Innovators move fast, but bureaucracies are slow, and regulations to protect consumers can make them worse off by protecting old ways from new products and services. Legislation would bring regulatory sandboxes to NC, which waive certain regulatory obstacles on a trial period for fast-emerging products and services, helping speed innovation in a way that benefits consumers and the economy.
SB 689 would take up recent Locke recommendations for broadband expansion. It would charge broadband providers fairer rates for utility-pole attachments, including the net book value of any pole needing replacement, and expedite resolution by the NC Utilities Commission of any pole-attachment disputes.
The obvious societal need for rural broadband signals opportunities for human ingenuity in the private sector. State policymakers should continue to focus on removing regulatory barriers to enable more rapid expansion by broadband entrepreneurs.
The federal Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has just published a rule inspired and informed in part by a significant regulatory reform in North Carolina long promoted by the John Locke Foundation: sunset with periodic review.
Cooper's corporate welfare tally for 2020 is jaw-dropping: $519.3 million pledged to just 48 corporations. Supposedly that would lead to 11,600 new jobs, which is only about one-nineteenth the number of jobs destroyed in a year (222,300).
Citing "mediocre" transportation infrastructure, a report from a state government commission wants North Carolina to increase transportation spending by 40 percent over the next decade. To critics, it sounds like another taxpayer bailout of a poorly run state agency.
Back in September, a survey of Raleigh businesses conducted by Shop Local Raleigh found that 60 percent of small businesses in Raleigh were threatened with closure. That same month…
If large-scale in-class instruction does not resume until January 2021, the average student will have fallen behind by the equivalent of seven months of learning. For low-income, black, and Hispanic students, the loss may be much greater.
What is going on? Isn't Cooper supposed to be a staunch opponent of corporate tax breaks? Why is he pledging millions of dollars of state money to corporations, and why so much to so few?
Could Cooper callously continue to play favorites with individual corporations at the exact same time he was putting hundreds upon hundreds of small businesses at risk of closings, bankruptcies, and ruin? Yes. Of course. At several levels worse than last year, even.
