After weeks of negotiations, the new state budget has been passed and signed into law by Gov. Beverly Perdue. John Locke Foundation Director of Fiscal and Health Policy Studies Joe Coletti assesses the budget’s winners and losers and discusses why the spending plan will, next year, lead to a $3 to $4 billion gap between projected revenues and spending. Next we turn to frustrations over traffic congestion. Depending on when you travel to and from work, you might be intimately familiar with gridlock. Gridlock is the topic of the latest book from Randal O’Toole, senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Following the theme spelled out in his book’s subtitle, O’Toole explains “why we’re stuck in traffic and what to do about it.” Then we turn to differing perspectives of legislators on the newly passed budget and whether it is fiscally responsible. During the final budget debate, Rep. Jonathan Rhyne, R-Lincoln, accused Democratic budget writers of budgeting on “hopes and wishes” and setting the state up for a $3 billion shortfall next year. Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, countered that the budget plan is about as good a document as lawmakers could have drafted during trying economic times. You’ll hear their comments. That’s followed by a look at the economics of competitive forces. Indeed, one of the reasons markets tend to work better than government in meeting people’s needs is the factor of competition. Private-sector competition leads to better products and services at lower prices. What if governments had to compete for constituents? It’s a theory Arnold Kling has explored. The founder and editor of the popular economics blog EconLog believes government services would improve if people had more opportunities to choose between competing government structures. And finally, the end-of-course tests taken by North Carolina high school students are coming under scrutiny. John Locke Foundation Director of Education Studies Terry Stoops discusses the analysis of the civics and economics test questions by a group of college professors, as well as whether North Carolina should be in the long, involved, and costly business of creating tests.
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the New State Budget
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