July 29, 2009

Why I am not a Republican--reason number 1936

Posted by Dr. Roy Cordato at 9:35 PM

All of these Republicans buying into the Keynesian claptrap by complaining that only a small percentage of the stimulus money has been spent or that the money is being spent on the wrong things should hang their heads in shame. (For example Karl Rove on tonight’s Hannity show) Every dollar that has been spent is a dollar diverted from the private sector and a dollar that competes away valuable resources from private investors. We should curse the fact that any of the stimulus money has been spent, not that it is not being spent fast enough. And we should pray that the rest of the package be abandoned and that not another dollar ever get spent. The complaint by many so-called conservative pundits and Republican politicians that the money has not been spent fast enough displays both economic ignorance and a disregard for conservative principles. Apparently, like Richard Nixon, they are all Keynsians now.

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Senate approves another CR

Posted by Becki Gray at 5:54 PM

The Senate adopted another Continuing Resolution (House Bill 102) today that will keep government up and running (again!) until they come to a final budget agreement.  This one would still reduce funding to 84% of current spending, allows for cuts that were in both the House and Senate versions to go ahead and be implemented, and allows for a county’s Medicaid costs to be determined regardless of federal stimulus money.  Sen Andrew Brock proposed an amendment that would have de-authorized the construction of the North Carolina Aquarium Pier at Nags Head. Through a procedural move, the amendment was tabled and not condsidered.  Instead of an expiration date, this Continuing Resolution will remain effective until ratification of the new budget, prompting rumors that the democrats are finalizing a budget deal as they meet in closed-door caucuses.

The CR goes over to the House Appropriations Committee and if approved, to the floor tomorrow.  In order to keep state government running, it must be approved before the current CR expires at 11:59 pm on July 31, 2009. 

UPDATE, JULY 30 (11:30am): The House considers the Continuing Resolution sent over from the Senate. They vote not to concur and will make changes in the Appropriations Committee, send it back to the House floor and then back over to the Senate to consider the changes made by the House. Vote on the motion not to concur is 108 - 0.

It all has to be settled by midnight tomorrow to government running.  

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Doubling down on TIFs

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 3:57 PM

State lawmakers love to gamble. The state lottery, video poker, the LSD Corp., and tax increment financing (TIFs) are just a few recent examples.

We've detailed the problems with TIFs in the past, the UNC School of Government has agreed with us, and Daren Bakst even offered ways to improve the law. Instead of listening to Daren, however, legislators want to make it easier to issue TIFs and raise taxes to pay for them and in the process leave local governments more vulnerable to problems when the financed project goes bust.

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Time for the Schiff show to start?

Posted by David N. Bass at 3:55 PM

Get off the tracks, because the Schiff train is coming.

Peter Schiff, the Austrian School economist who predicted the housing meltdown with uncanny accuracy, despite the mocking of dumb butt cable commentators, is reportedly weighing a bid to unseat Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd.

You remember Dodd. He got some special VIP deals on mortgages from Countrywide. He has a thing for lobbyists, too. Or more specifically, their cash.

Business as usual.

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State GOP chairman critiques Obama's proposal

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 3:41 PM

N.C. Republican Party Chairman Tom Fetzer responded this afternoon to the president's health care speech.

Click play below to watch an *edited 14:07 video clip from his presentation. 

*Edited from the video clip is Fetzer's statement that he found Democratic U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan's absence from the Broughton High School audience significant. Also edited is an extended soliloquy from Koren War veteran Herbert Rosser, who shared his concerns about the V.A. hospital system.

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Burr vs. Graham

Posted by David N. Bass at 2:58 PM

North Carolina Sen. Richard Burr won't be supporting Sonya Sotomayor's confirmation to the Supreme Court, reports the AP:

The North Carolina senator says he is troubled by the judge's decisions in cases where she "appears to have relied on something other than well-settled law" to make her decision. He says he is afraid she cannot separate her personal beliefs from the law.

He added that he believes she has clearly ignored precedent in several cases, saying he finds "little predictability in her decisions and the implications they may have."

Kudos to Burr for taking a strong stand on this. Alas, the senior senator from our neighbor to the south, Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, was not so bold. In fact, he's been downright confusing.

