Gov. Perdue issued a memo to state agencies to begin preparing plans on how they would cut their budgets by 5, 10 and 15 percent. From the N&O: The state’s top budget officer sent a memo to a wide swath of state officials Thursday ordering up plans for next year’s budget, which is expected to [...]
- Sep02
Hollywood Big Shots Out of Touch
Some Hollywod execs working in Wilmington just can’t understand why some North Carolina citizens may be upset that they are receiving special tax breaks unavailable to “the little people.” Wilmington film industry representatives lashed out Wednesday against recent political ads – partly funded by PPD founder Fred Eshelman – which are critical of Democratic state [...]
- Aug31
Government Dependence at All-Time High
Per USA Today: Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. More than 50 million Americans are on Medicaid, the federal-state program aimed principally at the poor, a survey of state data by USA TODAY shows. That’s [...]
- Aug27
Tax Hikes, Stimulus Funds Helped Fuel Half a Billion Spending Increase in FY 2009-10
The Office of State Controller has posted its General Fund Monthly Financial Report for June; which is significant because it contains year-end summaries for actual revenue collections and expenditures for the 2009-10 fiscal year. Some notable data includes: Tax revenue collections totalled $17.7 billion for FY 2009-10, compared to the budgeted amount of $18.05 billion. Tax [...]
- 1Aug25
Race to the Top Funds Merely Empower Education Establishment
The North Carolina education establishment is giddy about being awarded manna from heaven federal “Race to the Top” funds to “spur classroom innovation.” In its proposal seeking the $400 million over four years, North Carolina aimed to raise student test scores, boost high school graduation rates and better prepare students for careers and college work. [...]
- Aug24
Big Surprise: Home Sales Drop After Tax Credit Expires
In one of the most predictable events in history, home sales in the U.S. have dropped dramatically since the expiration of the home buyer tax credit. Sales of previously occupied homes fell to the lowest level in 15 years last month as the economy weakened. The National Association of Realtors says July’s sales fell by [...]
- Aug23
Less Access, Longer Lines Coming for Medicaid Enrollees
Per today’s N&O, it appears Medicaid service providers in NC can expect another reduction in reimbursement rates: In the current state budget, Perdue and the legislature agreed that Medicaid reimbursement rates would be reduced by $26.6 million or 1.35 percent, if the state found it necessary to close a gap in federal Medicaid funding. Perdue’s [...]
- Aug20
In What Part of NC is Lake Wobegon?
In the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, “all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” As noted in this N&O article, it appears that the North Carolina state government workforce is suffering from the Lake Wobegon effect: Rest assured taxpayers: State employees, almost to a person, [...]
- Aug19
“Saving” Jobs Means Destroying Wealth
State Representative Pryor Gibson (D-Anson) a couple of years ago declared that it was in the state’s best economic interest to “save” jobs, “even if they’re making buggy whips.” Such a ridiculous statement not only earned Gibson scorn from Civitas staffers, it exposed a broader mindset among politicians that “saving” jobs is somehow conducive to economic [...]
- Aug17
Class Envy Rhetoric Hurts the Poor
Gene Nichol, a professor of law at the UNC School of Law, and director of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center on Poverty, Work & Opportunity continues the N&O’s promotion of economic fallacies with this article in which he advocates for ending the Bush-era tax cuts on the highest income earners. Much of the article is diluted with Nichol’s stale, thoughtless, [...]
- 1Aug16
Idle Resources Excuse Doesn’t Validate Stimulus Spending
Defenders of economic “stimulus” schemes insist that during a recession,government must step in to get idle resources working again. Spending on anything, anywhere will put idle resources such as labor and equipment back to work, so the theory goes. But such crude, superstitious notions overlook (among many) an important point. As economist Steven Horwitz reminds us, capital [...]
- Aug12
State Health Plan Update: Still in Bad Shape
Today’s meeting of the Committee on Employee Hospital and Medical Benefits included a financial update of the State Health Plan (SHP). Among the highlights: For FY 2009-10 recently completed, the SHP had a net loss of $42.7 million – meaning that it paid out nearly $43 million more than it collected in revenue from premiums, co-pays, [...]
- Aug09
More Stimulus Nonsense From a Local Economics Professor
Yesterday’s N&O features an op-ed making the claim that the federal government’s response to the recession failed because it didn’t go far enough. The article seriously lacks any understanding for the cause of the recession in the fist place, and clings to some superstitious notion that government action can “fix” the economy (as if the [...]
- Aug05
Feds Move Closer to Bailing Out Irresponsible States
In my wrap-up of North Carolina’s 2010-11 state budget, I mentioned that state lawmakers were hopeful for hundreds of millions of additional federal dollars to help NC cover its Medicaid costs. It looks like the feds are close to granting that wish. The U.S. Senate voted 61-38 today to break a filibuster blocking a measure [...]
- Aug04
Lefties Cling to Discredited Study on Stimulus Claims
Today’s N&O features an article by Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics. In the article, Zandi claims that without the federal stimulus, our economy would be in much worse shape than it is now. But Zandi’s conclusions are drawn not from real-world experience, but crude and out-dated Keynesian statistical models. Stanford economist John Taylor [...]
- Aug03
Government “Economic Development” Schemes Shift Power to the Elite
Government meddling in the market process, courtesy of corporate welfare and targeted tax breaks, is bad economics in large part due to the “knowledge problem” confronting a small group of planners attempting to distort and control economic decisions of millions of market participants. Worse still, as I point out in this article, is the transfer of power from [...]
- Aug03
More Stimulus Waste
Making the rounds on the news today is this report produced by Senators Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and John McCain of Arizona itemizing 100 wasteful stimulus projects from around the nation. Among their list is several from North Carolina, most of which will be familiar to followers of the Civitas Institute. Back in February, I [...]
- Aug02
Gov’t Stimulus Boosts Gov’t Power at Everyone Else’s Expense
Today’s Greensboro News & Record included my letter to the editor discussing government stimulus schemes: A recent editorial discussing the federal government’s stimulus funds declared, “There shouldn’t be any argument that benefits have accrued” (“Those stimulus funds provide modest relief,” July 28). True, the specific recipients of the funds have benefited. Many government workers and [...]
- 2Jul29
New Survey Reveals NC’s Budget Deficit Among Nation’s Worst
Courtesy of this report from WRAL North Carolina will face one of the largest state deficits in the country next year, according to a new report. The National Conference of State Legislatures surveyed 35 states to get a picture of their fiscal health heading into the 2011-12 budget year. …. Only California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New [...]
- Jul28
Confused N&O Editors
Economically-illiterate and authoritarian commentary on health care reform has become the norm for the Raleigh News & Observer. Consider today’s latest installment, which indicates how confused and ignorant the authors of the article are on the topic. The article’s focus is on a report claiming the ”cash reserves” held by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina are [...]