As Raleigh News & Observer columnist J. Peder Zane touted North Carolina’s recent economic growth this week, he quoted data and analysis from John Locke Foundation Chairman John Hood. The N&O also sought expert insights about public school dropout policies from JLF Director of Research and Education Studies Terry Stoops.

President and CEO Kory Swanson promoted JLF’s upcoming 25th anniversary celebration and offered a preview of the new First in Freedom initiative during an appearance on Talk Radio WPTF’s “Bill LuMaye Show.” Director of Communications Mitch Kokai guest hosts for LuMaye three days this week. Kokai also discussed the Republican Party’s diverse field of potential 2016 presidential candidates during an appearance with Demetri Ravanos on Talk Radio WPTF’s morning program.

Carolina Journal Managing Editor Rick Henderson and Carolina Journal Radio Co-Host Donna Martinez detailed the week’s top political developments for Curtis Media Group’s syndicated “People In Politics” radio program. Henderson discussed some of the year’s top CJ stories with Lockwood Phillips on WTKF’s “Viewpoints Radio.” JLF Vice President for Outreach Becki Gray continues twice-weekly politics and public policy updates for WTSB Radio.

The Yancey Common Times Journal reprinted CJ Executive Editor Don Carrington‘s report on a failed stimulus-funded project in Western North Carolina. The Richmond County Daily Journal quoted JLF Health and Human Services Policy Analyst Katherine Restrepo for an article about the potential impact of expanding Medicaid in North Carolina. (Katherine Restrepo, health and human services analyst for the John Locke Foundation, wrote in January that while the federal deal “sounds enticing … all is not what it seems.” “What this deal really means is that the federal government would be borrowing more money to fully fund an expansion for three years, taxing future generations and applying a stronger chokehold on the federal deficit,” she wrote, a statement she echoed in a telephone interview Wednesday. “Federal bureaucrats still have not learned that throwing more money at the problem does not solve it.”)

The Kernersville News published Vice President for Research and Resident Scholar Roy Cordato‘s column on government choosing health care winners and losers, Director of Regulatory Studies Jon Sanders‘ column on misguided government anti-poverty programs, and N.C. History Project Founding Director Troy Kickler‘s column on a congressional “fracas” during the nation’s early days.

N.C. Senate Republicans’ daily press email promoted Hood’s columns on liberals’ contradictory economic claims and the likely impact of North Carolina’s early presidential primary, Cordato’s column about government policies that hurt low-skilled workers, CJ Associate Editor Dan Way‘s article on the Compact for America’s push for a federal balanced budget amendment, Associate Editor Michael Lowrey‘s report on a court ruling dealing with easement enforcement, and Carolina Journal parodies targeting Gov. McCrory’s Christmas gift list and a new Farm to Lunchroom program coming to N.C. public schools.