Graham was the only Republican on the Judiciary Committee to vote in favor of Sotomayor, but as Jeffrey Lord writing in The American Spectator points out, his rhetoric has been all over the place:

Fleeing from principle, Graham, whose campaign website says he "never abandons his independence or strays from the conservative reform agenda," did both.

Condescending to Sotomayor about her "wise Latina" beliefs, he also ruminated that some of the speeches she has given are "pretty disturbing," and they "blow me away." He wondered aloud "who are we getting" in a Justice Sotomayor, something not unlike guzzling scotch and wondering if there is a connection to perpetual hangovers. When this is followed by praise that she is "bold" and "edgy" and that "elections matter" and the president deserves "deference" and that "I desire as a Senator to find a new way to start over and get back to a Senate that's more rational in its approach when it comes to confirmation," Graham appears to be leading the rest of us to a disturbing conclusion.

Senator Graham is no dummy. To proceed to vote to put someone on the Court who is so obviously devoted to principles he claims to oppose gives new meaning to terms such as cowardly, lily-livered, irresolute, chickenhearted or, in Spanish, no cojones.

Indeed.

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RE: Dam takeover bill defeated -- UPDATE

Posted by Becki Gray at 2:25 PM

At yesterday’s House Water Resources Meeting, long time property rights advocate and outspoken opponent to the bill, Rep Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell, followed up previous committee discussion with several amendments to try to fix some of the most egregious parts of the government’s attempted takeover of Alcoa, aka Senate Bill 967, Yadkin River Trust.  Rather than run all the amendments, it was suggested he roll them into a new proposed committee substitute, which he did.  The PCS was accepted by the committee.  Gillespie’s suggestions would have increased accountability and oversight, reined in some of the funding, limited the scope and reach of the bill and mitigated some of the negative impact.  During debate, Gillespie expressed concerns over what kind of precedent this sets and argued the state will eventually own all public utilities, if this keeps up.  He questioned the financial benefits to the state and said taxpayers don’t want to pay for this.  

Gillespie’s attempts to make a bad bill less bad, were rejected by the committee.  Even with improvements included in the PCS, it still wasn’t enough to make this a good idea. Gillespie was one of the 8 members voting no on the motion to refer the bill without prejudice (a procedural move that moves a bill along to the next committee).  The bill currently sits in Water Resources Committee and can be re-calendared and reconsidered at any time.  It is also scheduled to be heard in the House Public Utilities and House Finance Committees before it goes to the full House for a vote.

As Rick mentioned, those in favor of the bill, do not intend to give up and will continue to look for ways to revive it.  For now, it’s not dead but on life support.

By the way, the 8-6 vote yesterday was:

Voting NO:  
Kelly Alexander, D-Mecklenburg
Curtis Blackwell, R- Union
Mitch Gillespie, R McDowell
Bruce Goforth, R Buncombe
Grey Mills, R Iredell
Ruth Samuelson, R-Mecklenburg
Alice Underhill, D-Craven
Ray Warren, D-Alexander

Voting YES:
Lucy Allen, D-Franklin
Jamie Boles, R-Moore
Pryor Gibson, D Anson
Carolyn Justice, R- Pender
Cullie Tarleton, D- Watauga
Edith Warren, D – Pitt

Absent:  Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank

 

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Note to Obama: the real world has scarcity, not tooth fairies

Posted by George Leef at 2:00 PM

Cato senior fellow and former St. Louis Fed president William Poole points out here that the scarcity of health care resources makes it simply impossible to achieve the dream-world Obamagoal of state-of-the-art health care for everyone.

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Highlights from AFPNC 'Hands Off My Health Care' rally in Raleigh

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 1:57 PM

Before you watch the entire rally, you might enjoy some highlight clips.

Dallas Woodhouse, state director of Americans for Prosperity North Carolina, targeted waste and abuse in existing government-run health care programs.

Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca shared some poll results relating to health care.

Joe Coletti, John Locke Foundation fiscal and health care policy analyst, pointed to a key problem with the Obama administration's health care ideas.

