Posts by Carter Wrenn
Who Won?
The post-mortem’s are rolling in from the wise heads in Washington over the government shutdown and the debt ceiling votes and their verdict is unanimous: Ted Cruz was crushed. The Tea Party was annihilated. But all these Washington pundits may be sailing right past one subtle fact. Heritage Action and Club for Growth…
Read MoreBlindness
Back in the throes of winter the State Auditor audited the North Carolina Medicaid Department and reported it had the highest administrative costs of just about any state Medicaid Department around – which sure sounded right because, as just about everyone knows, North Carolina’s Medicaid program has been a bollixed mess for years. But…
Read MoreA Sign?
In the 2006 election voters gave Republicans the boot. In 2010 they turned around and gave Democrats the boot. Now, according to a new poll, 60% of voters would vote to remove all the politicians in Congress. Democrats and Republicans. A sign of sanity?
Read MoreA Calm Explanation
There’s been a lot of screeching and howling coming out of Washington about who shut down the government. Respected economist Thomas Sowell lays out his opinion pretty calmly below: Who Shut Down the Government? By Thomas Sowell Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the…
Read MoreA Poker Game
A government shutdown’s turned out to be a peculiar sort of beast. First, before a shutdown, every politician – in both parties – declares the government shutting will be terrible. Awful. Armageddon. And every politician swears they want the government to stay open. Then the government shuts down. Next one group of…
Read MoreEyeball to Eyeball
Houston, we have a problem. Last weekend, in Asheville, Roy Cooper threw down the gauntlet. He’s running for Governor. This isn’t quite a tsunami or earthquake. But Democrats now have a bona-fide candidate (with name identification and money) standing eyeball to eyeball with Governor McCrory – pouring gas on the fire of the…
Read MoreA Wacky Idea
Talk about strange things happening: Up in Washington two tribes of politicians have been pummeling each other night and day over who deserve the blame for shutting down the government. Then, unexpectedly, one tribe changed directions. First the House Republicans voted to fund national parks and monuments, then they voted to fund part…
Read MoreSomething’s Not Quite Right
I opened the newspaper yesterday morning and stared at a picture of a lonely fellow standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, putting up a sign that said: Closed. The headline above the picture said: “Government starts shutting down” – and the story explained Social Security checks will be late, parks shuttered, and 800,000…
Read MoreBeyond Quick Healing
The politicians, when you get down to the short rows, are the varmints who decided to hang a ‘Not Open for Business’ sign on the federal government – but, in an odd way, it wasn’t the politicians who were pouring gas on the fire. In the age of the twenty-four hour news cycle and…
Read MoreA Second Miscalculation?
After Democrats ran an ad in State House Districts, something akin to a shockwave rippled down the hallways of the General Assembly, unsettling the less stouthearted Republican legislators. Last fall, after the last election House Republicans, riding high, assumed, We won. People love us. We can do what we want. They did. Then their…
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