Joseph Coletti

Senior Fellow
Joe Coletti is a senior fellow at the John Locke Foundation focused on fiscal policy issues. He previously headed the North Carolina Government Efficiency and Reform initiative within the Office of State Budget and Management, which led to changes automotive fleet management, natural and cultural resources, and state contracting. He has spent his career improving operations and strategies at for-profit, nonprofit, and government entities. He has degrees from Johns Hopkins SAIS and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.

Posts by Joseph Coletti (page 1)

  • There is hope in small towns and there are challenges in cities

    Can we save the small towns and rural areas that are losing people to booming metropolitan areas? Gracy Olmstead explores the options and some of the overlooked costs and benefits what we leave behind may not be all bad, as we go out in search of greater gains: “The…
    Joseph Coletti, April 20, 2018

  • Math from the Independent Weekly

    Jeffrey Billman provides a good rundown for Independent Weekly readers of how Wake County Commissioners could push property taxes up more than $200. Natural growth will provide $32 million for the county, but $10 million of that goes to already pledged debt service on recently passed bonds. By…
    Joseph Coletti, April 20, 2018

  • North Carolinians use their own dollars wisely, too

    North Carolinians pay less of their paycheck each month on credit cards, student loans, and housing than people in most states around us and across the country, according to data compiled by lending marketplace Credible.com. Michigan has the lowest monthly debt-to-income ratio (25.27%) and Hawaii has far and away the…
    Joseph Coletti, April 19, 2018

  • Podcasts worth listening to this week

    Some great conversations made my time in the car much better this week Steven Teles is one of the most insightful people writing about conservatism and government, from the Federalist Society to the kludgy way government has evolved. He’s a liberal working with libertarians at the Niskanen…
    Joseph Coletti, April 19, 2018

  • Republicans Really Raised Taxes on the Rich

    Steven Heyward at Power Line blog highlights some news from various sources showing after-tax wages rising rapidly even as the rich (at least in California and New Jersey) will face higher tax bills next year. The Sacramento Bee reported that a million Californians will pay an average of $12,000…
    Joseph Coletti, April 18, 2018

  • Tax cuts spur businesses and the economy

    A new paper on Sweat Equity in U.S. Private Business finds “existing measures of business incomes and valuations” understate “the value of time to build customer bases, client lists, and other intangible assets.” As a result, they also understate the impact of tax cuts to boost the economy.
    Joseph Coletti, April 18, 2018

  • Maybe the ratings agencies weren’t to blame for the Great Recession

    The Big Short, ironically, opens with an apocryphal Mark Twain epigraph: “It ain’t what you know that gets you in trouble, it’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so” Thanks to Michael Lewis and Christian Bale, we all know that ratings agencies got mortgage-backed securities wrong and…
    Joseph Coletti, April 17, 2018

  • Is there a fair way to tax Wayfair and other online retailers?

    Wayfair, the home furnishings online retailer that is almost as ubiquitous as Ikea and original maker of the second-hand computer stand being used for this blogpost, is at the Supreme Court tomorrow. South Dakota is trying to tax Wayfair’s sales in that state. It’s oddly symmetrical for…
    Joseph Coletti, April 16, 2018