John Locke Updates: Fiscal Insight

You may have missed the news that North Carolina government had higher revenue and lower spending than budgeted for the third year in a row. When government takes in…

Have you ever wondered why people are not convinced by your arguments to get government out of the business of trying to fix a problem because its interventions only cause…

“Amazon is doing great damage to tax paying retailers. Towns, cities and states throughout the U.S. are being hurt – many jobs being lost!” – President Donald Trump Setting aside…

Americans spent 2.6 percent more on goods and services after adjusting for inflation in the three months through June than in the same period a year ago, but…

France began construction of the Maginot Line in the 1930s as a line of defenses against possible German invasion. The most heavily fortified section of the line ended just east…

It’s a tale of two state budget pictures. A new report from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University compares North Carolina’s fiscal solvency to those of other states. Meanwhile,…

Since nonpartisan staff at the General Assembly presented a five-year projection of spending and taxes, editorials and comments from state legislators make it clear that long-term estimates of spending and…

By now you know the major points of the state budget: it spends $23 billion in the first year and $23.6 billion in the second year, reduces the tax rates…

It is easy to become complacent, to think that things now are as they always have been and always will be. But as Heraclitus and Disney’s Pocahontas both remind us,…

Pay for teachers and other state employees has generated headlines in news coverage of the budget this year, in part because there have been no legislative salary increases in five…