Daily Archives: June 26, 2012

Barry Smith reports on this afternoon’s hastily called press conference at which Gov. Bev Perdue asked the Republican leaders in the General Assembly to rewrite the state budget and add funding for public schools. Read his CJ Online news report here.

David Brooks is the supposedly “conservative” columnist for the New York Times and today he wrote a column bewailing the fact that so many Americans seem unwilling to follow their wonderful political leaders and have developed a substantial skepticism toward government. Sheldon Richman whacks that around like a goofy pinata in this column.

What if you were being audited by the tax collector?  What if that auditor was incentivized to find every possible infraction, misstep, or minor error you may have made? What if that auditor was not paid a flat fee but was paid based on how much stuff they could uncover on you? Impossible, you say?Continue Reading

Here they go again, again. It appears the legislature may consider expanding occupational licensing again.  Licenses for occupations like medicine and law may protect public health and consumers, licensing for many other occupations just raise consumer costs, limit job opportunities and turn away young entrepreneurs.  North Carolina already licenses barbers, auctioneers, librarians, and manicurists.  ItContinue Reading

• The Democratic National Convention continues to downsize, as organizers move a Labor Day event from the Charlotte Motor Speedway to an Uptown Charlotte street fair.   • A Rowan County forum at 6 p.m. tonight will feature 8th Congressional District GOP runoff contenders Richard Hudson and Scott Keadle, along with county commission candidates.  Continue Reading

Long-time General Electric CEO Jack Welch and wife Suzy, former editor of the Harvard Business Review, use their latest Fortune magazine column to rebut Vice President Joe Biden’s notions about the suitability of a former private equity executive as a potential president. PE firms virtually never buy fast-growing companies with glistening profits. After all, suchContinue Reading

Former baseball pitching ace Curt Schilling has sung the praises of limited government. He’s also ignored a key tenet of limited-government conservatism by turning to government to boost his business ventures. In the latest issue of Fortune, Dan Primack offers some lessons learned from the failure of Rhode Island’s $75 million loan guarantee for Schilling’sContinue Reading

Writing for Commentary‘s “Contentions” blog, Jonathan S Tobin examines the possible impact on the presidential race of Monday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the controversial Arizona immigration case. Some liberals are declaring the Court ruling a victory because much of it was tossed out. But for most of those who cared about this issue, theContinue Reading