Civitas Review Online

After seeing many other states and nations successfully construct new toll roads and bridges through public-private partnerships (PPPs), North Carolina has finally decided to take that step and hop on the bandwagon.  The N&O reports that NC has signed a preliminary agreement to have a private company build a new toll bridge to the outer banks.

A wise choice.  Civitas has often advocated NC explore this possibility.

But one thing in the article really jumped out at me.  This quote from NC Turnpike Authority executive director David Joyner:

If the private sector knows how to do these things quicker, cheaper and more efficiently, why are we not building ALL toll roads this way?

PPP's should be further explored as a way for NC to build new infrastructure capacity.  It allows each project to be deemed worthy on a cost-benefit basis, it gets new roads built, and it relieves the taxpayers from constantly being on the hook for funding new projects (taxpayers are committing $25 million per year to the yet to be built Triangle Expressway).

HOV or HOT lanes could be added to I-95, I-40, I-85 or I-77 this way (as Virginia is doing with the I-495 Capitol Beltway).  New bypasses and toll roads could all be built, run and maintained by private companies, freeing the state to use existing resources on maintaining our crumbling infrastructure.

All in all, a step in the right direction for the often maligned NC DOT.

Our poll this month has incumbent US Senator Richard Burr holding onto a slim one point lead over potential Democratic challenger, Attorney General Roy Cooper 35% to 34%.  32% of voters say they are undecided at this point.

We also asked favorability ratings of each.

Burr has 33% favorable, 18% unfavorable for a net +15 favorability rating.
49.5% of voters either had no opinion or had never heard of Burr.

For Cooper, he has 28% favorable, 8% unfavorable for a net of +20.
64% of voters either had no opinion or had never heard of Cooper.

So basically, the status quo continues to rule this race.  It's a toss up, and probably still will be so until one of the two starts advertising.  But since neither candidate is well known, it's a pretty good barometer of the generic ballot tendencies of NC voters.

Full results and crosstabs here.

If you want to follow how the federal stimulus dollars are being spent in North Carolina without the government spin, check out www.ncopenrecovery.com.

This new site is run by Capitol Monitor, "an organization which seeks to promote a better understanding of state
government through increased transparency."

Capitol Monitor President Perri Morgan says that her organization's website will be less confusing than the one created by Gov. Perdue's office. As Morgan explained in a press release:

A very cool feature put together by Capital Monitor is this chart that summarizes the projects being financed along with juicy details including the company getting the work, their campaign contributions to Perdue in the last few years, and the representatives from the districts getting the jobs.

Check it out.

Once again, the media and the government have over sensationalized a non-issue with this swine flu panic and “epidemic.” Why would I call it a non-issue? The Centers for Disease Control told me. Well, not directly, but I did take a peek at their webpage on influenza.

“Each flu season is unique, but it is estimated that, on average, approximately 5% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu, and more than 200,000 persons are hospitalized for flu-related complications each year. About 36,000 Americans die on average per year from the complications of flu.”

Thirty-six thousand people die from garden-variety influenza. There has been 91 cases of swine flu and only one swine-flu related death in the United States (and this was a Mexican citizen). I am not sure this could warrant a comparison between the two.

There is, however, a message to be learned throughout this debacle. I can only say that we must always investigate any supposed pandemic brought before us by the media and government, generally as an excuse to “temporarily” increase government size and spending.  It’s not a crazy conspiracy, it’s just politics.  As Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Think about that the next time you wake up and debate donning a surgical mask on your commute.

Below: A fearless young lad defies the CDC’s warnings.

Let me take you waaaay back to April 21, 2009, just one short week before Gov. Perdue announced the budget deficit was much worse than originally thought (now $3.3 billion).

According to N&O Under the Dome, Perdue told a gathering of NFIB:

Gov. Beverly Perdue said the early news on the April 15 tax returns is that the state revenue picture is better than expected.

