On Friday, May 22, The John Locke Foundation released its public policy guide for recovering from the fallout of the coronavirus outbreak. The policy guide focusses on four primary areas of concern: fiscal, health care, education, and regulatory policies. In the introduction, written by our CEO Amy O. Cooke, she explains:

We answer this critical question: what does winning public policy look like in the post COVID-19 world?

Several things we know:

  • We must expand healthcare capacity
  • We must allow parents more options for educating their children
  • We must make permanent the relaxation of regulations that we know we’re never needed in the first place
  • We must protect to North Carolina taxpayers from an unaffordable expansion of government in both size and scope so they can invest more of their hard-earned dollars to create new jobs

 Here are some of the many recommendations in the report:

  • Reduce spending immediately.
  • Amend the state constitution to limit spending, debt, and taxes.
  • Eliminate caps on charter schools.
  • Incentivize districts to adopt open enrollment plans and create magnet schools.
  • Expand broadband access to underserved communities.
  • Allow for telehealth across state lines.
  • Repeal Certificate of Need (CON)
  • Adopt regulatory budgeting and institute a Red Tape Reduction Commission to find and get rid of costly, unneeded old rules.

The report reads:

JLF’s director of Regulatory Studies, Jon Sanders, nailed it early on in the coronavirus crisis when he wrote, “This isn’t a fight we expected, but know this: It’s a war a free society is uniquely geared to win.”

We can’t stop every crisis from happening, be we can create an atmosphere of freedom that encourages creativity and innovation to lessen the impact and win the recovery. That’s Carolina Rebound.

Read the full report above. Read more of our pro-freedom policy solution at the John Locke Foundation website here.