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)

  • Mecklenburg ASC’s future with no sales tax bailout

    Mecklenburg voters soundly rejected a proposed quarter-cent sales tax hike in November. The $50 million tax hike to bail out the Arts & Science Council would have delivered $22.5 million per year to the Arts and Science Council, $17 million to parks and greenways; $8 million to education; and $2.5…
    Joseph Coletti, January 17, 2020

  • Revaluing home ownership

    Has government policy, in promoting home ownership, actually made it more difficult to own a home? It’s almost a ridiculous question: who ever heard of a government policy having unintended effects that are opposite of intended outcome? It’s like suggesting that there was gambling at Rick’s Cafe.
    Joseph Coletti, January 16, 2020

  • Needed: personal community and role models

    David French, who joined Jonah Goldberg and Steve Hayes to create the recently launched Dispatch is ” convinced that the more we politicize the crisis [in community] rather than personalize it and spiritualize it, the more we’ll miss the mark.” “A functioning community doesn’t just provide love and resources,” French…
    Joseph Coletti, January 14, 2020

  • Clawback contracts are costly

    Governments like to use clawbacks, in which they provide a benefit but demand it back if some objective is not reached. North Carolina uses clawbacks for some tax incentives, but could not recover millions of dollars that had been paid to Dell Technologies when that company closed a plant…
    Joseph Coletti, January 6, 2020

  • Overeducated and underskilled

    Another new paper finds that colleges are increasingly the wrong way to go for good jobs, producing debt-ridden graduates who are “overeducated and underskilled.” Instead of college, Veronique de Rugy and Jack Salmon of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, suggested apprenticeships and on-the-job training will become the…
    Joseph Coletti, December 18, 2019
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  • Local finances could ruin your dream house

    Here’s some good advice on homebuying you may not have considered: If you’re looking to buy a house, chances are you’ve spent countless hours examining listings. Fabulous. Now, just make sure you spend a little time ensuring that house you want isn’t within the borders of a city that…
    Joseph Coletti, December 18, 2019

  • New Raleigh City Council open to innovation?

    Short-term rentals, backyard cottages, and scooters could get a reprieve with a new mayor and reconstituted city council. New member Jonathan Melton says, “I think we can lead on micromobility,” and Mayor Mary Ann Baldwin proposes holding off enforcement of short-term rental restrictions. Anna Johnson provided the play-by-play.
    Joseph Coletti, December 4, 2019

  • Health care for the poor

    Keith Smith co-founded the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, which describes itself as a “free market-loving, price-displaying, state-of-the-art, AAAHC accredited, doctor owned, multispecialty surgical facility in central OK.” In a recent interview, Smith advised “not to consider the poor in the aggregate.” They are individuals; and I believe that individuals…
    Joseph Coletti, November 22, 2019