All by John Hood
No, I haven’t come up with the #ncpol equivalent of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. In that famous science-fiction satire, the protagonist learns there is an “Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” — and its answer is 42. But the question itself is never revealed, and indeed it’s suggested that if both the question and answer were known simultaneously, the universe would cease to exist.
Most of the nine justices on the United States Supreme Court espouse some version of the originalist school of constitutional interpretation. Starting early next year, most of the seven justices on the North Carolina Supreme Court will be originalists, too.
In a normal market, creditors demand higher interest from borrowers to whom they lend money for longer periods of time. That’s because these creditors are assuming more risk that they won’t be paid, and because a dollar of interest received tomorrow is usually more valuable than a dollar of interest received years from now.
I’m a fiscally conservative North Carolinian — and I think state taxes should be significantly higher. No, I haven’t lost my head, or my spine. And while I’m a committed supply-sider, I’m not referring here to projected revenues from a fast-growing economy.
As North Carolina keeps growing, so will the need for our governments to ensure the adequate provision of an essential service: mobility. As they tackle the problem, policymakers need to keep two facts in mind.
North Carolina has an official state bird (the Northern Cardinal), an official state reptile (the Eastern Box Turtle), an official state insect (the honeybee), an official state mammal (the Gray Squirrel), an official saltwater fish (the Channel Bass), an official freshwater fish (the Southern Appalachian Brook Trout), an official state marsupial (the Virginia Opossum, which seems awfully unpatriotic), and two official state amphibians, the Pine Barrens Treefrog and the Marbled Salamander.
Nearly a decade ago, former Canadian politician Michael Ignatieff argued in the New York Times that democracy can only thrive when its practitioners respect the difference between adversaries and enemies. “An adversary is someone you want to defeat,” he wrote. “An enemy is someone you have to destroy.”
Just months ago, the housing market was blazing hot. Now median prices are dropping, even in states like North Carolina that continue to attract new residents. The Federal Reserve isn’t done pushing up interest rates to combat inflation. Consumers are responding to higher prices by cutting back on expenses.
The science fiction pioneer H.G. Wells once observed that “human history is, in essence, a history of ideas.” This is a wise observation — and it speaks to the political debates we’ve been having here in North Carolina.
In 2019, 28% of North Carolina eighth-graders lacked even basic reading skills and 29% lacked basic skills in math. Only about a third were proficient in these core subjects.
When news broke on October 13 that five individuals had been killed in their northeast Raleigh neighborhood by a teenaged gunman, I’m sure we all shared feelings of shock, horror, and concern for the victims’ families, friends, and neighbors.
The U.S. Department of Education has started taking applications from former university students hoping to force taxpayers to pay off their loans. President Joe Biden’s loan-transfer diktat is one of the worst policies of modern times: hugely expensive, patently illegal, and grossly unfair to the millions of borrowers who worked hard and sacrificed much to pay off their debts.
North Carolina is one of our country’s economic powerhouses. Blessed with a favorable business climate and a creative, hard-working population, our state is home to many thriving companies that export goods and services all over the world.
I’ve been writing a newspaper column since 1986. During that time, I’ve had occasion to criticize the policies of six North Carolina governors: Jim Martin, Jim Hunt, Mike Easley, Beverly Perdue, Pat McCrory, and Roy Cooper.
The North Carolina of my childhood had an economy very different from that of the average state. Today our economy remains distinctive, though not by as much.
