Opinion
Cooper’s tax hikes hide beneath the surface
Changing state law to raise future tax rates amounts to a tax increase. That's true, regardless of the governor's spin.
Opinion
State election board removed minnows for ignoring election law but let a big fish go
The North Carolina State Board of Elections (SBE) removed two members of the Surry County Board of Elections for refusing to certify the 2022 general election. Tim DeHaan and Jerry Forestieri, the two Republican members of the board, gave their reasons for doing so in a letter to the rest of the board. They explained...
Cartoon
Show me the money
Opinion
Patriotism requires a common story
Is a picture really worth a thousand words? In very online debates among very online people, the exchange rate is even more skewed. Case in point: a recent Wall Street Journal illustration generated tens of thousands of words of argument, invective, and speculation. The image in question depicted a dramatic drop in the share of...
Opinion
Government’s bad track record when placing bets with your tax dollars
This week, President Biden chose to kick off his Invest in America tour in Durham, North Carolina, stopping at Wolfspeed, a semiconductor facility that will focus on the electric vehicle market. Wolfspeed will receive around $1 billion in state and local grants, as well as direct appropriation funds from the General Assembly. It also announced...
Opinion
Outrageous story of the week: Communication breakdown
The outrageous story of the week is not one story but a series of stories that show that communication is beginning to breakdown in our state and nation. It started on Monday, when there was a shooting at a Nashville, Tennessee, Christian school, where six people, both teachers and students, were killed by a former...
Cartoon
Reservoir jackasses
Opinion
Charter school students deserve equal funding
In the coming weeks, state lawmakers will consider a fundamental issue of fairness in public education: Should some students be educated with less taxpayer funding than others simply because their parents chose a different type of public school? There is a stark difference in local education funding between public district school students and public charter...
Opinion
Where’s the job market headed?
An important feature of the job market is it never stands still. As the economy changes, and the products and services people buy change, so too do jobs. Jobs that exist today may not be around tomorrow. At the same time, jobs that don’t exist today could be part of tomorrow’s economy. Developments in technology are a...
Opinion
It’s time HOAs had some oversight
In a nationwide survey of Yelp reviews on homeowners associations, Raleigh tied for the city with the lowest ratings. Yelp’s lowest rating is 1 star out of 5, and Raleigh’s HOAs averaged 1.00 stars. Dissatisfaction with HOAs can cover a wide range of topics: from micromanaging the appearance of a member’s property, to increasing fees,...
Cartoon
Diversity, but not like that
Opinion
Democrats face headwinds on top issues
North Carolina remains a political battleground. Although Republicans have won most recent statewide contests and retained majorities in legislative seats and county commissions, they usually lose gubernatorial races. Moreover, many of the GOP’s statewide wins were by small margins. Based on electoral outcomes, I think a fair way to describe us is a competitive state...
