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House Versus Senate Budget Proposals: What’s the Difference?
Senate plan spends slightly less that House, while excluding additional teacher and state employee raises
Prepared Public Comment for the Senate’s Constitutional Amendment on Citizen-Only Voting
Below is my prepared public comment before the North Carolina Senate Redistricting and Elections Committee Committee on June 20, 2024, in support of Senate Bill 630 “Constitutional Amendment/Citizens-Only Voting”. “I…
Introducing the Franklin Standards: New Model Content Standards for K–12 Science
This week, the National Association of Scholars and Freedom in Education released the Franklin Standards, model academic content standards designed to restore rigorous education in the hard sciences for K–12…
House Budget Overview: A Snapshot of Policymakers’ Vision for the State
House budget would add nearly $2 billion in new spending over this year.
Restoring the Right to a Fair Trial in North Carolina
Judicial deference to administrative agencies undermines North Carolinians’ right to a fair trial. The North Carolina Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that challenges administrative deference. In a…
Why North Carolina’s Regulatory Sandbox Needs Agriculture
North Carolina’s Regulatory Sandbox waives certain regulations for promising new products in finance and insurance. We could all benefit if the state’s largest industry, agriculture, could also avail itself of…
Tax Revenue from Online Sports Betting Exceeds Expectations; Where Will the Money Go?
How will legislators distribute the tax dollars generated from sports betting?
What are the Impacts of HB237’s Campaign Finance Changes?
The North Carolina Legislature presented the conference report on its masking bill, HB237. While the bill had garnered some controversy over its broad language banning masks, a recent conference report…
Will the State Board of Elections Try Again to Stop Third Parties that Democrats Fear?
(Photo of Cornel West by Gage Skidmore.) UPDATE (June 27): The Democratic-controlled North Carolina State Board of Elections voted to deny three parties ballot access. Republican board member Kevin Lewis…
Congress Should Stop the EPA’s Dangerous Power Plant Rule
The EPA power plant rule would effectively close down all baseload coal power plants and prevent them from being replaced with natural gas plants. The rule coincides dangerously with the…
“A government official cannot do indirectly what she is barred from doing directly.”
In National Rifle Association v. Vullo, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed that principle and applied it to the superintendent of New York State’s Department of Financial Services. According to the NRA,…
Markets, Not Politics, Are The Real Problem-Solver
Politics has a terrible track record at solving problems and is zero-sum. In fact, politics typically makes the problems worse. Markets are a problem-solving machine, characterized by win-win interactions.