General
Raising Kane
One of our readers offered an interesting perspective on the issue of whether the city should agree to help finance a new North Hills parking deck with developer John Kane: “Downtown they have taken real tax dollars and spent it on a hotel plus committing a future source of revenue to pay for the Convention…
Read MoreRaleigh Spending on a Roll
Local government spending in Raleigh and Wake County is mushrooming. The City Council wants to spend more. The County Commissioners want to spend more. The School Board wants to spend more. The County Commissioners’ Blue Ribbon Task Force wants to spend more. And they all want to borrow and raise taxes to pay for it.…
Read More“That’s Just Pretend Ethics”
Prospects for ethics reform and cleaning up the ‘pay to play’ scandals took a blow in the State Senate last week. Senator David Hoyle told the Senate committee considering reform bills that “the issue is too complicated to take up this late in the session” (The News and Observer, 7-13-06). Other senators said the financial…
Read MoreToll Roads and Polls
The North Carolina Turnpike Authority’s mission is to build toll roads. Its problem is people feel, with all the gas taxes they’re paying, they shouldn’t have to pay tolls, too. So the Authority has taken a poll – or more concisely it conducted a focus group – to figure out how to convince voters to…
Read MoreA Blue Ribbon Punt
When I hear the words “Blue Ribbon Study Commission,” I automatically think: Another politician is punting. That’s exactly what happened in Wake County this month. Problem is, the “Blue-Ribbon Committee on the Future of Wake County” punted the ball right back to the politicians. The News & Observer summed it up this way in a…
Read MoreThe Great Contract Embroglio
The state’s biggest contract is its $171 million Medicare contract. Two years ago, it put the contract out to bid and Secretary of Human Services, Carmen Hooker Odom, announced with great fanfare she was awarding it to Texas computer giant, ACS – and saving taxpayers millions. Two years later, Secretary Hooker Odom says she is…
Read MoreDemocrats, Republicans and ‘Pay to Play’
The Democrats in the State House have been conducting their version of ‘damage control’ to dodge the political fallout from the ‘pay to play’ scandals in the House. What’s their strategy? Well, it’s to pass meaningless reforms and then to proclaim from the rooftops that they have solved the problem. When, in fact, they have…
Read MoreThe Governor’s Race
The Republicans Salisbury attorney, Bill Graham, has spent a million dollars of his own money to pay for TV ads to express his opposition to the Gas Tax. And, now, he’s getting ready to spend another bundle of his own money to say he’s against illegal immigration. Graham’s potential opponents might call this buying an…
Read MoreHypocrisy From the Left and the Right
Two news stories from the same day: While Republicans in Congress and the Bush Administration fulminate over The New York Times’ “treason” in publishing the banking-surveillance story, Republicans in Congress criticize the administration for not telling them about the program. They wouldn’t know about it today if they hadn’t read it in the Times –…
Read MoreJohn Edwards: Leading the War on Terrorisim
John Edwards has called for us to immediately withdraw 40,000 troops from Iraq. Not next month. Or by Christmas. Or in a year. Now. Granted we’re in a mess in Iraq. But where does bringing 40,000 troops home tomorrow leave the troops still in Iraq? Are they safer? Mr. Edwards is running for President as…
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