Carter Wrenn
Gary Pearce
You can call it the Land Transfer Tax. You can call it the Home Tax. Or you can just call it a dead duck. When an idea gets overwhelmingly rejected in 16 counties, as the home-sale tax did last Tuesday, its time clearly has not come. And won’t anytime soon. Realtors and Homebuilders spent $800,000…
Read MoreAfter the federal Department of Transportation killed Mayor Meeker’s Triangle Transit Authority’s plan to spend a billion dollars to build lite-rail (because too few people would ride it) taxpayers heaved a sigh of relief. But the TTA didn’t fade quietly into the sunset. The monster is back. Leaders of a new Special Transit Advisory Commission…
Read MoreThe liberal-anti-growth-activists at WakeUpWake had an interesting election day. And a wake up call. WakeUpWake’s been vociferously urging voters to 1) elect candidates who oppose growth and 2) support ‘transfer taxes’ (taxing property sales) to pay for growth. Voters, apparently, saw the contradiction. They voted for slates of no-growth candidates – then they figured they…
Read MoreThis week’s elections in Virginia and Kentucky should be encouraging for North Carolina Democrats. Kentucky threw out a Republican incumbent and elected a Democratic governor. Of course, that can be blamed on the incumbent’s scandals. But also, Virginia elected a Democratic Senate for the first time in 12 years. A year after electing a Democratic…
Read MoreIn last week’s Democratic debate John Edwards turned to Hillary, lifted his chin, and stated, ‘Unless I missed something, Senator Clinton just said two different things in two minutes.’ At that moment the pot called the kettle black. Senator Clinton should have arched an eyebrow and responded: ‘Unless I missed something, John Edwards was two…
Read MoreI may get drummed out of the Republican Party and have my conservative epaulets striped off (and I’ve got several old friends who may not speak to me for years) for this but I second Gary’s praise of John Drescher. I met John so long ago I can’t even remember when, but I do remember…
Read MoreA year from now, we’ll be analyzing who won and why. So here’s my crystal ball: President America has its first woman President. And Hillary’s running mate, Evan Bayh, is poised to become in 2016 the first President in 24 years not named Bush or Clinton. Giuliani’s choice of Fred Thompson for VP turned disastrous,…
Read MoreThe other day I found this comment one fellow posted on a blog to support his candidate for President: He has never voted to raise taxes. He has never voted for an unbalanced budget. He has never voted for a federal restriction on gun ownership. He has never voted to raise congressional pay. He has…
Read MoreBoth the pro-growth forces and the slow-growth forces are celebrating in North Carolina after Tuesday’s elections. The pro-growthers – say, Tim Kent of the N.C. Association of Realtors – are celebrating that the “property-transfer tax” (the “home tax”) got slaughtered in all 16 counties where it was on the ballot. The slow-growthers (they’d call it…
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Back when Rod Blagojevich ran for governor of Illinois, Obama endorsed him and Trump gave his…
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Does a message about “workers,” “working families” and “working-class voters” really work for Democrats? Or does…
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I’ve resisted the temptation to rail every day about Trump’s cruelty, corruption and incompetence – and…
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