If there were any lingering doubts about the damage the budget passed by the Republican-led General Assembly is doing to public schools, they were removed emphatically Tuesday by people who know the truth, 26 school system superintendents who told their stories to the State Board of Education. They talked about closing schools, firing [Continue Reading...]
It is now just a month before voters in North Carolina will decide if discrimination will be written into the state constitution and thousands of families, gay and straight, will lose benefits and rights because of the broad, sweeping language of the amendment approved by the Republican-led General Assembly last year. Polls continue [Continue Reading...]
1.5 billion—amount in dollars spent on lottery tickets in North Carolina in 2011 (“Prosperity seen as a scratch ticket away in poorest counties,” NC Policy Watch Investigates, March 29, 2012) 212—amount in dollars in per capita spending on the lottery in North Carolina in 2011 (Ibid) 516—amount in dollars in per capita spending [Continue Reading...]
Another unheralded Civitas finding There was an interesting result buried in the latest push poll by the Pope Civitas Institute about health care. It was released at the group’s latest “Obamacare Lunch and Learn.” Surely that was an exciting and objective look at the Affordable Care Act. The press release about the poll [Continue Reading...]
Republican gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory released his education plan this week and it’s mostly a collection of talking points we have heard before from McCrory, a call for more charters, more virtual schools, and more technology in the classroom. There’s also another push for a version of merit pay for teachers, though like [Continue Reading...]
Another week, another set of maddening and befuddling comments from House Speaker Thom Tillis in his continued role as the chief spokesperson for the state Republican Party. Tillis told an audience at N.C. State University Monday night that the marriage discrimination amendment on the ballot in May will pass, but will be repealed [Continue Reading...]
210 billion—amount the Affordable Care Act will reduce the federal deficit over the next ten years (Congressional Budget Office, presentation of Duke Health Systems CEO Dr. Victor Dzau, NC Spin Health Care Forum, March 20, 2011) 2,640—average amount in dollars that families in North Carolina who make less than $100,000 a year will [Continue Reading...]
The Republican leadership of the General Assembly seems to have backed off for now on their plans to slash eligibility for NC PreK and completely privatize the program. That’s welcome news, but not very reassuring since there is no indication of a change in philosophy among legislative leaders. And the think tanks that [Continue Reading...]
It has now been almost two years since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law. The anniversary comes a week before the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments about the constitutionality of the Act, particularly the individual mandate to buy insurance. The folks on the Right keep telling us that is [Continue Reading...]
4—number of days since the release of television ad created by the Civitas Institute and Americans for Prosperity that claims the 2011 General Assembly passed a budget that added teachers (NCRealSolutions.com) 93,964—total number of teaching positions in the budget passed by the General Assembly last summer for the 2011-2012 school year (Statistical Profile, [Continue Reading...]
More on real distortions dot com The absurd claims about the Republican budget made by the Civitas Institute and Americans for the Prosperous in their slick “Real Solutions” television ad this week are not only misleading, they are a confession of sorts. The Pope machine created the ad and the slick website that [Continue Reading...]
The folks on the Right in North Carolina are awfully worried these days and they ought to be. The more people find out exactly what the extremist Republican General Assembly has done in the last year, the less they like it. The Republican legislative majority has an approval rating of 16 percent and [Continue Reading...]
If you are looking for an indicator of how reactionary the political debate has become, you don’t have to consider just the Saturday Night Live skit that is the Republican presidential primary battle. Just check out what’s happening in New Hanover County. Monday the county’s five-member Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to turn [Continue Reading...]
Let’s hope Rep. George Cleveland has broadband internet service at home. There is an interactive map online that he and his Republican legislative colleagues need to spend some time with before they resume their collective efforts to redefine poverty, ignore low-income families and blame people who are unemployed for their inability to find [Continue Reading...]
(The source for all the facts in this edition of Monday numbers is the County Economic Snapshot from the N.C. Budget and Tax Center that includes indicators for all 100 counties on employment, poverty and income, housing, health, education, and supports for working families and is available online with an interactive [Continue Reading...]