After being briefed this morning by budget director Charles Perusse, Perdue said she was told that sales tax revenues for the last quarter are "fairly good" or "not as bad as it could have been," Rob Christensen reports.

"Better than expected."

So was she "expecting" a $4 billion deficit and just not telling anyone?  Or did her budget office not count correctly?

Either way the public was not well served.

Somehow, the deficit is $1 billion bigger than it was last week and either she didn't see it coming or she didn't give the public the full picture of how bad things really were.  Either way, it stinks to high heaven.

It makes one have to ask, is there another surprise coming in a few weeks?  Will she announce three weeks from now that she's giving state employees another pay cut or is raiding more funds?

The budget situation is serious and Perdue needs to come clean to the public just how bad it is and keep the public informed and up to date.  Don't play shell games and hide the truth for her own political expediency.

   A voucher program that sent poor minority students to the school of their parents' choice in the District of Columbia has been killed by liberals in Washington.  Why do they fear giving parents a choice?  The education industrial complex is hell bent on making sure they keep an iron clad monopoly on our students. Reason has a great take on the matter. This cartoon from Red Planet Cartoons recalls my experiences with a global warming hysteric masquerading as public school science teacher.  Keep your political agendas out of my children's classroom.

I love all the spin coming out of Raleigh and the governor's office today that Gov. Perdue's actions today were a "furlough" of state employees and teachers.

It most certainly was not.

It was a pay cut, plain and simple.

Employees are not forced to take the time off, they are just granted an additional 10 hours of flex time to take at their leisure.  There's nothing mandatory to make them use it or keep them away.  But the government is going to take 0.5% of their pay regardless.

Talk to any of the other workers in the private sector who are getting furloughed right now.  They are told to take a week off and aren't going to get paid for it.  Plants close, offices close, there's no way to go to work.  That's a furlough.

This is Gov. Perdue reducing the state's payroll by 0.5% and giving the workers the option of taking time off.

Apparently, the Governor has probably done some polling and found that furloughs play better in public than pay cuts for teachers and state employees.  Like when we polled last month asking about cutting salaries for state employees:

In order to close the state's $3 billion budget deficit, do you support or oppose saving $480 million by cutting salaries for state employees who earn more than $30,000 by 5%?
Support – 23%
Oppose – 68%
Not Sure – 9%

We didn't poll furloughing state employees, but I'd bet good money it polls higher than that.

Voters aren't took keen on the NC Senate's plan to begin taxing some services while reducing overall tax rates according to our April poll.  And are even more opposed to it when they know that it raises taxes by $500 million.

Brian Balfour's analysis of the Senate package is here.

When asked if they approve or disapprove of a plan that would reduce the sales tax rate but broaden the types of services that are taxed, 50% disapproved of the idea.  Only 33% approved.

In fact, more people responded that they Strongly Disapproved (38.5%) of the idea than the total number of approvals.

We then asked if they approved or disapproved of this plan if they knew it would raise taxes by $500 million and 66% said they disapproved. Only 19% approved.

One interesting crosstab that jumped out at me, support for taxing services is directly tied to age.  The older you are, the more resistant to expanding to services you are.  50% of 18-25 year olds approve, but only 27% of over 65 year olds do.

Full results and crosstabs here.

As reported by the N&O's Rob Christensen:

All this coming just days before "State Employee Recognition Week and State Employee Appreciation Day."

From reading this, does anyone else get the feeling that Speaker Joe Hackney is almost surprised that voters don't like wasteful spending?

Why in the world would voters be so skeptical of government (over)spending?

Could it be the $159 million in pork in the 2008 budget?

Or the $205 million in pork in the 2007 budget?

Or the $150 million in pork in the 2006 budget?

Or the over $1.1 billion in earmarks requested in 2008 by the NC House and Senate?

Or the 47% increase in the state budget in the last eight years?  Or the doubling of state debt?

Nah, why would voters think there is waste…