North Carolina is strongest when our vital public structures are strongest. Those public institutions - high-quality schools for our children, the public safety officers that protect us, and well-maintained transportation infrastructure - provide the fuel for a thriving economy.

Protecting these critical public investments is the key to a strong middle class, a high quality of life and shared prosperity. The question on all our minds: in the face of a deep economic crisis, how can we best make sure this happens?
 
We're all in this together. Both state and federal policymakers have a role to play. Now that North Carolina's budget is complete, it's time for the national government to address this national crisis. That means badly-needed fiscal relief for states.

Congress took a step in the right direction recently, finally passing an extension of unemployment benefits. Not only will this help millions of people across the country - and hundreds of thousands of jobless North Carolinians - it will push our economy closer toward recovery.

Putting money in the pockets of struggling families is a quick, effective and common-sense method to stimulate the economy. When people can pay rent and buy groceries, that creates and preserves jobs in our communities.

A study last year found that unemployment benefits helped boost the economy in every single one of North Carolina's counties, bringing billions of dollars into the state. Extending those benefits, albeit belatedly, will provide fuel for our state's economic engine.

Unfortunately, Congress chose to ignore one cost-effective way to stimulate state economies: fully supply states with Federal Medical Assistance Percentage funds. These matching funds for certain state social service, medical and medical insurance expenditures are desperately needed - and would have done immediate good in our communities.

National leaders have to find a new way to stimulate North Carolina's economy. Our state's economic crisis was not inevitable. At the national level, financial regulations that protected us for years were stripped away. This enabled casino-style Wall Street gambling to play games of chance with our economic future. We - all of us - lost those games.

At the state level, for years, we've known that reforming our outdated revenue system was necessary. The revenue crisis North Carolina has suffered hopefully serves as a wake-up call that we need fair, sustainable tax policies that support local small business and our state's middle class.

Soon, we will have to work toward sensible tax reform. For now, it's vital that we work together - on both the state and federal levels - to build a strong economic foundation. That means keeping teachers, police and firefighters employed, and keeping key public services in place.

Our state's residents have experienced the economic crisis in different ways - unemployment and underemployment, home foreclosures, and an inability to afford basic necessities. Unless we maintain public services that are the foundation for a strong economy, we will be unable to help all of those in our state have a more secure future.

These services benefit all of us, just as the national recession has hurt all of us. A national problem requires a national solution. Now is the time for our federal lawmakers to take the next step to infuse states with capital.

The federal government is in a unique position to step in to protect and support the essential public structures currently under siege. Such support will protect millions of jobs nationwide, speed up economic recovery, and secure the public systems essential to our economic future.

The country we all want to live in has strong communities with safe streets, excellent schools, and thriving businesses. If we preserve the public systems that pave the way to our economic future, we can get there together. The first step on that road is federal fiscal assistance to states.

Jeff Shaw is the Director of Communications at the North Carolina Justice Center

The cost of spinning the ports

The Wilmington Star-News is reporting the N.C. Ports Authority recently hired the prominent Raleigh PR firm Capstrat for a cool $375,000 a year for three years to boost the Authority’s image.

If you are wondering what that’s all about, the reporter’s questions for Capstrat about the contract were referred to folks at the Ports Authority who should have set a little money aside to hire a PR company to help them spin the hiring of an expensive PR company.

The contract with Capstrat comes after the authority failed in its efforts to build a massive new international port at Southport. State lawmakers denied funding for a feasibility study this session.

Ports Authority officials claim Capstrat won’t be working to revive the Southport project.  That’s despite statements from the authority board members that they still wanted to build the new port.  It sounds like Capstrat needs to get busy circulating some talking points.

Puzzling points from the Right

Locker Darren Bakst remains on the rampage against public financing of campaigns this week.  Not only does Bakst apparently think that diminishing the influence of special interest money in elections is a bad idea, he believes it will remove one way to measure if candidates are credible.

“…fundraising is an essential part of the political process. That is how we determine whether or not somebody is a legitimate candidate.”

Bakst is right. That is how we determine if someone is a legitimate candidate. And that’s the problem.

The ability to convince wealthy special interests to give you money should not confirm legitimacy; it ought to raise suspicions about who the candidate will be working for after he or she is elected.

Bakst and the folks on the Right want the private market to decide elections and prevent people from running who don’t have access to wealth or aren’t willing to compromise their views to get it.  There’s a better way and it is the money without strings attached from public financing.

The Lockers’ Greensboro blogger Sam H was upset this week by a sensible call by Freedom Newspaper columnist Barry Smith to double legislators’ salaries so more people can afford to serve in the General Assembly.

Rank and file lawmakers now earn just under $14,000 a year, which even after adding in expense money means it’s virtually impossible to live on a legislator’s salary. But not many middle class people have jobs they can leave for six months at a time to serve in Raleigh.

Sam H sees a hike in legislative pay as “another artificial means of controlling the legislative process, as opposed to simply holding legislators accountable.”

Nobody is suggesting controlling anything and it has nothing to do with accountability. Smith, a generally conservative columnist, just wants to more people to be able to part of their own government. And he is right.

Finally in the puzzlement category is a column by N.C. State Senior Ches McDowell featured on the website of the Pope Center to Dismantle Higher Education.

McDowell is upset about the 19 percent hike in the last two years at N.C. State, which is understandable. His commentary is called “UNC’s middle class squeeze.”

But McDowell thinks the problem is waste in state government and complains about some of the tuition increase paying for financial aid for low-income students.  They should pay their own way.

Then he says that his tuition is actually not high enough and that he should pay much more, making his point more than a little difficult to follow. Maybe the piece should have been called “UNC not squeezing middle class enough.”

Civitas poll unreported fun fact

Here is this week’s unreported fun fact from the latest Civitas poll conducted in June and released a couple of weeks ago.

Fifty-one percent of North Carolina voters say President Obama’s presidency has either met or exceeded their expectations while 42 percent say it has failed to meet their expectations. Seven percent weren’t sure.

There you have it, another possible headline for the Civitas poll or press release. 

“Majority of North Carolina voters say Obama has lived up to their expectations.”   Probably not a good idea to hold your breath waiting for it.