Attention must be paid when the Republican legislator who wants to roll back ethics laws questions Speaker Tillis’ ethics. It could just be sour grapes. But someone needs to pursue Rep. Robert Brawley’s written statement about Tillis “slamming my office door shut, standing in front of me and stating that you have a business…
Read MoreRepublican legislators, for years, have stood up and spoken up for free markets. It’s part of their creed. They don’t like government picking ‘winners and losers.’ But when a group of Republican legislators in Raleigh decided to sponsor a bill to break the hospitals’ monopoly on outpatient surgeries and put the free market to work…
Read MoreA good Democratic Party chairman would be blasting the McCrory administration’s budding ethics scandals. But that’s hard to do when you’re in Vegas putting $3,327 on the party’s American Express Business Gold Card. Michael Biesecker with AP reported that Randy Voller “said he believes a portion of the Vegas charges, including a $557 dinner…
Read MoreThere’re a lot of clever politicians and smart politicians but there’re not many politicians with the courage to take a stand they know is unpopular. The other day, baffled by the raft of tax reform plans floating around the State Legislature, I asked an economist to explain the virtues of ‘consumption taxes’ to me…
Read MoreA veteran business lobbyist takes aim at both The N&O and the legislature – and makes a noteworthy point about how government in Raleigh today works – or doesn’t: “The N&O’s story last week about Blue Cross Blue Shield’s diminished influence at the General Assembly was badly reported, unfair to BCBS and confirmed that…
Read MoreOne word can say a lot. So it was with last week’s heated meeting between the Wake County commissioners and school board. Joe Bryan, chairman of the commissioners, told the N&O: “You’ve got some lingering tension over the victory we had in the Senate yesterday.” That “victory” was Senate passage of a bill…
Read MoreA TAPster and long-time legislative lobbyist notes that, in politics, you must sometimes rise above principle: “A pair of current debates in the General Assembly – when studied together – demonstrate that lofty political principles and high-minded ideals are quickly abandoned when they conflict with the reality of local politics. “Tesla, the maker…
Read MoreYou can easily flick aside a Republican witch hunt on Benghazi. After all, they’ve been at it since Mitt Romney popped off the first day. You can manage a controversy about the IRS targeting Tea Party groups – so long as, unlike Nixon, the White House wasn’t involved. But your Justice Department subpoenaed…
Read MoreAmericans have a fine tradition of demonstrating, protesting, sitting-in and getting arrested when their government does something they don’t like. And we always have a great debate about whether the tactics help or hurt. Do they? Look at what we’ve seen over the years: suffragettes, civil rights, anti-Vietnam, gay rights. And the Tea Party,…
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