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My Spin: Slow down and get it right
Both Governor McCrory and our General Assembly reached milestones last week and, as we pundits are prone to do, they warrant marking and remarking about. Pat McCrory reached 100 days in his tenure as governor and nobody will refute he was thrown into the deep end on day one. With the notable exception of budget director Art Pope his team is largely new to state government and has experienced a trial-by-fire on-the-job-training. From the get...
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2013 Earth Day is on ground level in Richmond County
Earth Day 2013 was celebrated Monday in Richmond County. — The Editor Since its 1970 inception, the Earth Day phenomenon has led to much understanding of the consequences confronted when not caring for our natural resources. This awareness led to action to protect America’s land, water, air, wildlife, and, yes, humans. In Richmond County, North Carolina, America and around the world, environmental concerns are a primary focus among lawm...
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Pooling our resources is vital
Many of you have mentioned you enjoy my occasional history lesson in my legislative report so here’s one for this week. In the history of our great state, have you ever known of a father and son who both served as NC Lieutenant Governor? This has only happened once and a prominent Anson County family has this distinction — the Taylors. Mr. Hoyt Pat Taylor Sr. served as Lt. Governor from 1949-1953, following his years of service in the NC Ho...
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The picture is of Prime Minister Thatcher and President Ronald Reagan reviewing U. S. troops in 1988 on the South Lawn of the White House.
Notes on Quotes: Margaret Thatcher’s close links to the U. S.
“Few Prime Ministers have been called upon to change so much. Few have been loathed as much for trying. Few have shown such courage.” — Michael Portillo, The Guardian Margaret Roberts Thatcher’s recent death has caused writers to reflect on her humble beginnings for the class minded British politics of her day. Her father was a local politician and mayor who owned two small grocery shops. The family lived above one of the shops. Margaret...
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The Raleigh Report for April 20, 2013
House lawmakers assembled this week for an agenda that included committee votes on the impending Voter ID legislation, as well as a final vote on Asheville’s water system. The House Elections Committee has endorsed a bill requiring voters to present photo identification at every election held after January 2016. The Voter Information Verification Act (VIVA) will allow people to present various state-issued IDs, such as public university IDs a...
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Tar Heel View: On privatizing parts of Medicaid
It flies in the face of reason to suggest that the way to make government more accountable is to farm out public services — and dollars — to entities that have no direct accountability to the taxpayers. Yet that is the game plan of Gov. Pat McCrory and the Republican-led General Assembly as they consider privatizing Medicaid and economic development and seek once again to funnel the people’s money to private schools. While it may make sense...
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Back to The Rock one more time
Dear Editor, I would like to thank Dawn Kurry, Laura Edington, Shawn Stinson and Jimmy McDonald for their fantastic coverage of the race last weekend at The Rock. I want to really thank Andy Hillenburg for inviting Tex Powell and the crew to bring Benny Parsons’ #72 car back to The Rock one more time. I was at the race that day, October 21, 40 years ago, at the North Carolina Motor Speedway and saw Benny Parsons claim the 1973 NASCAR Poin...
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Research guides policy initiatives
For a group of people who claim to believe in empirical study and higher learning, liberal politicians and other critics of North Carolina’s new conservative leaders seem remarkably uninformed or contemptuous of the research basis for the policy initiatives now being debated in Raleigh. For example, Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget proposes to convert teacher-assistant positions in second and third grade into funding for teaching positions. While ...
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Our View: A vote for transparency
The public’s business should be conducted in public, where checks and balances and accountability can always be in play. There are some politicians, however, who have decided the less you know the better. And some are even cocky about it. Take for example State Senator Tommy Tucker of Waxhaw, who on Tuesday interrupted the commentary of a newspaper publisher with this dictate: “I am the senator. You are the citizen. You need to be quiet.”...
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