Dr. Brent Ellmers, a general surgeon from Dunn, explained how Obama's proposals would limit patients' choices.

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AFPNC activists send president a message: 'Hands off my health care'

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 1:07 PM

Before the president arrived in Raleigh, as many as 400 people packed a North Raleigh meeting room to share their concerns about the health-care proposals seeping out of Washington.

Click play below to view Americans For Prosperity North Carolina's latest "Hands Off My Health Care" event. (The video lasts 46:16.)

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JLF welcomes the president to Raleigh

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 12:10 AM

Click play below to see John Locke Foundation staffers and the simple message their signs offered President Obama as he drove toward Broughton High School just before noon.

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Is this case "Orwellian" or "Kafkaesque"?

Posted by George Leef at 12:08 AM

J.D. Tuccille writes about a shocking case of federal agents harassing a peaceful individual here.

The vast proliferation of vague laws covering almost everything makes it possible for government officials to target people like Evertson -- people who are doing no harm to anyone. But enforcing "the law" appeals to small-minded authoritarians who find plenty of work to do in government agencies.

Wouldn't it be nice if we had a president who was more interested in protecting the rights of the citizens than in trying to remake the country to further subjugate them?

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Dam takeover bill defeated -- UPDATE

Posted by Rick Henderson at 10:40 AM

This afternoon, the House Committee on Water Resources and Infrastructure defeated Senate Bill 967, Yadkin River Trust.

The bill, establishing a state trust to acquire and operate four hydroelectric dams on the Yadkin River owned by Alcoa, passed the Senate 24-4 in May. 

Alcoa operates the dams under a 50-year license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission which expired in 2008 and is up for renewal. The license probably would have been renewed without a hitch had former Gov. Mike Easley not intervened in April 2008, citing concerns from some local governments about the project.

In the House, the bill ran into trouble over several concerns. First of all, the state could not take control of the project without a FERC license. Had Alcoa won a renewal, and the bill passed, would North Carolina have to undergo the full application process, or would the feds transfer the license from Alcoa?

There were also worries about the powers granted to the trust -- which, for starters, gave it the ability to sell revenue bonds and build, buy, sell, and operate the hydroelectric dams without any oversight from the North Carolina Utilities Commission.

It was also likely that any takeover would land in court, because Alcoa does not want to sell for the price the state was likely to offer. Alcoa valued the project at $500 million; the state placed the value between $24 million and $176 million.

At today's meeting, Rep. Mitch Gillespie, R-Burke, offered a Proposed Committee Substitute (PCS) that would have limited the role of the trust. Its goal would be only to attempt to acquire the FERC operating license; if successful, the trust would have to operate under the same rules that applied to Alcoa. (No revenue bonds, for instance.) The trust would have to get operating funds from the General Assembly. And if FERC renewed Alcoa's license, the trust would be dissolved.

The PCS was defeated by a 6-8 vote, effectively killing the legislation.

Read more about the Alcoa dispute here.

UPDATE, JULY 29: This morning, the Stanly County Board of Commissioners issued an odd press release praising the committee for keeping the bill alive:

STANLY COUNTY, N.C. — The Stanly County Board of Commissioners (www.co.stanly.nc.us ) has expressed its appreciation to the members of the N.C. House Water Resources and Infrastructure Committee for continuing to give careful study to Senate Bill 967. By a narrow vote, the Committee chose not to transfer the legislation to another committee. Instead, the Committee voted to keep the bill and thus, preserved the ability to conduct further hearings and ultimately send the legislation to the full House for a vote.

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What happens when health care becomes a "right"

Posted by George Leef at 09:50 AM

In today's WSJ, Theodore Dalrymple (the pseudonym of a British doctor) writes about the effects there of turning health care into a "right." His piece is well worth reading.

The egalitarian National Health Service has had a baneful impact. Dalrymple writes, "The UK is by far the most unpleasant country in which to be ill in the Western world. Even Greeks living in Britain return home for treatment if they are able to do so....After 60 years of universal health care, free at the point of usage and funded by taxation, inequalities between the richest and poorest sections of the population have not been reduced. But Britain does have the dirtiest, most broken-down hospitals in Europe."

