About: Becki Gray

Yesterday I attended the Raleigh Chamber’s  “Federal Issues Review Forum” in the morning and the North Carolina Free Enterprise Foundation’s “Political Money Wars” briefing in the afternoon.  It was a full day with expert speakers and lots of interesting information.  Isn’t the political season fun? Here are 17 take-aways from yesterday’s events for August 17:Continue Reading

None other than Maureen Dowd gives us a glimpse at an ungrateful President Obama… Stories abound of big donors who stopped giving as much or working as hard because Obama never reached out, either with a Clinton-esque warm bath of attention or Romney-esque weekend love fests and Israeli-style jaunts; of celebrities who gave concerts forContinue Reading

Davidson College has banned Chick-Fil-A.  Students protested and “nearly 500” signed a petition to prohibit the food service at any campus sanctioned events.  No word on how the other 1,420 students felt. A search of the academic course catalog reveals that there are no courses at Davidson teaching the “US Constitution” or “free speech”.  SearchContinue Reading

Mitch, To continue putting N. C.’s pension challenges in perspective, as you said, we’re not as bad off as China.  According to a Moody’s report on the 10 worst pension funds in the U.S., we’re not as bad off as some other states either. As Hood points out, For some states and localities, the pensionContinue Reading

Moody’s forecasts a slow growing economy with a 30% chance of another recession in the next year.  What can be done to get things moving in the right direction?  The economic outlook depends on a range of issues, including political efforts to lay out a credible tax and spending path to reduce the deficit andContinue Reading

Weighing in on the economic impact of gasoline prices, this latest wisdom from our friends at Snoopy’s….

During the 2011-12 legislative session, 2,195 bills were filed, 1,234 in the House and 961 in the Senate.  Of those, 646 became law. That’s a 29% ratification rate. The 2011-12 General Assembly met for a total of 138 legislative days, making this session the shortest since 1979-80.  At a cost of $50k per day theyContinue Reading

According to NCDOT, there are 12,712 state maintained bridges in North Carolina, ranking us 13th in the nation for state maintained (a.k.a. paid with state taxes) bridges. Of those, 2,645 are structurally deficient and another 2,676 are functionally obsolete.  A bridge is considered structurally deficient if it is in relatively poor condition, or has insufficientContinue Reading