Joseph Coletti

Low-cost energy is an essential ingredient to economic vitality. Rodney Pitts, chairman of Southern Elevator and a John Locke Foundation board member sent the following to the Charlotte Observer as a letter to the editor. The shutting down of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline Project, financed by Dominion Energy and Duke…

Today is the last day to comment on a proposed rule from the Division of Employment Security that is based loosely on state and federal laws, an expired Executive Order (121), and an Executive Order (118) whose validity is being challenged in court. In submitting comments on the rule, I…

Charlotte’s Arts & Science Council went to the people of Mecklenburg County last fall to get a quarter-cent sales tax increase. The tax would have raised $50 million each year for the county, with $22.5 million going to the ASC, whose budget is currently $15.5 million. If the tax hike…

State agencies continued to hold back spending in May. General Fund appropriations for the month of May were down 3% compared to May 2019 to $2.289 billion, according to the latest report from the State Controller. Appropriations are up 0.9% for the eleven months through May to $21.372 billion,…

Surprisingly, for as much as Alberto Alesina’s work has meant to my own understanding of markets and governments, a Google search indicates I’ve only mentioned him by name once before. Amity Shlaes has a wonderful tribute to Alesina, who passed away this weekend, as a person and an…

North Carolina’s budget bill to begin distributing money from the CARES Act’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. How they went about allocating the money and what they did with it provides plenty of evidence on the value of flexibility, which 29 state think tanks have requested from Congress. The General Assembly…

A new working paper finds that people with more income and more wealth really do give more money away. A summary of the paper in the Economist notes The researchers found that wealthier people donate less to causes affiliated with religion and more to arts and educational ones. The…

Poor cash management resulted in massive overspending, which left the agency in dire financial straits in 2019. These challenges are again critical as the legislature plans to use $300 million in CARES Act funds to offset the collapse in gas tax revenues. State Auditor Beth Wood’s report on…