Policy Report

An increased use of the innovative health care delivery model called Direct Primary Care could lead to better outcomes for treatment of patients with chronic diseases, and that could mean…

“Green” school buildings in North Carolina fall far short of their promises to protect the environment through lower energy costs and increased efficiency.

Model Resolution on Regulatory Overcriminalization

In the last two years, academics and scholars of public policy have identified North Carolina as a state with an overly complex criminal code that can ensnare small businesses, farmers, and individuals who unknowingly fail to comply with regulatory rules. In 2014, Professor Jeff Welty of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government published an article in the North Carolina Law Review, “Overcriminalization in North Carolina”; and James Copland and Isaac Gorodetski, directors respectively of the Center for Legal Policy and the Center for State and Local Leadership at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, published a primer, “Overcriminalizing the Old North State.”

The John Locke Foundation has a long-standing interest in the Map Act, which we have criticized for being “inefficient, unfair, and unnecessary.” We have repeatedly urged the General Assembly to repeal or reform it. We have also taken a keen interest in Kirby v. NCDOT and in the legal and constitutional issues that it raises.

This paper therefore proposes a state-based REINS Act as a key sunrise provision to prevent adding unnecessary and harmful regulations to the state’s regulatory burden. It describes aspects of a REINS Act for North Carolina.

This report is an attempt to identify the scope and cost of regulations in the state of North Carolina. The state’s record is mixed in terms of regulatory burden. One prominent index ranks North Carolina fifth in the nation when it comes to business friendliness. In contrast, the John Locke Foundation’s “First in Freedom Index” ranks North Carolina 36th in “regulatory freedom.”

By The Numbers provides information on how much local government costs in every city and county in North Carolina.

Between FY 2009 and FY 2014, 81 out of North Carolina’s 100 counties participated in economic development activities. Counties entered into 776 contracts worth nearly $284 million in incentives over the five-year period. Actual payments, however, totaled $144 million.

The John Locke Foundation is continuing its tradition, started in 1995, of offering an alternative to the governor’s budget recommendation. Consistent with prior years, this JLF budget focuses on core government. This budget spends less in both years of the biennium than the governor’s, and only increases spending by 2 percent from the last fiscal year.