Regardless of whether you think the National Endowment for the Arts is a wonderful organization deserving taxpayer support or an example of the federal government exceeded its proper bounds, I'm willing to bet you believe the NEA plays a bigger role in funding the arts than it actually does.
Published: Friday, January 22nd, 2016 @ 10:55 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Is unemployment ever voluntary? I don't ask the question in order to blame unemployed people for their fate. On the contrary, understanding the full range of causes of unemployment is required before policymakers can effectively combat it.
Published: Wednesday, January 20th, 2016 @ 2:51 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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It may be hard to believe given the results of this fall's municipal elections, but not so long ago Republicans competed effectively with Democrats for political offices in North Carolina's largest cities.
Published: Tuesday, January 12th, 2016 @ 4:33 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Two recent media reports have cast a spotlight on the potential "pay to play" problem with government contractors who are also donors to political campaigns.
Published: Monday, January 11th, 2016 @ 1:58 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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North Carolina is about to run a political experiment. You and other potential voters will determine its outcome.
Published: Monday, January 11th, 2016 @ 12:38 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Pat McCrory, Roy Cooper, Richard Burr, and many other confirmed or potential candidates for statewide office in North Carolina have plans. They have strategies. They have backers, and staffers, and plenty of ideas for how best to win their elections in November of 2016.
Published: Saturday, January 9th, 2016 @ 12:25 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Over the past 12 months, North Carolina has experienced faster income growth than the rest of the country, regardless of whether that growth is measured as average income per person or median income by household.
Published: Friday, January 8th, 2016 @ 11:44 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Over the next 12 months, expect to hear a great deal about the "Carolina Comeback." It will be the reelection theme for Gov. Pat McCrory and other Republican leaders.
Published: Thursday, January 7th, 2016 @ 7:11 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Over the past five years, North Carolina has become a more attractive place to work, live, invest, and do business.
Published: Thursday, January 7th, 2016 @ 3:41 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The election night tally back in 1988 showed that Jim Martin was the first Republican to win re-election as governor of North Carolina in the 20th century
Published: Wednesday, January 6th, 2016 @ 10:09 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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When the Affordable Care Act passed Congress in 2010, analysts from the Congressional Budget Office, the federal agency overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, and private-sector allies released estimates for how many Americans would enroll in ACA-exchange plans over the ensuing years
Published: Tuesday, January 5th, 2016 @ 8:45 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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Frustrated by how long it takes for a good idea, or even just a passable one, to gain traction and momentum in today's Washington, D.C.
Published: Tuesday, October 27th, 2015 @ 11:25 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Did you hear that 15 percent of North Carolina's public schoolteachers left the profession last year, and that conditions are so bad that teachers are leaving our state in droves to teach somewhere else?
Published: Tuesday, October 27th, 2015 @ 3:09 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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"Prediction is very difficult," said physicist Niels Bohr, "especially if it's about the future."
Published: Friday, October 23rd, 2015 @ 12:17 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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While North Carolina's unemployment rate currently stands at just under 6 percent, some argue that problems in the state's labor market are worse than that one statistic would indicate.
Published: Monday, October 12th, 2015 @ 2:26 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Republicans' recent success in North Carolina politics can be traced in many ways to the example set by Jim Martin. That's one of the key themes of a new biography focusing on the state's only two-term GOP governor of the 20th century.
Published: Thursday, October 1st, 2015 @ 1:35 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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I have a theory about presidential politics and the 2016 election. It has the virtue of fitting much of the data currently available. Another of the theory's virtues is that it can readily generate a couple of plausible scenarios for how the primary season may play out among...
Published: Tuesday, September 29th, 2015 @ 4:53 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Anyone who writes or comments about politics will make predictions that fail to come true. I certainly have.
Published: Monday, September 28th, 2015 @ 5:19 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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As a longtime observer of the North Carolina legislature, I have a pet peeve: lawmakers, lobbyists, and reporters alike focus too much attention on the General Fund of the state budget, those expenditures funded largely by state taxes on incomes and retail sales.
