Joseph Coletti

“We can’t help everyone,” Ronald Reagan said, “but everyone can help someone.” That optimistic take on scarcity is the heart of America. We try to forget it when we see big problems and advocate for big solutions, but we know instinctively that change is personal. Supporters of traditional public schools…

North Carolina’s building code for energy conservation is nowhere near as strict as California’s. A new working paper suggests this is a good thing if we care about living conditions for people with low incomes. stricter codes create a non-trivial reduction in homes’ square footage and the number…

Markets are not painless panaceas to prickly problems. We can marvel at the marvels of markets in the old movie Trading Places when the Duke brothers’ plans are foiled and they fall into financial ruin, but the pain that comes from bad outcomes from the best of intentions can have…

This is one of a series of blog posts to help understand common budget terms. State transportation funding does not go through the General Fund. Historically, the money went through the Highway Fund. In 1989, the Highway Trust Fund was created to finance major construction projects. Together, they receive the…

To some people, Bureaucratic Competence and Procurement Outcomes may sound like the first draft of a Dilbert punchline, but it’s actually a new working paper that considers how competence varies within government, even when quality is generally high with little variation. The authors find, if all federal bureaus…

State revenues across the country are growing at 2.5%, but increasing expenses for schools and health care mean appropriations will grow 3.5% without focused attention on policy and process changes to restrain spending, says National Conference of State Legislatures Executive Director William Pound in the most recent episode of NCSL’s…

Sam Hieb has already covered the local angle on the decision to put a new Toyota-Mazda assembly plant near Huntsville, Alabama, instead of a North Carolina mega-site near Liberty, despite an all-out incentive offer on a location that was finally near the automotive corridor along I-85. The Alabama…

This is one of a series of blog posts to help understand common budget terms. The General Fund is what people tend to think of as the State Budget. Money raised for general, unspecified purposes goes there. Between July 1, 2017, and June 30, 2018, roughly $23.6 billion from state…