, or at least streets
where there are restaurants nearby. For the last several years, Durham has fostered one of the most popular “street food” scenes in the country. GOP lieutenant governor’s nod goes to Forest
RALEIGH
— Republican Dan Forest scored a convincing win Tuesday over fellow
Raleigh resident Tony Gurley for the right to run for lieutenant
governor in November as voters chose party nominees in a dozen Council
of State and legislative runoff races. Forest, an architect, had 68
percent of the vote compared to 32 percent for Gurley, a Wake County
commissioner.
Upcoming Events
Monday, July 23, 2012 at 12:00pm Noon
A meeting of the Shaftesbury Society
with our special guest Miguel Estrada
2012 Supreme Court Review
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Capital Quotes
“People through their actions have said they don’t care about second primaries.”
— Gary Bartlett, executive director of the state Board of Elections, talking to the Asheville Citizen-Times about Tuesday’s runoffs.
“I think it comes down to this. They wanted the merger, then they didn’t want it, then they couldn’t get out of it, then they didn’t want to get stuck with me as the person who dragged them into it.”
— Bill Johnson, former CEO of Progress Energy, as quoted by the Raleigh News & Observer explaining to the N.C. Utilities Commission why he was not retained as CEO of Duke Energy after the two companies merged.
“This is a big jigsaw puzzle.”
— Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore, talking to the Asheville Citizen-Times about the work needed to determine which cases involved state crime lab analysts who failed a certification test.
“Our communities are full of people who have turned their lives around.”
— Eddie Caldwell, spokesman for the North Carolina Sheriff's Association, commenting to the Fayetteville Observer on a new law that allows certain people convicted of nonviolent misdemeanors and low-level felony convictions to expunge the crimes from their records.
On The Air This Week…
This week on C J Radio…
Carolina Journal’s Rick Henderson discusses the DOT budget letter scandal and investigation; lawmakers debate merits of public-private transportation projects; Reps. Pat McElraft & Deborah Ross offer opposing views on a bill about regulation and sea level rise; George Mason University economist Donald Boudreaux explains how the world has been cleaned by capitalism; and JLF’s Terry Stoops discusses the market share held by school choice options.
This week on NC Spin…
Join moderator Tom Campbell
for another week of political discussion and debate on the most
intelligent television talk show in the state. Topics this week: Election news; coastal regulations; why you owe $15,000 to cover the state’s debt obligations; and the public schools’ choice of longer days or more days. This week’s panelists: John Hood, president of the John Locke Foundation; journalist Cash Michaels; political consultant Peg O’Connell; and political analyst Phil Kirk.
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