The Republican takeover of the N.C. legislature, the first time the GOP has led both houses since 1898, is a huge shift in power that's brought a lot of new faces, and people new to doing business on Jones Street. In what we hope is a regular feature this session, N.C. Policy Watch [Continue Reading...]
News that Wake school member John Tedesco is facing foreclosure on his Garner home received a lot of attention in the Raleigh area this week, especially after the local GOP party leader asked well-wishers to send gifts to the elected school board official. (Tedesco declined the offers) But while there's been a [Continue Reading...]
When the N.C. Building Code Council passed rules in December to improve the energy efficiency of new homes, it gave an unprecedented concession prize to home builders complaining about the cost of the changes. Home builders, in the compromise brokered by N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue, will get offsets in other parts of the building [Continue Reading...]
Poorest counties lead state in per capita lottery sales
Tony’s Friendly Mart, its walls plastered with winning lottery and scratch tickets, offers glimpses of hope for regular customers trying to get ahead in a community besieged by poverty.
Federal agents set off a ripple of panic in immigrant communities last month when they arrested 18 Central American carpenters at construction sites in Durham, Cary and Apex. [Continue Reading...]
A federal program intended to help reduce mortgage payments and lower interest rates for struggling homeowners is barely scratching the surface of need in North Carolina, where thousands of families are under threat of losing their homes. [Continue Reading...]
Gov. Bev Perdue plans on having her slice of Thanksgiving turkey before she reveals her much-anticipated outline of how she wants to streamline state government. [Continue Reading...]
A series of high-profile lobbying and political scandals left some very public bruises on the N.C. Legislature and how they went about their business. The state took on a number of ethics reforms in hopes of preventing corruption from taking root again. [Continue Reading...]
Click here for a printable PDF version of this report. The N.C. Education Lottery has steadily chipped away at the cut of money it sends to education, pushing aside a formula etched in state law that calls for 35 cents out of every dollar to benefit North Carolina schoolchildren. The chunk of total revenue [Continue Reading...]
A new county-by-county analysis of North Carolina voters points to dramatic shifts in the past decade that will likely influence campaign strategy for hot elections this year for Richard Burr’s US Senate seat and for control of the General Assembly. [Continue Reading...]
Ten years ago, North Carolina’s leaders promised to dramatically close or even eliminate the academic achievement gap between white students and black, Hispanic and American Indian students. However, a new report from the North Carolina Justice Center shows that, based on the results of various achievement tests, the gap is virtually unchanged from 10 years ago. [Continue Reading...]
North Carolina's unionized workers earn better pay and benefits than non-union counterparts; the Employee Free Choice Act would help workers organize North Carolina's low unionization rate partially explains the state's dismal standing in pay and benefits for working families, a new report says – but the federal Employee Free Choice Act is "a [Continue Reading...]
Over the past decade, jobs-centered development has emerged as a promising alternative to the South’s traditional strategies of economic and workforce development. Following the Second World War, southern leaders waged an aggressive campaign to transform the regional economy. To this end, officials mixed public policies with private market forces to create jobs and [Continue Reading...]
Last Friday at the Progressive Pulse, we reported on NC Blue Cross’ statewide nasty postcard campaign aimed at Senator Hagan. The postcards are meant for people to fill out and are postage paid to go to Hagan’s office with a message against a public health care option and “government-run” health care. [Continue Reading...]
A study of North Carolina's General Fund reveals the deep impact of the recession on tax revenues. North Carolina government spending per person has fallen to its lowest rate in 13 years, a report released today finds. This provides further evidence that balancing the state budget using cuts alone was simply an impossible [Continue Reading...]
