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 [...]
Budget, Taxes, and Debt Archives
- 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
Civitas Bad Bill of the Week: SB897
Sen. Charlie Dannelly (D-Mecklenburg) has the dubious distinction of being the primary sponsor of the budget bill for fiscal year 2010-11. Read the bill, SB897, and the money report. For the first time since 2003, the annual budget was passed prior to the start of the fiscal year. Perhaps lawmakers should have been more concerned [...]
- 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 [...]
- 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 [...]
- 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, [...]
- Aug12
State Health Plans Needs Money; Fiscal Outlook Dreary
Looks like North Carolina’s State Health Plan, which provides over 650,000 current or retired state employees with health benefits, may need and infusion of cash. According to WRAL, the executive director of the plan has said that in next few years, the plan requires at least an additional $400 million in cash. An outside consultant says that [...]
- Aug11
The real cost of federal bailouts
Congress is moving ahead with a $26 billion bailout bill that pays for extra Medicaid expenses and protects teacher jobs. According to the Department of Public Instruction, North Carolina would receive about $300 million in grants and protect about 4,800 teaching positions. Of course the money has state law makers and educators salivating. So much so that [...]
- 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 [...]
- Aug06
Government finally cuts the fat!
Our friends down at Wilmington Rants have broken a major story about politicians cutting fat…unfortunately we are not talking about government spending, we are talking about real fat. The Wilmington Mayor and New Hanover County Commission Chair have a weight lost contest that is being publicized using tax dollars. So no cost cutting – actually more spending. Read [...]
- Aug06
New Edition of Capitol Connection Online
July 2010 Budget Edition of the Civitas Capitol Connection Newspaper
- 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
Civitas Report on 10 Worst Federal Stimulus Projects in N.C. Featured on Rush Limbaugh Show
A report by Civitas Institute Policy Analyst Brian Balfour was discussed on the Rush Limbaugh show on Tuesday, August 3. Rush was discussing the new McCain-Coburn report that highlights 100 stimulus projects that have been wasteful or mismanaged. He cited the state’s study of monkeys using cocaine that cost $71,623 ; the North Carolina Dance [...]
- 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 [...]