April Fools comes three months late

Non-budget work to do

The global warming deniers

Not to open meetings

The right to vote for schools

The state budget and UNC

Shortfall for public schools

The hyperbole about crime

The hyperbole about crime

Not so fast on mental health

Who the Senate is working for

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The NC Budget and Tax Center weighs in on the State budget

Rep.Lucy Allen discusses proposed drought legislation

The NCAE’s Sheri Strickland on teacher salaries and NCLB

Louisa Warren on the need for paid sick leave

Robert McFarlane on energy alternatives

Action for Children on Kids Count 2008

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on factors other than medical care that affect our health

Diplomas Count 2008 and why so many won’t graduate

WRAL TV’s documentary Love Child

The historic Democratic presidential primary and what’s ahead for NC politics this fall

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A couple of thoughts about Jesse Helms

The death of Jesse Helms will no doubt provoke a number of predictable responses and comments. Many conservatives (particularly social conservatives) will attempt to deify the man (he died on the 4th of July!), while progressives, in an effort to be respectful of the dead, will highlight his late-life partial conversion on the AIDS issue as [...]

The apparent budget deal

If the reports are correct and lawmakers have reached a tentative budget deal, it appears that the last piece to fall into place was an agreement to "postpone" the House's plan to expand the state earned income tax credit for lower income working families and the Senate's proposal to do away with the state gift [...]

June Employment Numbers Released

This morning, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released national unemployment, job, wage and hour data for June 2008. As has occurred every month this year, non-farm payroll employment fell in June (-62,000) as employers in a wide array of industries continued to eliminate jobs. Moreover, the average weekly wages paid to non-supervisory workers [...]

Shrugging Allison

Who is John Allison?  He is the Charlotte-born CEO of the Winston-Salem-based bank BB&T. Allison is also strangely attached to novelist and screen writer Ayn Rand, and he will not rest until universities take her free market “philosophy” seriously.  Allison uses gifts from the BB&T Charitable Foundation to push his ideas by offering donations to a university [...]

The march to a $2 billion surplus

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina continues to rake in the green for 2008. The financial statement is here .  During the first three months of the year, Blue had a profit of $61 million compared to $39 million in the first three months of 2007. And Blue’s surplus increased to $1.3 billion in [...]