Published: Friday, September 25th, 2015 @ 11:55 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Think politics has taken a nasty turn? You're certainly not alone. Too many politicians and activists resort too often to personal insults and the character assassination of their adversaries rather than crafting, articulating, and defending a substantive agenda for addressing difficult issues...
Published: Tuesday, September 22nd, 2015 @ 10:46 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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At this moment, political leaders and strategists in both the North Carolina Democratic and Republican parties are concocting the same kind of fantasy — that they'll be able to wall off their state and local candidates from a potential disaster at the top of the ticket.
Published: Wednesday, September 16th, 2015 @ 1:59 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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As North Carolina's legislative session (presumably) winds down over the next couple of weeks, it seems increasingly unlikely that the cap on state spending growth and other provisions of the proposed Taxpayer Protection Act will pass this year. The Senate approved the measure a few weeks ago...
Published: Sunday, September 13th, 2015 @ 9:56 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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After a lengthy and often messy process of both public and private negotiations, leaders of the North Carolina House and Senate appear to be on the cusp of completing a state spending plan for the 2015-17 budget biennium.
Published: Friday, September 11th, 2015 @ 11:46 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Remember the old tale about a drunken man crawling around under a lamppost? Dating at least as far back as 1924, the joke starts off with a police officer approaching the drunk to ask what he's looking for. In earlier versions of the joke, it's a dollar bill. In later versions, it's a set of car...
Published: Wednesday, September 2nd, 2015 @ 3:29 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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After months of speculation and handwringing among Democrats, the party is finally fielding candidates to take on Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr in 2016. The potential aspirants include state Rep. Duane Hall of Raleigh, former state Rep. Deborah Ross of Raleigh, and Chris Rey, mayor of the...
Published: Sunday, August 23rd, 2015 @ 1:31 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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The North Carolina Senate has approved a Taxpayer Protection Act by the required three-fifths vote. The measure approves amending the North Carolina Constitution to place caps on income-tax rates and spending growth while requiring lawmakers to set aside money in a rainy-day fund to guard against...
Published: Saturday, August 22nd, 2015 @ 3:35 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Was the 2014 Senate race between Democratic incumbent Kay Hagan and Republican victor Thom Tillis really the most expensive race in North Carolina history, or in the country's entire election cycle last year?
Published: Monday, August 17th, 2015 @ 5:21 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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Are you an epicurean? The answer to this question reveals something about you, something about the English language, and something about the power of propaganda.
Published: Saturday, August 15th, 2015 @ 5:52 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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If you ever thought that complaining about the tax system was a modern phenomenon, I can disabuse you of the notion in two sentences.
Published: Tuesday, August 11th, 2015 @ 2:55 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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There was absolutely nothing surprising about the North Carolina Supreme Court's 4-3 decision to uphold the constitutionality of the state's new Opportunity Scholarship program. The outcome was welcome. The lack of surprise was disappointing.
Published: Monday, July 27th, 2015 @ 5:33 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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As someone who views constitutional government as a basic institution of freedom, and constitutions as wielding near-divine authority, I retain what to some might be a surprising or even cavalier openness to constitutional amendment.
Published: Thursday, July 16th, 2015 @ 4:47 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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In many ways, Republicans and Democrats live in different worlds. I've made the point before that the Internet, while greatly beneficial in many ways, has allowed political factions to retreat into cocoons of news, analysis, and commentary where their preconceived notions are continuously...
Published: Tuesday, July 7th, 2015 @ 3:38 am
By: John Locke Foundation
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In nearly three decades of writing a syndicated column on North Carolina politics and government, I've always received reader response.
Published: Saturday, July 4th, 2015 @ 12:29 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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The state of North Carolina has begun its 2015-16 fiscal year with a continuing resolution instead of a budget. While it would certainly have been better if lawmakers and Gov. Pat McCrory had inked a formal budget by now, the situation could be much worse.
Published: Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 @ 5:48 pm
By: John Locke Foundation
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