A version of the following editorial was published in the February 2014 edition of Carolina Journal.
Listening to the reviews of 2013 by the Raleigh political establishment and the Capitol press corps, you’d think North Carolinians had re-elected Bev Perdue governor. They consider last year a total disaster, as gaffe-prone Gov. Pat McCrory was “rolled” by right-wing extremists in the General Assembly who are completely out of touch with the concerns of the Tar Heel State.
Say what? It’s true that the agenda enacted by McCrory and the Republican-led General Assembly gives the political Left a case of the vapors. But Republicans made no secret of their conservative agenda during the 2012 election campaign, and — other than objecting to new restrictions on abortion — McCrory said little to suggest that he had concerns about the direction the General Assembly was headed.
Moreover, many of those policy initiatives — including election reforms requiring voters to identify themselves at the polls, expanding school choice, cutting and simplifying state taxes, and speeding repayment of the state’s unemployment debt to Washington — have strong support among North Carolinians.
Raleigh politicos and left-wing activists hate this direction, though, so to the extent McCrory goes along with a conservative agenda, he’s little more than a puppet of the Right, in their view. The governor needs a “reset” or his term will be a disaster.
The way liberal Democrats see it, for McCrory to succeed, he has to govern like a liberal Democrat. Fortunately that’s not happening.
Back in the real world, the governor’s first year saw progress, albeit uneven. McCrory implemented an overdue overhaul of transportation funding that focuses on moving people and commerce more efficiently and at lower cost. He rejected calls from the left to expand Medicaid under Obamacare and push for a state-run Obamacare exchange. As horror stories continue to emerge about the total collapse of anything associated with the president’s disastrous health insurance reforms, McCrory deserves praise for staying tough.
The governor also embraced (belatedly) the tax reform plan offered by House members — which wound up reducing taxes for North Carolina families at every income level — rather than the original Senate proposal, which included problematic and potentially regressive expansions of the sales tax.
To be sure, McCrory made his share of missteps and unforced errors. He slipped badly by promoting two 24-year-old campaign workers to senior administrative positions with $85,000 salaries. When the moves were criticized, the governor suggested the fresh-faced youth were underpaid.
McCrory also abandoned a promising model for Medicaid reform that should have reduced taxpayer costs and improved accountability for medical providers. That plan ran aground when the proposal ran into a roadblock — the interests that largely benefit from the current dysfunctional system, led by hospitals and other medical providers.
And he has proposed a troubling “privatization” of the Department of Commerce that could expand the secrecy and cronyism that for years have plagued economic development policies.
Pat McCrory needs no reset. And if he continues to annoy the political establishment in Raleigh, he should see that as a sign that he’s on the right path.