Ideas have consequences. The trouble with our Beloved Leader is that he evidently is unable to ever see any bad consequences emanating from his wonderful plans for remaking the nation. Therefore he pushes doggedly ahead with programs such as nationalizing (and politicizing) health care even though millions of people are saying, "That's going to be lousy and I don't want it."

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Money and student performance: It's peanut butter jelly time!

Posted by Dr. Terry Stoops at 09:10 AM

The correlation coefficient shows a positive, albeit very weak, relationship between per pupil expenditure and NAEP scale score.  Of course, these results should be interpreted with extreme caution, as a number of other variables are likely in play.

Jurisdiction     PPE       Read 4 Read 8 Math 4 Math 8

Note: Scores are scale scores from the 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress tests of 4th and 8th grade reading  and math.  PPE is the per pupil expenditure listed in the Census publication "Public Education Finances, 2007" released July 2009.

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The truth about public competition

Posted by George Leef at 09:08 AM

Obama says he wants the government in the health insurance business to keep private firms honest. The fact is that whenever we have created government competition for the private sector, it has meant slow extinction for the private sector. So argues economics professor Thomas DiLorenzo in this hard-hitting article.

Taxes and regulations will strangle private enterprise, leaving people fully dependent on the government. Despite silly talk to the contrary, the government will be neither efficient nor compassionate.

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Starfleet Academy on its way

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 08:40 AM

Somebody in the General Assembly must have read our posts on preparing education for the next centuries. The Civitas Institute has a promotional video ready for the proposed Star Fleet Academy at North Carolina A&T University.

UPDATE: Scientific and Economic Development, Inc., is the private part of the private/public partnership that would create the Star Fleet Academy complex at NC A&T. It was created December 16, 2008, by an architect and someone who looks to be a management consultant.

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Predicting what Obama will say here

Posted by Jon Sanders at 08:10 AM

Blah stirring words blah blah Founders blah blah fought a great struggle for independence, and no one thought they'd win that one, either, but they persevered blah blah And today we face a new fight blah blah a new independence blah blah from evil private insurance companies blah blah here's some poor woman's story but I won't tell you her name so you can't fact-check blah blah man she has a hard life and just needs us to take care of her till she gets to a certain age and then she should just go off somewhere and die for the greater good blah blah it's not about me it's about you being stupid enough to throw away your freedoms blah blah now I have some time for some planted questions

Maybe he'll even get fancy and throw in a reference about the Southern campaign of the American Revolution and the battles of Cowpens, Guilford Courthouse and Yorktown. But that'd be a stretch; it would rely on greater historical teaching than is wont to be practiced by his pals in the teachers' union.

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Joe can't go for that. No can do.

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:07 AM

The president heads to Raleigh today to make a sales pitch for his preferred government-centered version of health care reform.

What does John Locke Foundation Fiscal and Health Care Policy Analyst Joe Coletti think about the president's ideas? Click play below for an answer.

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In this case, efficiency really isn't the point

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 07:02 AM

The News & Observer explores today some details of federal stimulus spending in North Carolina. The article includes the following passage:

The stimulus, designed to jump-start the economy and improve the nation's infrastructure, includes money for construction projects such as roads and weatherizing buildings, and also assistance payments for food stamps and school systems.

As unemployment nationwide has hit 9.5 percent, a 26-year high, Republicans have criticized the stimulus as ineffective. One problem has been that money hasn't been spent as fast as the Obama administration hoped.

Benton said there has been a longer-than-expected lag time in federal agencies issuing rules as to how the money must be spent. But he said North Carolina is moving quickly to spend the money.

I can see Roy Cordato shaking his head as he reads that passage. Click play below to learn what Roy thinks about the prospect of any government stimulus plan helping the economy:

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Today's Carolina Journal Online features

Posted by Mitch Kokai at 06:44 AM

Today's Carolina Journal Online exclusive features David Bass' report about Kentucky tax officials' interest in the North Carolina Revenue Department's recent audits targeting large families. 

John Hood's Daily Journal explores the high-profile arrests this week in connection with a suspected terrorist plot.

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