A diehard Democrat faced a dilemma after reading about House budget leader Nelson Dollar in the N&O. “Should we be helping him?” she wondered. What caught her eye and caused her soul-searching was Dollar saying the Senate budget “makes it difficult to pay for…a 2 percent raise for state employees, additional money for teacher pay…
Read MoreSeventeen years ago, our daughter went to her first day of kindergarten in the Wake County public schools. This week, she went to her first day as a student teacher in the Wake County public schools. Seventeen years ago, Jim Hunt had just been elected to his fourth term on a promise to raise teacher…
Read MoreA now-retired lobbyist who observed the legislature for many years offers this take on the current session: The revelation that the General Assembly needs more time to agree to a state budget is not startling and, frankly, shouldn’t be troubling. Sure, the school systems are in a knot about drivers’ ed and teachers assistants, and…
Read MoreJimmy Carter certainly wasn’t our best President, but he’s clearly one of the best human beings to be President. At the core of his goodness is a powerful Christian faith that has sustained him throughout his life, even as it complicated his political life. My then-N&O colleague Ferrel Guillory was one of the first reporters…
Read MoreAdmit it. You love it. We all love it. That’s why the Donald Trump for President Show rolls on and on and on. That’s why all political news – from the New York Times to Fox News to MSNBC to Inside Edition and Entertainment Tonight – is all Trump, all the time. Staid, sober observers…
Read MoreRepublicans hate government. Too big and bloated, they say. Too many people on the public payroll. Too many seat-warmers, Governor McCrory says. But something magical happens when they get their turn at the tax-paid trough. To wit: Former state Rep. Nathan Ramsey got a job in the Asheville office of the state Division of Workforce…
Read MoreAfter years of damaging disclosures and disastrous PR, you’d think there’s no way UNC could make its grades-and-athletes scandal worse. As George W. Bush would say, don’t misunderestimate them. They could make it worse by making Sylvia Hatchell the scapegoat and Roy Williams the escape ram. A Page One story by the N&O’s Dan Kane…
Read MoreTo hear the good ole boys in the State Senate tell it they’re going to cure all our Medicaid ills: No more soaring costs. Better care. Budgets that balance. No more meltdowns. MCOs, they say, will heal our wounds and stop our hemorrhaging. If that sounds too good to be true, well, take a look…
Read MoreThe Senate Leaders said it was terrible, just terrible that when people who live in rural counties shop in Charlotte, the sales taxes they pay stay in Charlotte to build schools and roads in Charlotte – and introduced a plan to cure the devilment. By changing the way the state allocates sales taxes between counties…
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