Opinion
End, Don’t Mend, Sales Tax
As the Easley administration and lawmakers prepare to debate sales-tax reform, they should seek the understand more clearly why the current system is flawed, and what alternatives exist.
Opinion
Carolina Journal housekeeping
On the night before the night before Christmas, not a creature was stirring in the political house, so now seems the time to mention some housekeeping items regarding Carolina Journal and invite your comments and suggestions.
Opinion
A Right to beg?
Asheville’s new law against “aggressive panhandling” has drawn national attention. At its core is an interesting point about why free speech is incoherent without private property rights.
Opinion
North Carolina’s security role
The Bush administration is planning to increase funding for special forces by $1 billion. Even if this didn’t involve a major investment in North Carolina, it would have deserved a cheer.
Opinion
Dan Gurley’s Nightmare Before Christmas
Carolina Journal’s Paul Chesser writes that when Rep. Cass Ballenger, R-N.C., admitted he had “segregationist feelings” in an interview with The Charlotte Observer, he immersed chief of staff Dan Gurley into perhaps his worst nightmare.
Opinion
Top 10 Nuttiest Campus Events in N.C. for 2002
One of the fun things about a new year is looking back and razzing the events of the old. January, after all, is named after the Latin god Janus, who has two faces, one looking forward and the other backward. With a new year fast approaching, let us look back on the nuttiest, most ridiculous happenings in higher education in North Carolina in 2002 — and look forward to more of the same in 2003.
Opinion
Star Trek and Star Wars politics
As a follow-up to a recent, indispensable political analysis of comic book superheroes, here is the ironclad case for the proposition that the Star Trek television and movie franchise is liberal and the Star Wars movie franchise is conservative.
Opinion
Don’t believe the hype
Lots of folks say that North Carolina’s massive investment in public higher education has had huge benefits for the state and its economy. Higher education is valuable, but there is little evidence that above-average taxpayer subsidies improve outcomes.
Opinion
Gore’s good call
In bailing out of the 2004 presidential race, Al Gore made a good call for his party, his country, and himself. And who knows, he may be back in 2008, just in time to save us all from a horrible fate.
Opinion
D.C. could cut N.C. taxes
North Carolina is suffering more than most from the national problem of too little investment. The solution is to reform the tax code to encourage entrepreneurs to take risks. The president, but not state leaders, seems ready to act.
Opinion
A Burr in Edwards’ saddle
The news that Richard Burr may run for U.S. Senate in 2004 has broad implications for North Carolina politics, affecting John Edwards’ presidential run, the gubernatorial primaries, and the future of Erskine Bowles and Dan Blue.
Opinion
Conservatives on campus speak out against ideological intolerance
"Down with 'Diversity,'" proclaims the October 2002 cover of New Sense magazine at Duke University, published by the students of the Duke Conservative Union. “Trampling UNC’s Intellectual Diversity,” proclaimed the March 2002 cover of Carolina Review, a conservative student publication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Review cover, which featured a grinning donkey treading underfoot the word “DIVERSITY,” also asked, “If all your professors are Democrats, is Carolina diverse?”
