Does anyone else find it ironic that while the NC legislature prepares to hit taxpayers with new taxes in excess of a billion dollars it continues to fund an air force in excess of 60 aircraft including a corporate jet for executive transport? And I am not including the National Guard in this number.
Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com has an interesting analysis of the median voter theorem in which he says that being a so-called moderate elected official is only worth a roughly 2 percentage point advantage.
So while there seems to be a ton of ink spilled lately on the direction of the conservative movement, here we have statistical evidence that moderating our views leads to minimal electoral advantage. Conservative elected officials are better off sticking to their values and leading as a conservative.
As we've seen extensively through our polling, it's not conservative issues that are losing, its conservative candidates — especially ones that do not either run as conservatives, let their opponents stake claims as conservatives, or cannot clearly articulate a conservative message.
This data just proves that the calls for conservatives to moderate — calls coming mostly from the left — are statistically invalid. Better messaging, branding and a cohesive set of values will do much better for conservatives than pandering to a so-called median voter that seems to not exist.
Dell, Google, now Inspiration Networks joins the list of unfulfilled incentive promises.
Thankfully, this one is South Carolina's problem, not ours. But it is just one more example of the folly of the incentive game.
South Carolina pledged $26 million in incentives to Inspiration Networks, a non-profit religious broadcaster, to move its campus from Charlotte across the border a few miles to South Carolina.
Turns out, the network's owner is paying himself $1.5 million a year and is currently building a $4 million, 9,000 square foot lake-front mansion. Not bad for running a non-profit.
Somehow, our state Department of Commerce dropped the ball and didn't ante up to pay to keep the network instate.
The Charlotte Observer has done an entire series on this entity and its failure to live up to the promises that gained it the incentives.
North Carolina’s cap on charter schools keeps thousands of students from attending the school of their choice. This morning's News & Observer tells us the state’s cap may also cost the state millions in federal innovation grants. Encouraged by the positive results of many charter schools, the Obama administration is encouraging states to expand their number. According to a Department of Education spokesman, states who put a cap on charter schools will be at a competitive disadvantage when applying for nearly $4.4 billion in K-12 “Race to the Top” funds.
The feds position is not news. A June 8th Department of Education press release spells out the Obama Administration’s position. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan amplified those comments in remarks he gave on June 14th to the National Governor’s Association in Cary. I also blogged on the dilemma the state was facing two weeks ago. What is news is how very expensive the Democrats opposition to charters may prove to be. Charter school advocates advocates have failed on numerous times to get the Legislature to lift the cap. Earlier this year the House approved legislation (HB 856) to raise the charter school cap to 106. That bill is now in committee in the Senate. Even if signed by the Governor it does nothing to resolve the current problem. Let's hope the looming financial consquences spur the General Assembly to finally lift the charter school cap altogether and expand educational opportunities to all children throughout the state.
Clearly we live in a nation where people are free to speak their minds. Darn if we actually use them. As Chris Fitzsimon earnestly points out in his June 26 post on NC Policy Watch, The Follies, all Republicans present during the vote to fund a $25 million North Carolina Aquariums Fishing Pier in Nags Head voted in favor of House Bill 638. For someone who is so keenly aware of the bill’s movement – and for those who are keeping score at home – in the Legislature, well, let’s just point out that the pier bill is actually House Bill 628. Fitzsimon’s House bill reference is actually to the Greenville Housing Authority.
In spite of that, the fact that all the homework to get the pier under construction had already been done prior to being placed in front of the Senate April 14 for final approval, and was “shovel ready” within 24 hours of it being signed into law (the construction contract was awarded to Clancy and Theys on April 15), doesn’t raise any eyebrows?
Legislators who are trying to take care of an enormous, historical budget gap in North Carolina may have been hoodwinked by the initial approval of the bill, but that doesn’t mean while both bodies are working out the details of the budget, they can’t go back to correct a wrong. Nothing is final until the budget is put into place. And that means lawmakers need to be as realistic to the needs of North Carolinians as possible; by not raising taxes, and by cutting both unnecessary programs and funding for pending boondoggles that will inevitably make things worse in years to come. The job of the General Assembly is to serve the state, not just the Outer Banks.
I must admit I didn’t know what to make of the folly coming out of the nominations made by the Wake County Democratic Party to the Wake County Board of Elections. The N&O just left me with too many questions:
I still don’t know the answers to any of these questions but, I think I know why John Gilbert didn’t make it to this year’s nomination roster. It looks like he crossed somebody in the verified voting crowd when he allowed a pilot of the Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) in Cary in 2007. Never mind that the North Carolina State Board of Elections sanctioned the pilot and the Town of Cary agreed to it.
It’s not clear (yet) as to whether Aida Doss Havel and Sharon Everett are advocates for the verified voting cause. But, it will be interesting to see who the North Carolina Democratic Party nominates.
Fueled by aggressive House Democrats, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (H.R. 2454), also known as Waxman-Markey, is expected to come up today on the United States House floor. The reality of this pseudo “save-the-earth” energy bill is that it produces the largest tax in American history.
The intent of the bill is to drive the price of electricity and gas up, so that Americans will conserve —logical right? However, the high prices will not only show up in our Progress Energy bills, but also when we purchase an American manufactured good or line up at the gas station.
According to one report the bill will cost every family as much as $3,100 annually in energy costs, without any proposed relief for struggling families and consumers. In truth, consumers will be forced to cut back on their spending, which will then curb production rates,and limit job creation. This is exactly what America, and North Carolina, does not need as we struggle with ever-rising unemployment rates.
Furthermore, the positive effects of the "Cap-and-Trade" bill on the climate are negligible and unreliable, just like most models predicting climate change. On the other hand, the effects this bill will have on our economy and way of life is overwhelming and devastating. In all this country has going on, raising taxes, to allegedly help the environment, is not the right step to recovery.
Here is the first glimpse of something I think you will be hearing a lot more about in the near future:
Funny what wins praise among our ruling class these days. Seems the White House is giving North Carolina an "atta-boy" for how rapidly they are spending our money.
The White House says North Carolina is getting the job done on highways.
North Carolina has exceeded the federal deadline to obligate 50 percent of their highway funds under the economic stimulus plan by June 29, according to a White House release.
The release said North Carolina has "put to work" $314 million in highway funds – or 61 percent of their requirement.
Of course, when money is spent by politicians for political ends, politics tends to play a heavy hand in how our money is spent. Capitol Monitor in Raleigh has been doing an excellent job tracking the stimulus money coming in to NC for construction jobs. See their "tracking the stimulus" chart here.
Some observations thus far:
Is it any suprise that the Obama administration is giving its approval to this crony corporatism?
More Articles: