January 6, 2012

By JOHN HOOD

John Hood

RALEIGH – The president was personally liked. But his policies were failing. After initial signs of improvement, the economy again began to sputter. Job creation was virtually nonexistent. Programs meant to stimulate “aggregate demand” had in reality funded wasteful and politically connected projects. Millions of Americans feared for the future.

John Hood

by John  Hood

If you are a current or prospective Democratic politician in North Carolina, I would expect that right about now you are either congratulating yourself for staying away from the Occupy This or That movement – or nervously trying to figure out how to distance yourself from the movement after the fact.

John Hood

by John Hood

In the liberal imagination, conservatives oppose excessive government taxes and regulations because of their unwarranted faith in the competence, nobility, and perfect knowledge of business executives.

As with so many other figments of the liberal imagination, this image may tell you something about liberals but not much about how conservatives think. In reality, conservatives oppose excessive government taxes and regulations because we know full well that many business executives are incompetent, ignoble, and ignorant – and that politicians and regulators, being fellow human beings, are equally likely to be incompetent, ignoble, and ignorant.

John Hood

by John Hood

When during a recent speech House Speaker Thom Tillis endorsed the idea of drug testing for North Carolina welfare recipients, he set off a raging controversy.

The Mecklenburg Republican’s most-controversial suggestion wasn’t really about welfare families, actually, but about state employees. In response to an audience question, Tillis opened the door to random drug testing for state employees. He should immediately close that door – the idea is likely to be neither cost-effective nor consistent with privacy concerns.

John Hood

by John Hood

Before Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, he wrote his own epitaph. Did he mention any of his political offices? No. Jefferson wanted only three accomplishments listed on his gravestone: author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the University of Virginia, and author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom.

John Hood

by John Hood

If you want to understand why the fiscal politics of Raleigh and Washington got so heated this summer, you have two choices.

One is to delve deeply into the details of each Democratic and Republican proposal to balance government budgets. I’m certainly not going to dissuade you from doing that. For North Carolina’s budget, the John Locke Foundation (johnlocke.org) can offer you some handy shovels to dig through state government’s major programs and revenue sources.

John Hood

by John Hood

While there are many unanswered questions about the 2012 election cycle – about the economy, the Republican presidential nomination, and the contours of North Carolina’s electoral map, for example – no mystery remains about the state’s gubernatorial election. It will be a rematch between Democrat Beverly Perdue and Republican Pat McCrory.

Their 2008 contest was one of the closest in state history. Perdue, then lieutenant governor, narrowly defeated the outgoing Charlotte mayor, in part because of an Obama surge that benefitted Democratic candidates all the way down the ballot.

John Hood

by John Hood

If someone asked me to describe the single-biggest result of conservative electoral gains in North Carolina over the past two years, my answer would consist of two words: school choice.

Now, I admit that that the most significant legislative achievement of the new General Assembly was the passage of a 2011-13 budget without imposing or extending any tax hikes. It was a bipartisan vote, large enough to override Gov. Bev Perdue’s veto. It will save North Carolina taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year and create thousands of new jobs.

John Hood

by John Hood

After Republican House and Senate leaders announced a state budget deal May 31, Gov. Beverly Perdue again began to huff and puff about what she saw as numerous flaws with the measure, which reorganizes state government, cuts taxes, limits regulation, and authorizes $19.7 billion for next year’s General Fund.

John Hood

by John Hood

Are you smarter than a 5th grader? Not if you believe Gov. Beverly Perdue’s claim that the budget plan just passed by the North Carolina House would result in a mass layoff of 30,000 government employees.

You see, by 5th grade most students have mastered basic reading and math. As such, they would not have committed the egregious errors that led the governor and her staff to embarrass themselves with such a ridiculous claim. Instead, they would have readily discerned the critical differences between positions lost and people laid off (reading) and between gross and net (math).