Due to GOP tax policy over the past decade, in other words, North Carolina’s state sales-tax burden went down, not up, by hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Alas, some of this effect was offset by increases in county sales taxes. Who is responsible for those hikes? Democrats, overwhelmingly. Democratic politicians authorized those sales-tax referenda and Democratic voters were most likely to favor them.
“One of the most unhappy series of events in the state’s history began in 1835,” stated a textbook used in elementary schools across North Carolina. “As more and more white people came into their territory the Cherokee Indians had been driven further into the hills, but white settlers looked with greed on all their territory.”
The COVID-19 crisis has brought death, economic destruction, and wrenching social change. As a combination of post-illness immunity and rising vaccinations begins to suppress the pandemic, we’re going to feel a powerful impulse to put as much of this horrendous experience as possible behind us.
Among the many reasons the political discourse in Washington has gotten so toxic, and at the same time so unproductive, is that the legislative branch of our federal government has allowed itself to become increasingly irrelevant.
Now that Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress (however narrowly), they will probably approve a new round of federal borrowing to bail out state and local governments with shaky finances. In other words, Washington will punish North Carolina and other prudently governed states by saddling us with the cost of other states’ mistakes.
As of January 18, North Carolina has received about a million doses of COVID-19 vaccines. Nearly 330,000 of those doses have been injected into the arms of North Carolinians. That may sound like a big number. But it’s not nearly big enough.
I have strong opinions — but not about how to perform brain surgery, write a smart-phone app, design a golf course, or produce a hip-hop album. Perhaps you do have a strong view about one of these, but almost certainly not about all four.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, our schools have gone in a variety of directions. Some public-school districts that shut down last spring have never reopened for in-person learning to any significant degree. Others have welcomed at least their younger students back to school, as have most charter and private schools.
Led into the building and encouraged by a cadre of alt-right provocateurs, the mob also produced priceless propaganda for the enemies of our country. “The celebration of democracy is over,” one Russian official wrote. “America no longer forges that path, and consequently has lost its right to define it. Much less force it on others.” A state-run Chinese newspaper headlined its coverage this way: “An iconic humiliation! The madness of the Capitol has dragged the U.S.’s standing into its Waterloo!”.
With Democrats in charge of the White House, and U.S. House, and (possibly as of this writing) the U.S. Senate, you can expect a push by left-wing activists and politicians to repeal some federal tax cuts enacted by the previously Republican Congress and signed by President Trump.
After getting many political predictions wrong in 2016, including but not limited to the results of the presidential election, I threw my long-cherished crystal ball out and started building a new one.
When Democrats attack pro-growth tax reform as “trickle-down economics,” I can understand their rhetorical intent. But the charge is silly on multiple levels — including the fact that every Democrat who ever serves in state or local office spends great time and effort to try to recruit business executives, entrepreneurs, investors, and high-value professionals to their communities.
